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A Streaming Pile of Hit: Amaziah - Straight Talker

Amaziah

A Streaming Pile of Hit - where you put the "s" in hit is up to you. 

Yeah, a number of months ago I figured I'd get a subscription to a streaming service. Why not? Oh I still have a lot of records to go through, and if that were to get dull I have a few thousand CDs but streaming was that last uncharted frontier for me.

There's something awesome and also sort of mind numbing about being able to just have about everything at your fingertips. For me it's being able to find the gaps in a lot of my collection, or to revisit things I used to have but haven't heard in years, sometimes decades. It's also being able to discover new stuff without having to wait.

The biggest kick with records is finding those treasures that have been forgotten, truly forgotten. There's no second life in the cloud - they have been cut off and left for dead. It's bittersweet but kind of rewarding, but mostly sad knowing that you are among the last ears to bear witness to what once was. I was trying to figure out where to start with this streaming thing ... so I went back to one of those albums I had as a kid that I was sure was buried away forever. To my surprise there it was, just the way I remembered it. Strangely, it was a recording made from a record as you could hear the occasional pop and click. It was as if someone just used one of those USB record players and made a copy. No effort to clean up the clicks and pops that could have easily been done between tracks especially. I suppose the master tapes have been long lost. At least it was there.

Considering the album, it only added to the experience. When I got this, it was on Tunesmith records, who at the time were a relatively big deal here in Canada. Their label was home to artists like Servant, Randall Waller (yes, that Randall Waller. If you know, you know) and Quickflight's debut. Amaziah was a reprint that came out in either 1980 or 1981 depending on what you read. The original mix was released in 1979 and it was an odd duck even then. The cover featured a bunch of kids who looked like a rock band, with serious punk overtones. I remember really disliking this ... oh I tried. I put "He is Lord" on my mixtapes for a while because the opening riff sounded like "No Mister Nice Guy" by Alice Cooper ... and from there the similarities ended. It didn't take long for this to be buried in my collection, and there it remained until I lost it.

I don't know what made me think of these guys. I think part of it was a test to actually see if it would be available to stream. My first thought was, "I wonder if this still is better than I remember." Short answer is a qualified "Yes" but like I said, it is qualified. Part of the reason is I really don't like to shit on things. If you don't have anything nice to say and all that. So I will say there were a couple of odd surprises. This is not a polished effort at all. At times there are truly some cool bones underneath some of the cacophonous racket ... there are also some real cringeworthy moments too. Like when the guys decide to deliver an overly earnest ballad in "All is Peace" it is truly horrible. Much of this can be firmly laid at the feet of the band's vocalist Derek Elliot. To say he's an acquired taste is an understatement.

For all that though the rest of the band is actually pretty competent even if the album was mostly a hot mess. The keyboard player and guitarist were actually very good, and when things were good it was these guys who elevated the material.

From what I've read the guys in the credits don't match the guys on the cover photo. Which apparently happens more often than you think.

Derek Elliot - Lead Vocals
Jeremy "Jez" Coad - Guitars
Dave Steel - Keyboards
Paul Loader - Bass
Phil Williams - Drums

Apparently Jez Coad would end up producing a couple of Simple Minds albums in the early 2000's which was pretty cool. Amaziah would record one album, and for all that, in some circles it's the stuff of mystery and wonder and is sought after by collectors.

I found that I really enjoyed the nostalgia more than the music, and I listened to this a few times. There was one song though, a mid-tempo song called "Slowly" that was a real surprise and probably is the best song on the album. Musically this is a killer, and Derek's vocals are a little less like a sledgehammer hitting a hamster over and over. The album's closer "He is Lord" was actually better than I remember it ... and after all these years I did remember it.

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