Old Enough to Forget

You didn't have to love the blues, to love The Blues Brothers. When the movie dropped in 1980 it was a perplexing experience (in a good way) and so over the top it quickly became must see viewing among the cool kids. I wasn't one of the cool kids, but I still saw the movie. Trying to explain to kids how cool Jake and Elwood Blues were is like trying describe what water tastes like. I wasn't a big blues fan, but bow howdy these guys were the real deal, and while their personas were over the top there was a reverence and respect to the source material. While Dan Aykroyd's Elwood was played as the straight character, it was John Belushi's Jake who had the swagger and chops. Listening to the songs on the record it's Jake who delivers the goods. Whereas the concept and the movie was written by Dan and director John Landis. These boys loved the blues, and they surrounded themselves with the best of the best. I've seen the movie many times over the years, but this ...

Released in the fall of 1982, it was probably in the summer of '83 that I first heard the title track. Phil Collins mania hadn't gripped the world ... but he was just on the horizon. His distinctive drums were the reason the song grabbed me initially, but it was a killer toon, and Daryl Stuermer's guitar solo was the icing on the cake. Yes, this was the same Frida who was in ABBA, and although at the time she seemed to be old as dirt she was probably only 36 or 37 years old. Of course considering I was still in my teens (okay, as late into my teens as you can get) that's a big gap. I bought the album mainly for the title track, but I found there was a lot to like and as a bonus (at least to me) was Jim Rafferty's (brother to Gerry) "I See Red" a song I always really liked. Both Russ Ballard, and Rod Argent contributed a song each, with Russ Ballard's "I Know There's Something Going On" being the big song here. There were a lot of really g...

An unusual score, and one I had no idea what I was getting. I was expecting campy prog, but then again I'm not always right when judging a book by its cover. For all I knew this could have been space disco ... happened to me before. So how I did I find this thing? Let me tell you. Several months ago I was farting around looking through the online catalogue of one of the shops I like to visit, and was just seeing what was "still sealed" and if there were any deals to be had. Sadly, there are always deals to be had. One of the records I saw was this rather goofy looking album. It was a little pricey for me ... meaning it was over ten bucks, but it was intriguing. So I figured what was the harm? At best I've got a fun album that seems to be a bit of a lost treasure, as worst I'm out a few bucks but I still have a pretty cool time capsule. Besides it was still sealed and to be the one to crack it open after over forty years was too good to pass up. So I bought, cracke...

I'm still digging myself out from the pile of records in the basement. Not that I mind, but my goodness there's a lot of stuff to go through, and frankly I don't want to short myself on anything so I'm still trying to spend time with them before putting them away. Oh, some will stay put for a long time I suspect, but there are always hidden gems and treasures among the old things that are new to me, A mixed bag this time of the familiar and not so much. The Who - Face Dances (1981) Rick Springfield - Hard to Hold (1984) Gino Vannelli - Brother to Brother (1978) Red Rider - Breaking Curfew (1984) Doucette - Coming Up Roses (1981) The Who - Face Dances (1981) This would be the band's first album after the death of drummer Keith Moon. Sitting on the throne behind the kit was Kenny Jones, who had been a member of The Small Faces. The album was produced by Bill Szymczyk and yielded the classic, "You Better You Bet" that helped pull the album to platinum s...

There was always something strangely appealing to "The Captain of Her Heart" when this came out in '85. It was right at the height of everything cool about the '80, and then there would be these occasional outliers that would hit the radio. When Sade hit with "Smooth Operator" I was in the minority or people who couldn't stand the song. Although I suspect this has softened over the years, but my initial reaction still when I hear her name isn't positive. At. All. So it's odd that I clicked with Double, but not really. I had gotten into Michael Franks, starting with Skin Dive in '85, and it wasn't normally the sort of thing I listened to, but it was kind of cool. From there I'd pick up a few of his albums, and really liked The Art of Tea from 1975 and the song "Popsicle Toes" which kind of surprised me, considering my general happy place was rock. Double had some similar elements. I guess I'm just trying to show that I...

The Motels. At best I was a casual fan. I always sort of liked "Only the Lonely" and although the two songs aren't anything alike, it always reminded me of "Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash. Then again for whatever reason I would confuse Martha Davis (yes, I did know her name, but couldn't tell you how or why this little bit of trivia got lodged in my brain) as the Martha in Martha and the Muffins. Yeah, I know - sacrilege. When I found All Four One in the dollar section I snapped it up. There was a little bit of water damage to the back of the jacket, but the vinyl itself was mint. There were no liner notes, so that sucked, but dagnabbit the internet would have whatever I needed so it wasn't really an issue. So after a clean I dropped the needle, and the first track "Mission of Mercy" wasn't what I was expecting. It was a really crunchy new wave song with a lot of over the top guitar that was goofy fun. "Take the L" had some of ...

A Flock of Seagulls are remembered more for Mike Score's hair than their music, which is a real shame. Oh sure "I Ran" is often considered their "hit" and the band is dismissed as a one hit wonder which to me makes no sense at all considering they had quite a few songs I remember hearing on the radio. Then again I may be confusing what I heard in the car, with what I heard on the radio. Coming in a year after the release of their debut Listen was in many ways a stronger and more cohesive album than it's predecessor. Although at the time I read a particularly savage review more of less relegating the band to being a collection of hairstyles and that it's a shame Ali Score wasn't able to do more with his thinning hair.  There was very little mention of the music, other than to say it was formulaic and boring. This was the album I spent the most time with. I had picked up a cassette copy, back when for five minutes I was so sick of clicks and pops that ...

I can't put into words the impact Larry Norman's music had on me when I was a teenager. In the mid '70s there were a bunch of older kids who were into Larry Norman, and I wanted to be like those kids. At the time Larry had just released  In Another Land (1976) that was the final album in his trilogy, and a few years later that would be my first Larry Norman album. By the early '80s Larry had started his own mail order company and under the Phydeaux imprint he was releasing some of his earlier albums, and a lot of live and compilation albums. I ate it all up, and went back for seconds. "Please sir, can I have some more?" In his newsletters there was also something new coming, and there was a map of upcoming albums ... that never materialized. At the time though it was still pretty exciting. I had heard snippets of Bootleg, although thinking on it now, I'll bet it was Street Level , (it was, thank you internet) from my friend Gerry, who seemed to have ever...

This was a total surprise. I bought it thinking it was likely a trippy prog rock album, maybe something like Starcastle, although the art wasn't as good. It was a little better than a high school mural, but then again it was kind of cool in a way too. I don't know why I thought of GNIDROLOG and their Lady Lake album but I was only thinking, "long songs, spacey cover, gotta be prog."  You what they say when you assume. This ...  was ... disco. I suppose the thought was, "If Meco can have a disco hit with a Star Wars song, just think what we could achieve with a whole album of space disco!" So Dominic Sciscente, Michel Daigle and J. Lafleche sat around brainstorming, and after a few beers, it was decided they'd need to have a spectacular cover. There needed to be space boobs, and oh and an astronaut, but he needed to have a video camera, and be holding a space shovel and then some other goofy shit. It didn't have to make sense, but it needed to look li...

This isn't my first experience with Ten Years After. I have a couple of the band's earlier albums, Cricklewood Green and Ssssh and they were decent early '70s heavy blue rock albums, that featured a lot of meandering jam oriented tracks, and like a lot of bands they were on a treadmill cranking out albums like sausages. Two albums a year in 1969 and 1970 before dropping arguably their most well known album in 1971, A Space in Time . This was the album with "I'd Love to Change the World" a song that did better in Canada than it did in the US when it was first released, although over the years the song has become a staple of classic rock radio. This was the album I really wanted to find, so finding it was a real treat. This was still Ten Years After, rooted in their amped up 12 bar blues, but this time out the band had expanded their colour palate and featured strings and acoustic guitars interwoven with Alvin's blistering fretwork. Six albums in and the ban...

Oh man, my platter runneth over. I'm not complaining, but I am running out of room which sucks. However, over the last several months I've got more albums to listen to than I have time. Again, not complaining it's a challenge and as they say, "Challenge accepted." I probably should have spent more time with the Alex Harvey as this was my introduction to his music, but I'm holding out until I can find something by SAHB, then I'll wax and pontificate on shit I know nothing about. It won't be worth the wait, but you never know. Pat Benatar - Get Nervous (1982) Alex Harvey - The New Band - The Mafia Stole My Guitar (1979) Rough Trade - For Those Who Think Young (1981) Men at Work - Two Hearts (1985) Don Henley - I Can't Stand Still (1982) Pat Benatar - Get Nervous (1982) Other than the single "Shadows of the Night" I really had no idea what to expect on Get Nervous . It's unfair I know but I never really thought much of her. Oh the...

As a kid variety shows were a staple. We had less than a handful of television stations, no one had cablevision, and colour TV was a futuristic concept. Like many families, our main set was a piece of furniture with the television set in the middle of a console. Rabbit ears were always being tweaked, or on occasion being held and grounded by one of us to help bring in a clearer picture. This was a time when there were summer replacement series, when the other hosts and performers went on vacation. My memory is foggy on the finer points on a lot of this, but I have memories of Johnny Cash, Andy Williams and a bear, The Smothers Brothers, my hero Glen Campbell, and of course Sonny & Cher. That show was somehow hilarious and cool at the same time. Seeing Cher on top of a piano singing "I'm a vamp." It was their song "I Got You Babe" that I never got sick of. Something about the oboe part just slays me. Then one day me and my cousins were picking up pop and chip...

If you mention the song "Sign of the Gypsy Queen" you'll get a flash of devil horns and a comment about April Wine. Okay maybe not the devil horns, but most of us remember when we heard April Wine launch into the opening notes of the song. It was awesome and it was written by Lorence Hud. When it was first released it was a regional hit in Canada, but I have no recollection of the song at the time. I was ten, so it's not like I'm going to be reliable regardless ... although some of those early memories are indelibly stamped into my brain. I always knew there was another version, and over time had read enough on the song to assume April Wine had taken some bare bones and reconstructed the song we know and love. That's partly true. There's more than enough in Lorence's version including a section with dual lead guitars to give the song a little more bite than expected, and it's a really good song, but not the great song April Wine released. Still giv...