Stylus over Substance (Volume 2) - Billy Joel, The Inmates, Steven Schlaks, Baron Longfellow, Doucette

I'm still trying to dig out from under my pile of treasures. I'm finding there are a little more to go through than I expected, but I'm trying to nest my thoughts and at least get to the core of what I'm trying to express. Likely as not I'm sort of all over the place. That's fine. This is as much for me as anyone, so the typos and grammatical landmines come with the territory. Sometimes I'll come back and fix things more often than not they'll just remain as a testament to my inability to proofread.

As always have fun and remember to keep you arms and head inside the vehicle at all times.

• Billy Joel - The Nylon Curtain (1982)
• The Inmates - Shot in the Dark (1980)
• Steven Schlaks - Dream With Steven Schlaks (1976)
• Baron Longfellow - Baron Longfellow (1980)
• Doucette - The Douce is Loose (1979)
  

Billy Joel - The Nylon Curtain (1982) Billy Joel is a bit of an odd duck. Often pigeonholed as the "Piano Man" he would go on a tear through the late '70s and then make a hard turn with his 1980 release Glass Houses. A couple of years later in '82 his follow up Nylon Curtain dropped, again produced by Phil Ramone. I was never what you'd call a big Billy Joel fan, but I often liked what I heard on the radio. This was well before "Uptown Girl" showed that the golden boy didn't just have feet of clay, they were covered in shit ... but that was off in the future, which is still my past so it's hard to try and separate what I'm listening to, with what I know was coming. 

The Nylon Curtain was an album I really only heard in it's entirety a couple of times back in the day as my girlfriend had a copy. The song I was draw to back then was "Goodnight Saigon" which is still cool, but no longer carries the same weight. The song that I was indifferent to in '82 was "Allentown" but over the years the song has just gotten better. 

Much of the album feels like a transition piece where Mr. Joel is trying to reconcile his past work of the late '70s with what was coming down the pipe as the '80s started to pick up speed. This isn't to say this isn't a good album. It's aged really well, and I find that tension between his rock side on "Allentown" and "Pressure" fitted nicely with his more ambitious pieces like "Goodnight Saigon" and the lush "Scandinavian Skies" and at the centre isn't the piano - it's the voice.

While the album would still go double platinum, it was about five million light compared to his last album. The next album wouldn't be a trip to the future, rather Billy would go farther back in time, and despite my personal opinion of his 1983 effort An Innocent Man it caught on, and he be back to selling millions and millions of albums. Go figure.

The Inmates - Shot in the Dark (1980) Okay this was a nice surprise. This was the band's follow up to their 1979 debut, and here the iNMaTES are killing it. Their brand of roots rock and roll with a edge and twang should have caught on. They were either to early, or too late depending on how you look at it. I suppose for me back in '80 I would have been looking for more rock and less Thorogood. Of course a few years later when I was all over bands like The Godfathers the iNMaTES would have been my jam. My loss then, but now it's my gain as this album is awesome. "Stop it Baby" was a very clever reworking of "Dirty Water" right down to the mixed up riff, which may have been a deliberate in-joke with the band, or I'm just hearing what I want to hear. Regardless, it was a great tune. There's a timeless element to this kind of pop that just feels fresh and live even after all this time. The album closes out their rocking cover of Grand Funk's "(She's) Some Kinda Wonderful" that was a nice surprise.

Like First Offence this one was produced by Vic Maile who caught the energy of the band. Speaking of energy, the band still consisted of Bill Hurley on vocals, Peter Gunn on guitar, Ben Donnelly on bass, and Tony Oliver on rhythm guitar but they now had a drummer. Jim Russell. It's hard to put my finger on it but there's a cohesiveness to the band that just infused all of the tracks with sense urgency and purpose. What a wonderful surprise.

Steven Schlaks - Dream With Steven Schlaks (1976) It was sealed and had been since 1976. It was just sitting there and for a few bucks I'd be the one to cut the cellophane and pull out the record for the first time. I mean, how could I refuse? All I had to go on was the cover, and I tried to guess what lay hidden in the grooves. Anticipation. This was my box of chocolates, and I was really hoping to not get a bunch of Nougat-filled candies that thought coconut was a flavour enhancer. There wasn't even an insert, just an album inside the jacket. A first for me. Interesting.

The album for the most part is piano driven easy listening affair. It was 1976 and sure enough there are a couple of disco songs. Not good disco, sort of a pastiche of easy listening infused disco. The first side closes out with a ballad and honestly Steven seems to be channelling Andy Williams with some odd synthesizer noises, but it is a pretty song, and about a decade late. The songs feature tin can strings of the shrilly variety and more piano, some of it pretty pleasing to be honest. It's the synth parts that are particularly dated, but at the time I'm sure it generated a few raised eyebrows for being on the bleeding edge. It's not really fair for me to be too hard on this one, after all I'm the one who took a chance, and like a box of Cracker Jack, or if you preferred Lucky Elephant pink popcorn, you don't get to pick your prize. So to that end, I got what I got. I know this was 1976, but listening to this I was transported back to 1973, where I'm sitting in the back seat of my parents 1973 Mercy Marquis Brougham listening to an track copy of the Love Unlimited Orchestra and grooving to "Loves Theme" and all was right with the world. One of those things was really good.

Baron Longfellow - Baron Longfellow (1980) I may as well get this part over with right away. For whatever reason I thought Baron Longfellow was a goofy Harlequin romance style euphemism for penis. Somehow I also knew this was a pseudonym from Andy Kim. Yeah, the guy who sang "Rock Me Gently" a truly awesome ear worm from the early '70s. He also co-wrote "Sugar Sugar" by the Archies. First the good. The record was co-produced by Michael Omartian, who was riding pretty high after his work with Christopher Cross. The core band featured Mr. Omartian on keyboard, and Steve Lukather on guitar, and Michael Porcaro on bass. Guests would include David Foster, Jay Graydon and Dean Parks. These guys are among the best of the best. So from a performance perspective, and weakness is in the source material.

There really isn't any bad here. The worst thing I can say is this is truly middle of the road effort that feels like a collection of songs Neil Diamond passed on. Although to give credit where credit is due "Go It Slow" is pretty cool, and actually feels like a musical kissing cousin to "Rock Me Gently" but then again I'm looking for positive things to write. Just typing meh meh meh over and over would just make me sound like a doofus. Heck, even the weird mash up of the "Jumpin' Jack Flash" riff married to "Last To Clarksville" couldn't really save "The Couch" but I'll admit it did catch my attention, it just didn't hold it. 

I mentioned "Sugar, Sugar" earlier, and Baron Longfellow closes the record out with a slightly reworked version of the old bubble gum classic, that somehow managed to have none of the energy and charm of the original. 

Lyrically though there are some fun bits here and there and I have to give Mr. Kim credit for being able to turn a phrase. The lyric sheet often made better reading than listening. Too bad, I really was hoping to hear a lost classic.

Doucette - The Douce is Loose (1979) Jerry Doucette pretty much released the perfect rock song in 1977 when he dropped "Mama Let Him Play" it had it all. I only heard the album once when I borrow it from a friend who asked for it back the next day. I remember being pretty underwhelmed by the rest of the songs, but man the title track was perfect. When he released his follow up in 1979 I remember seeing the album, and I thought the cover was pretty cool, but I couldn't remember hearing any of the songs on the radio. 

Over the last year or so I've picked up his early trio of albums, and I'll give his debut a proper digesting. It was the sophomore effort I wanted to revisit. I know the album wasn't well received and some of the press I read was pretty unkind. 1979 was a hotbed of new music, but it was also the last stand of a lot of '70s era bands. I was mostly expecting meh, with some great fret work, and right off from the opening track "Run Buddy Run" the songs are punchy, and steeped is '70s rock. Heck, Jerry even sounds a little like Randy Bachman at times. Now imagine if Mr. Turner, Robbie and Blair and tapped Jerry instead of Jim Clench to fill in the missing position when Randy left ... ooooh.

Anyway, the whole first side was really good. This was a wonderful surprise. Side two opens with "Nobody" that is pure pop magic, it has a disco tinge, but not in a bad way - this is a pop song with edge, and although it managed to crack the top 20 here, it should have had legs. Musically Jerry was pretty adept at crossing genres, and his melding of hard rock riffs with '70s soaring harmonies was pretty cool, and "Before I Die" is a great example of this blurring of styles. 

The album closes with a live rendition of "Futher On Up the Road" that clocks in at close to seven minutes of guitar goodness. Jerry could play. I mean the guy had serious chops, and despite his overuse of chorus in his effects chain, it just added flavour. It was like MSG it may give you a headache but it was good at the time.