Straight Lines - Run for Cover

Straight Lines put out two pretty good albums and then folded. Run for Cover was the band's second album and was full of tightly polished light rock songs. It's kind of foggy now but there was a time this was the shit. Coming out of the '70s Straight Lines wasn't ashamed of the past, but it was embracing the future. The songs were tight, the Peter Clarke's vocals were really good and harmonies were on point and the guitar playing was that perfect mix of tasty with a bit of edge that gave the feeling if David Sinclair wanted to he could cut loose with the best of them. Listening now it would be easy to dismiss this as faceless corporate rock of the most generic variety. Which is not only unfair, it's plain wrong. 

It may have been my mood but I was really getting into this one. It was really good. Most of the songs were mid tempo, but the band had a killer ballad with "Letting Go" which is probably their best known song, although personally I am partial to "Heads Are Gonna Roll" from their debut which honestly sounded like something from Harlequin (not a bad thing). The debut was sort of all over the place, in a good way and David's guitar tone was very different than what he'd employ on Run for Cover. Considering it was only a year between releases the differences are rather striking. Run for Cover, for better or worse was more cohesive and didn't flit around as much.

The band got some traction on their first release and I suppose the expectations were pretty high for the followup. Run for Cover delivered the goods and with Bruce Allen managing the band it seemed like all the pieces were in place. The band went so far as to thank all our Friends at Epic records ... which in hindsight is always awkward. Sort of like a general manager expressing his support for a coach just before getting punted. Except here it's a grateful band thanking the boss for support that was about to evaporate.

I didn't realize the band released three singles from the album. The first was "Letting Go" which is really one of the best songs on the album. It would end up being nominated for a Juno award for Single of the Year, and David Sinclair and Bob Buckley were up for Composer of the Year. The band then released another ballad, "There Are No Secrets" which honestly is an okay song and it managed to crack the top 40 and when they released "Illusions" a more uptempo song it didn't even make a ripple. Shortly after their "friends" at Epic dropped them.

It's a shame as there were better songs that to me would have gotten more traction. One of the best songs on the album was the title track "Run for Cover" which had the riffs and groove. Heck even the slightly off kilter new wave tinged "Easy to Run" would have been better. This was at the height of the skinny tie new wave era and was an interesting blend of genres for the band.

Ah. What could have been.

The back cover art is one of those weird head scratching what were they thinking? I wonder if Billy Squier saw this one (doubtful) and used this as a starting point for his infamous "Rock Me Tonite" video? Palmer Jarvis was one of the bigger advertising agencies in British Columbia back in the day, and they looked after the cover but not every pitch is a winner. Don Draper would not have approved. 

It's what inside that counts though, and this was a really great collection of songs. This would be the last album by the band. They left behind two solid albums of fantastic album oriented rock. David and Bob would go on to play with Body Electric before taking different paths in the music industry. Geoff Eyre who had previously played with The Hometown Band would continue to work. As to bassist and vocalist Peter Clarke who knows, I couldn't find much which is a shame. Guy had a set of pipes.

I was saddened to read that David Sinclair who played for a lot of notable artists passed away back in 2018.