Thompson Twins - Into the Gap

This was the kind of music that more or less defined the '80s, at least the first half of the decade before the big guitars and hairspray took over. It was techno world infused new wave that was a mashup of styles all wrapped up in video friendly faces. The videos were infectious, and seemed to be everywhere. Smack in the middle of the frame was a photogenic Tom Bailey with his feet firmly planted while he twisted his body and waved his arms. Whenever I drive by a used car lot and see those inflatable dancing tube men, I think of Thompson Twins.

While I was never a big fan, there were some earworms that I really liked, although I never picked up anything by the band until '88 when I picked up The Best of Thompson Twins: Greatest Mixes, and discovered they weren't the radio singles ... the phrase greatest mixes should have been a giveaway. There are times I'm not the sharpest knife in the fork drawer.

Into the Gap pretty much scratches my itch with respect to the band. The only song I would like to have had is "Lay Your Hands on Me" but I have it already elsewhere so I really don't need to chase the dragon and find the record ... unless I find it.

I always thought these guys were bigger than they really were. Here in Canada, they sold a couple hundred thousand copies which is a pretty big deal, and in the US where they have ten times the population it went platinum. Still a big deal, but not what I had imagined. I shouldn't knock it, most of my favourite bands never sold close to this on their best day.

Thompson Twins weren't twins at all. I know, that may seem pedantic but I remember hearing a story told by the band that when they first toured some promoters thought the band were a duo. I guess if you don't read the rider these things will happen. The most successful line up, that lasted three short years, featured Tom Bailey, and backing vocalists Joe Leeway and Alannah Currie. Bailey had one of those voices that stood out.

The music was written by the band while the lyrics were written by Alannah, something I wouldn't have guessed. Never judge a book by the cover I suppose. I always thought she was an adjunct to the band - I mean really, she played percussion and the marimba. Still, they were a band which was kind of cool, as it does give them some legitimacy. At least for me. The album was recorded at Compass Point Studios, Nassau and was produced by the late Alex Sadkin and Tom Bailey. Alex died at the age of 38 in a motorcycle accident. Prior to his death he had produced albums by artists as varied as Foreigner, Joe Cocker, Grace Slick, Robbie Nevil and Duran Duran.

The album opens with one of their memorable songs, "Doctor! Doctor!" a song that has held up remarkably well. I don't remember being overly enamoured with it back in the day, but I wouldn't change the channel if it came on the radio. Now not everything here is wine and roses, sure time and nostalgia have softened some of the edges, but there were some songs here that I still have a hard time believing the band was able to deliver "You Take Me Up" with a straight face as they did the harmonica sections. Sure the chorus is catchy, but man I just cannot stop thinking this is the band's cheesiest moment. It's right up there with ABBA singing "Pick a Bale of Cotton." Thankfully the band recovers with "Hold Me Now" a song I always really liked. This is probably one of their best songs. It's infectious.

The rest of the album was really solid, and to be honest the whole album was much better than I had expected it to be. Even the maligned (by me) "You Take Me Up" had a great chorus. Hard to imagine that the band was really only around for a few short years then they were gone.

Into the Gap indeed.

Mind the gap.

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

Billy Rankin - Growin' Up Too Fast

Growin' Up Too Fast was never widely released on CD (if at all), and it was one of the albums I really wanted to get back after a basement flood wiped out my vinyl collection in the '90s (when no one really gave a shit about records, and my insurance gave me a couple hundred bucks for an appraised $10,000 collection). Way back in 1984, my (dearly departed and greatly missed) buddy Dave let me borrow his cassette copy, which included a bonus track of "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." When I eventually bought the album, I didn't know it was a bonus track, or even what a bonus track was. If that sentence was hard to read, just go back and skim it. I'm sure you'll get the gist. I'd find out later Billy was an off-and-on-again member of Nazareth and wrote some absolutely killer songs for them. At the time, though, all I knew was this guy laid it out cold with the opening cut, "Baby Come Back," then proceeded to lay down one killer tune after another bef...

Garfield - Strange Streets

I'd seen this before in the bin, but kept flipping through the stacks. I'd see it a few more times, each time stopping to look at it a little more. There was something kind of cool about the cover where the stylized Celtic knot had the dotted yellow line - it was a strange street for sure. I pulled the record out of the jacket and I was struck by the centre image. There was the familiar Mercury label, the same one I'd seen a thousand times on BTO's Head On album. Well, I'd bought things based on odd associations before - like when I had to buy anything that Solid Rock Records released (this was generally a good thing) - so who knows, maybe this was a hidden gem. There weren't any real scratches or rash, just a lot of dirt and dust. It seemed to clean up okay, but we'll see how it goes. The album opens with the title track, and this wasn't straight-ahead pop or rock. It was leaning toward the progressive, but with a pop bent. Oddly enough, the vocals rem...

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