Flash and the Pan - Flash and the Pan

Flash and the Pan was the brainchild of Harry Vanda and George Young. The duo had been active since the '60s, first with a band called the Easybeats, and from there they would launch George's two younger brothers Malcolm and Angus' band AC/DC. They would produce them up to 1978 before the band engaged Mutt Lange (who then was still Robert "Mutt" Lange) to produce their 1979 release Highway to Hell. Mutt was an interesting fellow, and although synonymous now with slick hard rock (or slick Shania albums) he also produced The Boomtown Rats' The Fine Art of Surfacing in 1979 as well.

From what I've read the origins of Flash and the Pan go back to the later '70s, when they released a couple of singles, starting with "Hey St. Peter" in 1977 and "Down Among the Dead Men" in 1978. They would release their self-titled album at the end of 1978, and then in 1979 the album would be released in North America on Epic.

While I don't really remember the album, I remembered the name. The album did better in Canada than it did in their home country, although it did even better in Sweden. The cover, at least here, was a really cool new wave looking thing. I think I also confused them with another band, but for the life of me I am coming up empty. Whatever, it's not going to cost me any sleep. I can say unequivocally that I had no idea who Vanda and Young were at the time and I had no idea they were the duo behind the album. I just remembered Flash and the Pan as being a cool new wave band, but have no idea why.

Musically this is really a lot of fun. It's got that talk / singing new wave vocal thing going on and reminds me a little bit of M, and the songs are pretty catchy, and even the clunky almost cringe-worthy "The African Shuffle" gets better with repeated plays. There's also a moodiness to many of the songs that creates a real atmosphere of tension. There really was something pretty cool about the first generation of new wave. You really did feel like you were on the edge of tipping into the future. The blending of technology with music was yielding some great tunes.

Vanda and Young were studio rats, and like Frank Farian (the brains behind Milli Vanilli and Boney M.) seemed more at home playing with 24 tracks than they did going on the road playing live. Except unlike Frank, Vanda and Young took credit for their creations.

The two early singles are among the stronger cuts on the album. The album wisely opens with "Hey St. Peter" which sets the tone for the album. As I listened to "Down Among the Dead Men" I kept thinking to myself, "Good Lord, Jim Steinman and Dean Pitchford borrowed pretty heavily from this to craft their '84 hit with Bonnie Tyler "Holding Out for a Hero" when I looked to see if anyone else had noticed I came up with ... nothing. Maybe it's just me.

It usually is.

As the album closes out with George singing the new wave anthem "First and Last" I'm left thinking to myself, "Man, that was cool. I'm going to play this again." So I did, and then I did it again, and then once more for good measure.

This was really quirky and fun, and the duo wasn't above mixing disco with new wave. A song like "Man in the Middle" shouldn't have worked ... but it did.

Sort of describes the album.

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 , ...

David Baerwald - Bedtime Stories

The little sticker on the shrinkwrap says, "You may remember David Baerwald from David & David's Boomtown ..." You bet, I remembered David Baerwald. Back in 1986 Boomtown was an album with moments of sheer brilliance. The whole album may not have been as top shelf as the first few tracks, but that didn't matter - it is an excellent album. I waited for a follow-up ... and waited, and then in 1990 it was a solo David, David Baerwald, who dropped Bedtime Stories . I snapped it up. "All For You," the opening cut, is still my favourite song on the album. It was mesmerizing. I'm not sure if the song got any airplay, it may have, but that may have been wishful thinking on my part as it was on a lot of mix tapes at the time and I heard it a lot in the car. The CD had a great booklet with all of the musician credits and lyrics. Oddly, when I found a sealed copy of the record (a great score), it just had a plain paper insert - the picture of David walking wit...

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

"Cars" was really the only song I knew by Gary Numan. I knew the name of the album the song came from. Over the years bits and pieces of trivia are accumulated, but in terms of his music it was still distilled down to one song ... It would be too easy to write Mr. Numan off as a one hit wonder, and I suppose in terms of actual chart hits this was his defining moment as a solo artist. Of course this really means nothing, as Gary Numan would drop an album a year pretty much through to the end of the '80s. He'd then slow down a little but continued to make music. While The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's debut solo release in '79, he actually cut his teeth on a couple of albums in a band called Tubeway Army, first with the band's self-titled release in 1978, and then on Replicas that came out in April of '79. By the end of Tubeway Army's run most of the band would follow Gary into his solo career. Paul Gardiner, who had been with Gary from the b...

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