The Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky

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 which was nice.

Eric Woolfson sang a lot of the hits, which I suppose was fair as he wrote the songs. The big one here was the title track. It's funny, I played this album a lot back in the day and it's remarkable how much I'd forgotten until I dropped the needle. The opening instrumental "Sirius"that segues into "Eye in the Sky" is phenomenal, and I'm surprised the two weren't paired more often. The other song I'd forgotten on the first side was the closing track "Silence and I" and composition sung by Mister Woolfson. That orchestral bridge is awesome.

The second side featured another instrumental, "Mammagamma" that I always liked. However it was "Psychobabble" that remains one of the best tracks on the album. It wasn't always that way. It was good, but something about it irritated me. My dear dead Dave loved the song. He'd heard it on a friends high end stereo cranked and he said it was AMAZING. When he came to visit we plated it on my little Lloyd's stereo. We pushed the volume to where it was clipping and while it was loud it wasn't the rapturous experience he'd had previously.

Over forty years later, I'm in the basement and no one else is home and I have a decent pair of Mission speakers and a good sub and I'm rattling the windows, and I've gotta say ... it's AMAZING. I'm pretty sure the air raid siren wasn't appreciated by the neighbours. Hats off again to the ever dependable and tasty Ian Bairnson for killing it on the solo.

The album closes with a strange ballad, "Old and Wise" a song that even when I was teenager resonated with me. Now that I'm no longer a teenager it hits a little deeper. It's a pretty song.

This was the peak for the band, although I didn't know it at the time. They were a bigger deal in Canada than they were in the US, and I'd continue buying their albums through to Gaudi in '87. There was always something worthwhile on each record, and while if I'm being honest much of Eye in the Sky is sort of soft rock middle of the road stuff, when it's good it's extraordinary and it makes everything else seem more better.

6 Cylinder

As a kid we had one radio station, not counting CBC, and generally there was very little that was worth listening to, although there were times something would come on that would make you pay attention. It was 1979 and on a couple of occasions I heard "There Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" and it cracked me up, and I always wanted to get a copy for myself. A few years ago when my niece was dancing, they did a performance to this song, and now I can't separate my niece from a bunch of dancing chicks in chicken suits. Such is life. When I found this in the dollar bin I actually let out a little chirp, my goodness could it be? It was, and it was in great shape - including the inner sleeve. Score. I had no idea what to expect, for all I knew there was only one song worth listening to, and if that was the case it was still a dollar well spent. If I could buy an album by Showdown and enjoy it, odds are I'll find something to enjoy here to. Before I put this on I...

Garfield - Strange Streets

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Hoodoo Gurus - Mars Needs Guitars!

The first time I got this album it was a gift from my old roommate Otto. For a goofy little nebbish he would occasionally surprise me with some left of field musical treasures. Although, I still think he was reaching a little when he brought home the new "Led Zeppelin" album by Kingdom Come and forced me to listen to "Get it On" over and over again. I'd not listened to Mars Needs Guitars in a long, long, long time. The first thing that I jumped out at me was how David Faulkner's vocals reminded me of his fellow countryman Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil. I think the reason this never occurred to me was at the time I didn't have any Midnight Oil until Diesel and Dust in 1987. I'm not saying it was all the time, but there were a couple of songs where it stood out. Not a bad thing, just a thing. Even at the time this felt slightly out of step with what was going on in 1985. It seemed like everyone was using drum machines and synthesizers and having t...

Old Enough to Forget

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