Stylus over Substance (Volume 15) - Jefferson Starship, SAGA, Stray Cats, Eric Clapton/Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page

Here we go this month's Stylus Over Substance Volume 15. Good lord, if each volume contains five little incomprehensible blurbs, that means this year I've gacked out seventy five of these little literary turds. Man, I'm kind of proud of myself.

I suppose I've gotten a little lazier with this, mainly because after a couple of years I've realized that Blogger is probably the worst platform I could have chosen. Few of my pages get indexed, and essentially I am doing this for an audience of one most of the time. Me. 

Which is honestly okay, I do this for me because I enjoy it, and every so often something I write makes me giggle or smile. Which is good enough.

Besides, this is all part of intentionally listening to the music I have. It may not always be good, or great, but it's always an adventure and I often have no idea where I'm going until I get there.

With that here's another five carefully curated random selections.

• Jefferson Starship - Modern Times (1981)
• SAGA - Worlds Apart (1981)
• Stray Cats - Rant N' Rave (1983)
• Boney M. - The Magic of Boney M. Golden Hits (1980)
• Eric Clapton/Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page - Guitar Boogie (1971)
  

 Jefferson Starship - Modern Times (1981) The band was enjoying a bit of a resurgence after scoring with "Jane" a couple years earlier, and this time out "Find Your Way Back" would crack the top 40, and the album would go gold in the US. It was a song I always liked and I was curious about what the rest of the record sounded like. Honestly I wasn't really that curious as back in the day I had been pretty dismissive regarding Freedom at Point Zero. However when I recently rediscovered how good that album was I figured I'd keep an eye out for Modern Times, because I really did like "Find Your Way Back" and as fate would have it, I'd find a pretty nice copy of the record.  

I went in with an open mind, but honestly Modern Times is a but uneven, but it's also got more than enough to make it enjoyable. Mickey Thomas is a killer vocalist, and the band is solid throughout. Guitarist Craig Chaquico knows how to add just the right touches to a song, and drummer Aynsley Dunbar keeps things moving along. 

The album has actually benefited from the passage of time, as aside from the killer opening track, the rest of the songs while passable and enjoyable are somewhat generic '70s rockers and with the arrival of the '80s time wasn't exactly on the band's side. They weren't really fooling anyone by calling this Modern Times. The return to the fold of original vocalist Grace Slick only emphasized the band's ties to the past. Heck, even Paul Kantner had enough of trying to justify the band and on the album's closer tried to write a f-you response to the critics who kept shitting on the band. Too bad the "we do what we want" happened to be the worst song on the album. Still, having said all that I did enjoy the album for what it was, and what it was, was enjoyable while it lasted.

SAGA - Worlds Apart (1981) This was not my first SAGA album, but it remains to me one of their most important, if not best releases (best is highly subjective). This was the band's fourth record and it would be the one where they found the balance between rock and prog and it was awesome. "On the Loose" remains their best known track to the casual, but the album is a treasure trove of classic cuts from my personal favourite "Wind Him Up" that got me in the feels the first time I heard it, to the album's closer "No Stranger (Chapter 8)" - that runs over seven minutes of aural goodness. It's funny how memory works, I always think of this as end to end awesomeness, and when I played it through for the first time in a long time I was surprised as how many tracks I didn't remember. Not that they were bad, it's just that the memorable tracks were so memorable it's all I remembered about the album. To many this remains the one essential album by the band, and I suppose there's some truth in that ... however, the reality is this was a foundational album and while the US would end up being worlds apart and fell off the band wagon, SAGA find their footing in Europe, especially Germany and the band would never look back.

Stray Cats - Rant N' Rave (1983) Stray Cats released their follow up in 1983 and while the band seemed red hot, and rockabilly was still in vogue (I mean even Neil Young released an album that year with The Shocking Pinks called Everybody's Rockin') the album didn't do as well as their previous release. I remember hearing "(She's) Sexy + 17" and there was something creepy about musicians singing about teenage girls, although at least they didn't use sixteen as their baseline.

I've not heard the album before in it's entirety other than the two songs I'd heard on the radio, and frankly time has been very kind to the material here. This was a lot of fun, and all of the songs are really solid. Dave Edmunds produced the album and the songs are still crisp and fresh ... as fresh as a forty year old album is gonna get, but there's a timeless element to rockabilly, and boy oh boy Brian, Lee Rocker, Slim were on point. Brian's playing is still jaw dropping and seemed effortless. This was essentially the end of the band's golden age, but their impact is still being felt.

Boney M. - The Magic of Boney M. Golden Hits (1980) I think I've answered one of life's questions with this purchase. While not one of the big existential questions I now know I really don't have any shame or limits on what I'll spend a dollar on. Now I'll be the first to say that "Rasputin" has managed to work it's way into the fabric of classic pop - cheese and all. There's still something oddly infectious about the song, and it doesn't matter how over the top awful it really is - the song is so much fun. Golden Hits was there in the dollar bin and it was too good to pass up. The songs are from 1976 to 1980 and it is a pretty cohesive collection of pretty terrible songs - catchy but terrible. The album featured the cast of characters we've come to associate as Boney M. all the while there were no credits to confuse the listener. This was Frank Farian's vehicle, and while he needed Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett to provide the female lead vocals, the other two cover models, Maizie Williams and Bobby Farrell at least got sing live.

It's kind of fun trying to find out more about this particular release as this one is merely titled Golden Hits, and contained a dozen songs, whereas the album that shows up in the band's discography has 20 songs. Look, I'm not complaining, twelve was enough. 

Eric Clapton/Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page - Guitar Boogie (1971) You can be forgiven if you didn't know these guys released an album together. Okay, perhaps you knew - I didn't. The reality is this was never really intended to be released as it was just the guys jamming together after a session in 1968. So it really wasn't an album in the way we think of albums. This was more a cash grab to take advantage of name recognition.

I read that Jimmy Page was kind of irritated that this even saw the light of day. The credits are a little skinny, but according to Page, The Allstars were Charlie Watts on drums, Bill Wyman played bass, Mick Jagger played harp. In addition to guys like Nicky Hopkins on piano. This is the stuff that needed to be on the album. Unless, they - like Page were a little peeved at having their jam sessions see the light of day. The album is a time capsule and while not a great album, is a lot of fun to listen to in the same way jamming with your friends is a lot of fun. Except the pedigree of the musicians here is a little more stellar than your average player.

Probably the most perplexing thing about the album is trying to get through the essay on the back of the jacket by Richard Meltzer. I suppose this was the height of cool, but it makes for an odd read. Yeah, who am I to talk, I'm about as coherent as golden retriever with a mouth full of tennis balls.

A cash grab by RCA.