Angel - Angel a Helluva Band

I found these a while back, and they got filed away and eventually ended up at the bottom of the pile, and the pile just kept getting bigger. I decided maybe I should shuffle things around a little and see what's in there. Well, boy howdy, here are the first two albums by Angel: their debut and their follow-up Helluva Band from 1976. I remember finding these and being kind of stoked to hear them. I recognized Greg Giuffria's name from "Call to the Heart" back in '84, a song that was pulled right out of the Journey playbook, but I always liked it. So there.

The Angel albums were on Casablanca, the label KISS was on ... for me, this was the label of the gods. Except that the label would become only become profitable when they moved into disco and unleashed The Village People like a virus on the people of the world. The Angel albums came out back in '75 and '76 and, as you may have guessed, these records, while really, really cool, didn't exactly make the band a household name. Shit, even the Wiki page for Casablanca doesn't list the band among the notable acts signed to the label, but somehow Lindsay Lohan gets a mention.

Sigh.

I honestly didn't really know what to expect, but right out of the gate the album overdelivered with the opening track "Tower," which was heavy on keyboards, big on guitars, and featured the soaring vocals of Frank DiMino, whose voice seemed like a blend of Rik Emmett and Geddy Lee, which isn't exactly right, but I'm trying to give a sense of how he sounded. Just saying he had a killer set of pipes doesn't quite cut it.

The band was firmly on the hard rock side of things, but they were employing elements of prog that leaned more toward the pop side of things, accentuating the songs rather than going off on long, meandering tangents. The songs were grandiose, and boy, they sound good loud. Of course, if you're not into the big, loud excess of the mid-'70s, this album will be about as pleasant as getting bamboo shoots shoved under your fingernails.

The guys wore white satin suits and looked like a glam band, and I guess with their musical chops and penchant for going over the top, they certainly made it seem like they were part of the genre, but this was just rock and roll ... then again, I'm not great at identifying genres, so take whatever I say with a grain or three of salt.

Helluva Band picks up right where their debut left off, and the band was still comprised of:

Greg Giuffia on keys
Barry Brandt on drums
Frank DiMino on vocals
Punky Meadows on guitar
Mickey Jones of bass

Keeping with the same production team of Derek Lawrence and Big Jim Sullivan, Helluva Band didn't mess with the formula, and the songs were all pretty good. Now, I'm not going to gush and say this is the best stuff I've ever heard. However, it does grow on you, too.

I guess with so many bands vying for attention, having yet another band mining the same musical vein and not really doing anything overly original (some could argue it was generic and highly derivative) made it a hard sell, and not everyone was buying. Of course, listening now with fresh ears, you can tell there was something special about the musicianship. Greg was a top-tier keyboard player, and Punky Meadows was no slouch on guitar. Maybe he didn't qualify for guitar-hero status, as his playing tended to service the songs, but his solo work was tasty without being overly flashy.

I really enjoyed these albums, and while I'll admit that this era of '70s rock wasn't quite my jam, there was more than enough here to bear repeated plays. I will say that of the two albums, I was partial to the debut. Angel would drop an album a year until 1979, and then a live album in 1980 before the band ended their initial run.

It was fun having these on vinyl, and it's too bad my copy of Helluva Band was a little more well-loved than I like (a couple of songs on side two sounded particularly crackly), but it happens. Still, if you're curious, the box set Angel: The Casablanca Years (2018) is out there to be streamed.

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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