Haywire - Wired The Best of Haywire

Haywire were nearly the shit through the late '80s to the early '90s. They dropped their debut in '86 and the two singles from Bad Boys seemed to be everywhere. Haywire were suddenly in the mix with the big Canadian acts: Corey Hart, Gowan (yeah, before Styx he was the real deal, baby), Glass Tiger and, of course, the king himself, Bryan Adams.

Then the band really broke with their second album, and "Dance Desire" was a huge hit. The whole album was rock deliciousness with some spectacular guitar work from Marvin Birt and Paul MacAusland's soaring vocals. The power ballad "Thinkin' About the Years" features some jaw-dropping work by Marvin. Marvin was (still is) a monster player. I love Marvin.

Then the band seemed to disappear right when they were red hot. Three years later they emerged with Nuthouse in 1990, right when Haywire's bread and butter musical style was about to be flushed down the toilet. Which was a shame, as the guys went all in on being a rock band with all of the most extravagant sundae toppings. While it wasn't as good as Don't Just Stand There, it wasn't without some really killer moments. "Operator Central" is as good as anything they'd done, and even the rather over-the-top bombastic rocker "Short End of a Wishbone" has held up really well.

Their last album, Get Off from '92, showed a band trying to stay current and was pretty good, but sadly featured one of the worst covers I've ever seen. Still, the songs represented here, "Buzz" and "Get Back," are pretty solid and frankly, when mixed with the other songs from the band's discography, are surprisingly cohesive.

If there's a word that needs to be repeated, it's that one: COHESIVE.

This is an album that totally works all the way from the first cut through to the last track. Okay, the second to last track. I don't really count the remix version of "Dance Desire" as anything other than a curiosity. Never was a fan of the bloated cuts. Still, it is what it is. The songs were nicely sequenced, and while they loosely followed the chronological order of release, it wasn't absolute. It really was incredibly cohesive (yes it was).

The band was so good, and was consistent through their entire career. Heck, the band is still out in the summer playing classic rock festivals. I saw them in the summer a year ago, on one of the hottest days we'd had that year. They were first up in the afternoon and partway through their set Marvin looked like he was going to pass out. Someone brought him a chair and he ended up sitting down with a fan pointed at him. I wasn't that far from the stage and he was white as a sheet. He still killed it and made it through. Love me some Marvin.

Paul made a pointed joke about them being all original members after almost forty years. Which I found hilarious, as a couple of the acts on the bill that day maybe had one original member and some had none at all ... ah, rock and roll. It's all about the name.

The band after all these years is still:

Paul MacAusland - vocals
Marvin Birt - guitars and backing vocals
David Rashed - keyboards and backing vocals
Ronnie Switzer - bass
Sean Kilbride - drums

Paul was (is) a hell of a singer, but to me, what made Haywire tick was Marvin Birt. The guy, in my opinion, is one of the best to strap on, plug in and rock out. Google the guy and you'll get a pretty picture of a cricket.

Now the album packaging is really top shelf, and the records are pretty to look at. I just wish the band had opted for proper credits and lyrics. Oh well, you can't always get what you want.

Wired The Best of Haywire wasn't an album I needed. I had all of their albums already, but dang it, when I found the album with the coloured discs and shiny cover, I figured it would make me a nice Christmas present ... it did, and I thanked my dog profusely.

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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