Old Enough to Forget

By the summer of '83 The Kinks seemed to be everywhere (in Canada at any rate) with their quirky song "Come Dancing" and the band seemed to be on the verge of getting their second wind. At least that's how I saw it. To me they were a bunch of old has beens who wrote a couple of cool songs in the '60s, and wrote "Lola" a song that always felt like the companion piece to Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side." Considering Lou's song came out a couple years after, I suspect there was more than a passing wink and a nod to The Kinks. State of Confusion was their twentieth album, and my first real exposure to the band. The quirky nostalgia of "Come Dancing" was actually a bit of a bait and switch. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but a piss and vinegar Ray Davies with his snarling vocals and piercing lyrics accompanied by little brother Dave's frenetic guitar parts and backing vocals caught me a little by surprise. That's

Thanks for popping in, this month is a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I seemed to be in a but of a maudlin mood and went back to the '70s for a couple albums by Dave Loggins and Ian Thomas. They were both young men at the time with a level of maturity that seems beguiling to me now as I sit here listening as an old man. Yeah, make no mistake, my youth is in my rear view mirror now. Told I was feeling maudlin. Regardless, for a bunch of albums that go back several decades it's funny how this still feels fresh to me. Peter Schilling - Error in the System (1983) Toronto - Lookin' for Trouble (1980) Steve Winwood - Arc of a Diver (1980) Dave Loggins - Personal Belongings (1972) Ian Thomas - Delights (1975) Peter Schilling - Error in the System (1983) From the catalogue of one hit wonders on this side of the Atlantic Peter Schilling hit it pretty big with "Major Tom (Coming Home)" a catchy song that seemed to be here, and then gone. Which is too bad,

Hooters released their follow up to Nervous Night in the summer of 1987. It hadn't seemed like two years between albums. When the album dropped I picked it up right away. I really don't recall my reaction at the time. I do know I immediately pulled "Satellite" off the album as my favourite track and it ended up on a lot of mix tapes. There were a couple other songs that I liked too, but I'll admit to having shelved the album pretty quickly after hearing the highlights, and giving it a few spins. It was a damning judgment, but this was 1987 and I was getting so much music that my attention span was pretty short. However, there was always something about the band I liked, and I would pick up their next album Zig Zag in '89 and then I would more or less lose track of the band. Getting back to One Way Home , I will say that it's been a hoot (sorry) getting to hear this again. Now, I do have this on CD, but finding a pretty mint copy of the record was too much

The Powder Blues were a strange anomaly who seemed to come out of nowhere, and for a couple of years their boppin' rhythm & blues was right there alongside the skinny ties and rockers. Uncut was an album that was self financed, and initially released late in 1979 on the band's own indie label Blue Wave because everyone they shopped the record to would say the same thing, "No one wants to hear the blues, this won't sell." They had released the album and sent copies to radio stations. Some sources claim they sold upwards of 30,000 copies before the same labels who had passed on the band were vying to get their hands on the band. The album would be picked up by RCA and would re-issue the album, minus one track ... it was a cover, and I suppose it makes the original more valuable. Uncut was (is) a really solid album. Songs like "Doin' it Right" and "Hear that Guitar Ring" were huge songs here, and the album would go on to sell a couple hund

By 1974 Andy Kim was already a pretty established writer and performer. Most of us kids knew "Sugar Sugar" but couldn't have told you who wrote or sang it ... it was The Archies and that was that. Of course everything is processed through a lens and there's a huge difference between what I was able to process as an eleven year old who was obsessed with the radio and music and the knowledge and trivia I have accumulated over the intervening decades ... decades . Good lord, when did I get old? Andy Kim was the eponymous release on ICE records in 1974, and it was distributed here in Canada by London Records. The song everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knows is "Rock Me Gently" a song that was made to sing along too. Like so many others back in the day much of my record collection was comprised of K-Tel anthologies, and there were two that I played until I almost wore the needle through the vinyl. Canadian Mint . 22 songs that were carefully edited and condensed to

When Nick Gilder and James McCulloch left Sweeney Todd, the remaining members were left in the lurch. They did have an ace up their sleeve: their deal with London records but they'd need to find a worthy replacement for not only their vocalist, but they needed to find a guitar player. To complicate things they'd have to come up material now on their own as Gilder / McCulloch were the primary writers on the band's debut. The band would try out a new vocalist Clark Perry who would re-record the vocals to "Roxy Roller" and it would be released as a single and even managed to crack the top 100 in the US before Chrysalis records, Nick Gilder's label managed to cease and desist the single. Not long after Mr. Perry would exit the band. The search was on once again for a replacement. If Wishes Were Horses is an album that is more infamous for being the starting point for a very young Bryan Adams who took over lead vocals, and managed to pull of a very credible Nick G

This was the only album I ever bought by Lynyrd Skynyrd. It had it all, and all I needed. I played this pretty much to death back in the day, and I have to admit, rather sheepishly, I never thought "Freebird" was that great. It was too long, too meandering, and by the time the guitars let loose it was too little too late and it was too much. Of course over the years I have softened and have even brought into my musical fold The Outlaws "Green Grass and High Tides" and "Highway Song" by Blackfoot. There are a few honourable mentions like "Edge of Sundown" by Danny Joe Brown. They all made their sacrifice to the rock gods at the altar of the Skynyrd. However, this is all unrelated and at the time when I had this double album of rock and roll goodness, they were songs I didn't even know existed.  Now, when I found this copy for under ten bucks I was pretty stoked, and then a little disappointed when the liner notes for each album that listed the

Best known for "Nice Legs, Shame About the Face" The Monks were a short lived band who seemed to come out of nowhere from the UK along with a host of other imports and disappeared almost as quickly after they released Suspended Animation in 1981. The band was part of the early wave of British New Wave with punk leanings that seemed to catch on with Canadians in the very early '80s. Bad Habits although released in 1979, didn't hit the shore here until the first quarter of 1980, and while "Drugs in My Pocket" cracked the top 20 on the Canadian charts, it's not the song most of us associate with the band. I suppose it depended on where you were at the time. Growing up in a small town where radio was somewhat problematic we tended to rely more on word of mouth and The Music Express. The band would draw the ire of the record buying public in the UK because John Ford and Richard Hudson, were not a real punk rockers as they were once a members of The Strawbs -

Digging through the pile and sorting the odds and ends up for grabs turned out to be a mixed bags of nuts. There were some here I'd not had a chance to sit with all the way through, and a others that were old friends I hadn't spent time with and it was time to catch up. Split Enz - Waiata (1981) A Flock of Seagulls - The Story of a Young Heart (1984)  Red Rider - Neruda (1983) The Moody Blues - The Other Side of Life (1986) Gordon Lightfoot - Don Quixote (1972) Split Enz - Waiata (1981) Right off the bat let's give credit where credit is due here. "One Step Ahead" is an absolutely killer track. I'd go so far as to say it's the centrepiece of the album. A close second is "History Never Repeats" another composition by Neil. Now I am fully aware that I never had this back in the day so sitting here listening four decades later is hardly fair. The lens I'm looking through is not the same as the one I had when I was a teenager. The songs on Wai

Fireworks between 1977 and 1982 would release five studio albums, and one live recording. Then after this one the "band" would break up. From what I've read Marty McCall was Fireworks. The members of the "band" would come and go and each album would change. Guitarist Jerry Gaston was fairly consistent though, and on Sightseeing at Night co-wrote a number of the songs with Marty. Marty was a respected singer, and when Michael Omartian produced Christopher Cross' debut, I remember seeing Marty's name on the back cover as a backing vocalist. I knew about Fireworks, I'd just not heard them.  The early '80s was an interesting time for Christian music. The hippie dippy side of the Jesus movement was embracing the business side of the equation, and even the major labels were paying attention and either working out co-distribution arrangements or putting albums out on their own imprint. For Fireworks, being able to say you were on a major like MCA, eve

I was ten when this came out, and like most people it was the eerie piano run used on The Exorcist that captured everyone's imagination. I never saw the movie, although surprisingly my dad had a copy of the book by William Peter Blatty. All I knew it was supposed to be so scary people were having heart attacks in the theatre. My uncle Lloyd had a copy of the album, and all I remember is him playing the record once through the first part of side a, and it was mesmerizing. I can still see him standing by the stereo holding the record in his hands while the opening played. He then casually mentioned that Mike Oldfield played just about everything himself on the album. That stuck with me. I never forgot it. I wanted to be able to do that. Over the years I never really thought much about Mike Oldfield. His name would pop up again in the early '80s when Hall & Oates hat a hit with "Family Man" and I never really liked Hall & Oates, but that was a cool song. After t

I had no idea what rockabilly or roots rocks was back in 1980. That's not necessarily accurate, as I really liked Dave Edmunds classic "I Hear You Knocking" from his 1972 album coincidentally titled Rockpile . Nick Lowe had some success with his '79 album Labour of Lust both of those guys would mine old time rock and roll and put a little twist on things. With Rockpile Nick and Dave were joined by Billy Bremner and drummer Terry Williams (who would later sit behind the kit with Dire Straits) and the band would release one album Seconds of Pleasure that yielded a minor hit "Teacher Teacher" that felt fresh and classic at the same time. There was a buzz about the album and I remember my buddy Gord who knew such things said this was a killer album. I never bought it, and never heard more than the one single, and then the album drifted into the abyss and would be one of those things I knew about but nothing about at the same time. Here I am sitting and grooving