Old Enough to Forget

I was eleven when my aunt and uncle got me this for Christmas in 1974. I didn't have many albums and I played this album over and over. For me this was where Elton John started and ended. I never bought anything else, and while occasionally I'd hear songs on the radio this was the only album I needed. Elton's run from 1970 through 1974 was pretty amazing, and the songs selected here managed to touch on most of the big songs from this period. Of course there were omissions and substitutions depending on whether you were in the UK or North America, but at this time I had no idea. This was called Greatest Hits , so my young brain took this at face value. I have an indelible memory of me in the basement singing along to the radio when "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" was playing and I had my parents little wedge tape recorder beside the radio. As I sang along I thought I sounded so much Elton John I needed to record myself ... um, I recall hearing what I sounded ...

The late Rupert Hine was a producer of the highest order who made incredible albums with SAGA, The Fixx, Howard Jones and Eight Seconds to name just a few. I knew he had a solo career that was a bit sporadic, but never heard any of his stuff. He released a trio of albums in the '80s. Starting with this one,  Immunity in '81 then he would drop another in '82 and finally one more in '83 and then he'd take over a decade before releasing his last solo album in 1994. I bought this as a curiosity, and really had no idea what to expect. Sometimes a producers fingerprints are unmistakable and are every where regardless of the act they're working with. Yeah, I'm thinking of David Foster ... although I do have to say The Tubes were the exception to the rule ... but you know what I mean. Rupert Hine's work with other artists was transparent. His style seemed to provide focus to the band he was producing, and he brought out their best work.  Immunity is an odd work....

I actually don't remember picking this up. I was sorting through the rather intimidating pile of albums waiting for a spin and this looked interesting in a nondescript and inoffensive way. The cover reminded me a little of Bruce Cockburn's '84 album Stealing Fire . I said reminded , if you're going to do an A/B comparison they aren't that similar at all. Anyway, I was farting around in the basement cleaning records, and I figured I'd put it on. I didn't look at the credits on the back, I just plopped it on the platter and let it spin. Right off the bat the first track "Hold On" the band had my attention. This was the kind of polished rock and roll that still gets the little hairs on my arm to stand up. As the first side played through I kept trying to figure out who the band sounded like. Vocally there's a little Stephen Pearcy from RATT, mixed with Kenny Shields from Streetheart, and musically this is pretty standard early '80s AOR, and so...

It was sealed, and it was cheap, and it followed me home so I got to keep it. New Regime, stylized as New:Regime was a relatively short lived '80s new wave tinged rock band who released two albums on RCA, their self titled debut in '85 and The Race which was released in '87. Me personally, I don't think I'd heard of them and reading through the credits I can't say I recognized any of the main players. I did recognize Neil Chapman's (Pukka Orchestra) name along with Dalbello under the additional musicians section which did lend a little cred from my perspective. I had been puttering in the basement, so I figured I'd just put this one and crank it up. Admittedly not the best way to road test a new album but it is what it is. Musically this sort of hit where I thought it would, which was cool. It was very mid '80s and reminded me a lot of Robbie Nevil (only on the first listen, after that it was harder to hear) but you'd be forgiven if you came up w...

Guilty Fingers was the third and final album by The Cry. Released in '82 on RCA the band's swansong came and went with about the same amount of fanfare as their two previous releases ... probably less I imagine. The core band was still Gary Scrutton on guitars, Brian Whitty on bass, and Robo MacPherson on keys and lead vocals. This time Kimball Fox (Kim Berly) was back on the throne playing drums and singing. After two albums of skinny tie infused new wave tinged pop The Cry moved right into the middle of the road and delivered just that, an uninspired middle of the road collection of generic pop songs that were neither hot nor cold - they're weren't just right either.  Which was a shame, as I had deliberately sought this one out as I had really enjoyed the band's first two efforts. It's not like Kimball Fox wasn't giving it his all on the songs he fronted. He was trying to muster a a sneer and some attitude and while the songs aren't especially memorab...

Blind Faith released one album in 1969 bringing together the talents of Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Rick Grech. This album was infamous when I was a kid because it had a topless young girl holding what looked like a chrome airplane. The photograph by Bob Seidemann was titled "Blind Faith" and it would end up being the name of the band and the album. I never knew there was an alternate cover until I found this one in the dollar bin. I have to admit the cover had seen better days, but the lyric insert was still inside the jacket and the album itself ended up cleaning up quite nicely. All in all a win win. Now I was just a wee lad when this came out, so my introduction to some of the songs would come many years later on radio when they'd have their '60s themed lunch hours, or the occasional oldie would crop up on rock radio. The song that seemed to get the most play was "Can't Find My Way Home" which is a brilliant song written by Steve Wi...

Back in '82 it was either "Come on Eileen" or "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" that were poisoning the radio, and making youth group dances insufferable. Although if I was to be honest Dexys Midnight Runners were pretty cool, but it wasn't rock. Over the decades I've softened to the point where I will give Culture Club a pass. They ended up being a lot more than a one hit wonder. On the other hand, Dexys were relegated to the one hit pile. But man, what a hit.  Here I am over forty years later with the album blaring in the background. I wanted to hear the entire album, but I picked it up for one song. When it was released an awful lot of people only bought the single and eschewed the album, apparently as it went gold in a number of markets. Oddly for a song that went #1 in the US the album and the single didn't sell enough to make the RIAA database. That must suck. "What single?" you ask ... really, you're going to make me say it? I actu...

"Last Song" is really the only tune I can name off the top of my head by Edward Bear. It's one of those little AM radio nuggets that still holds up. When I found the album I was in one of those moods where I wanted to take a chance on something, and this one looked interesting, and the bear on the cover looked slightly menacing. This pressing had the hype sticker embossed onto the cover, "includes LAST SONG, FLY ACROSS THE SEA, MASQUERADE" of the three songs I was only familiar with the aforementioned "Last Song" so I was curious to hear them. But first, some trivia. Who doesn't love trivia? Hands up? The band is literally named after Winnie the Pooh. I was this many years old when I learned that Edward Bear and Winnie-the-Pooh are one and the same. Nifty. It makes the ominous looking pissed off bear on the cover that much cooler. Now back to the previously meandering entry. The album opens with "Last Song" and the song is pure pop cheese...

Eye in the Sky was about as good as it got for The Alan Parsons Project. The band had been building up to something and the band got close with their previous albums, Eve and Turn of a Friendly Card . "Games People Play" remains one of my favourite songs, and Ian Bairnson's guitar solo is right up there with the best of the best. Eye in the Sky went double platinum here in Canada. The band was never a band, it was aptly titled a project and it was centred on Eric Woolfson, and Alan Parsons. The two wrote the songs, and Parsons engineered and produced and would bring in vocalists as required. Of course over the span of their career the singers would be consistent, names like Chris Rainbow, Lenny Zakatek (who should have had a solo career) and Elmer Gantry. There were others of course, but I run the risk of having to pull out a bunch of records and start reading credits. As to credits, the vinyl copy I found was missing the insert which sucked. The vinyl cleaned up okay w...

Released in '85 this was an album that marked the end of Nick's initial run. Between 1977 and 1981 he dropped an album a year and was signed with Chrysalis and then Casablanca Records before taking a four year break and resurfacing with this self titled effort on RCA. Gone was his longtime writing partner and guitarist James McCulloch. All that remained was his bass player Eric Nelson who was still holding down the bottom end. Nick did pull together some stellar musicians, from Mr. Mister's Pat Mastelotto on drums, to Mitchell Fromm on keyboards. The two guitar players, Jeff Silverman and Steve (Psycho) Sykes are pretty solid and there are some tasty licks to be heard. I remember CFOX playing a track from this album ... once, and my memory is really fuzzy on this. I keep confusing a memory of them playing Giuffria's "Call To The Heart" with whatever song they played by Nick Gilder. The common thread is both songs sounded like they were sung by Steve Perry. I a...

My introduction to Dwight Twilley came back in '84 when I first heard the single "Girls" on the radio. It was one of those albums that I remember still remember fondly. There was no internet and finding anything out about people was hit and miss depending on what you could suss from RollingStone, and later on Spin Magazine was cool. Really the only way to figure shit out for the average Luddite like me was to just go to the record store and look. At the time I had no idea what the difference was between Dwight Twilley the band, and Dwight Twilley the solo artist. I just figured it was a phase. I did manage to pick up Scuba Divers , and honestly sitting here I can't remember anything about it. Over the last year I'd picked up the two Phil Seymour albums, and I'd actually spent a fair bit of time listening to those, and I'd written up a slightly longer than usual bloggerity thing only to have a connection issue at some point where I save a blank page, and li...