Old Enough to Forget

Three Dog Night has been one of those nifty pleasures for me over the last couple of years. As a kid they were on the radio all the time ... at least it seemed that way up to around 1974 or so, then they weren't on the radio anymore. I'd always liked music and my little AM radio was always on. When Harmony came out in 1971 and I remember really liking "An Old Fashioned Love Song" although at the time I had no idea what the album was called. Of course over the decades time has a way of blurring and I've picked up a number of albums that I've really enjoyed. The albums have come to me out of sequence and I tend to first try to find the classic hits, and then from there listen to album allowing the deeper album tracks some time to breathe. I'm still in awe of the band. The fact that Three Dog Night wasn't centred on a lone front man is a source of wonder. Cory, Chuck and Danny were amazing singers and the band was so good. Mike Allsup the guitarist is so ...

Night Ranger released Dawn Patrol in the waning months on 1982. The band would pull three singles off the album with the last one dropping in the summer of 1983. The album was slick as snot, with a twin guitar assault that was more than capable of melting faces. Jeff Watson on one side with his mind bending dexterity and Brad Gillis, fresh off a stint with Ozzy was on the other. Brad was also on Mr. Osbourne's Speak of the Devil -  also released in November of '82. I suspect Brad's departure was amicable as Ozzy & Sharon got a shout out on the back cover.  Night Ranger found their voice early on with bread and butter slick rock and roll. This was '82 and hard rock was coming into the mainstream. The band also managed to pull off the two lead singer trick and make it look easy. Bassist Jack Blades and drummer Kelly Keagy took turns singing their own songs while occasionally writing together. Their voices were similar but different enough to give the album a nice back...

Ah Steve Stevens. Back in '89 by buddy Bruce had this and said I absolutely had to hear Steve's cover of "Action." I've always liked that song, and it was indeed a killer cover. I would go out an buy the album based on that one song. I played it a couple of times looking for shiny songs to add to mix tapes. I found two: "Atomic Playboys" and "Action" and then more or less shelved it after passing judgment. It was a decent album with a fantastic cover, but it wasn't anything special. The CD is on a shelf in the studio where it's been sitting for a long time, and it never occurred to me that this was ever released on vinyl. Well it was, and I found a copy ... a rather juicy mint copy at that and it was cheap. The cover by H.R. Giger is as awesome as ever. Yes, he's the guy that designed the original Alien. I bought it. I'm a sucker. I have no regrets ... more on that as I go along. It's been a while since I've sat and real...

By 1981 The Cars had released four albums in four years. When they dropped Shake It Up late in '81 the band suddenly had a top 10 hit with "Shake It Up" an infectious earworm that contained yet another brilliant Elliot Easton guitar solo. While the other singles from the album that dropped throughout 1982 didn't get as much traction the album still went double platinum and the song "Since You're Gone" is one of my favourite songs by the band ... ever. Roy Thomas Baker was again in the producer's chair and with Shake It Up the band crafted a collection of tightly packed new wave pop songs. It was more of the same, but different - but not as different as the songs on the previous album Panorama . It's always fun reading old reviews, and apparently the reviewer (Alan Niester) with the Globe and Mail back in '81 wrote. "Ric Ocasek and the boys have produced an understated and decidedly underwhelming package that makes no attempt to deviate...

Stand Back is one of those infamous albums from my childhood. I only had a couple of records as a little kid. One of them was Bill Cosby's 1964 release I Started Out as a Child , that I was gifted when I was 10 (the other one was The Tale of Jemima-Puddle Duck  by Vivien Leigh - yes I still have it). I played that album near to death. I remember when I was in grade 7 and one Friday we were allowed to bring in records to listen to. I brought in my record and played "The Lone Ranger" expecting the class to erupt in spontaneous laughter ... only to have the needle unceremoniously lifted before it ended. "That's not music!" One of the cool kids brought in a copy of Stand Back . "THIS IS MUSIC!" There was a lot of kerfuffle as someone thought he heard Myles say the "C" word ... not cancer, on "Highway Hard Run" so they spent several minutes lifting the needle and trying to hear the offending word. I find it weird that this is still...

Roxy Music released their first album simply titled, Roxy Music in 1972, and a decade later released their final and arguably their best known (and best) album Avalon in 1982. Avalon was my introduction to the band, and frankly was also my exit. I did end up with Siren at some point, and did like "Love is the Drug" but honestly I never really let the album breathe ... I think it got a cursory spin and I took off the one song for a mix tape and then shelved it. I was young and didn't know any better ... that's what I'm going with. I also suspect that at some point I'm going to end up with more Roxy Music albums in my collection. It was  Avalon  though that was the perfect combo of restrained smokey cool and the songs and performances felt effortless. Brian Ferry himself was the epitome of cool, and was joined by Phil Manzanera on guitar and Andy Mackay on saxophone, both of whom were masters of their craft. Others were brought in as needed. Alan Spenner and Ne...

This was the first album I bought by 38 Special. I had no idea that "Hold on Loosely" was a big deal, I just knew that the song was amazing. We had limited radio when I was a kid up north, and unless it was word of mouth or something I'd read about when browsing the magazines I was pretty sheltered. When Special Forces dropped in '82 I snapped it up. Right off the bat the band was kicking in the door and "Caught Up in You" became my second favourite song by the band. The rest of the album then sort settled into a groove as one decent but not especially memorable song after another played. Some of the songs were goofy, "Back Door Stranger" probably isn't a thinly veiled play on words. If it was it was way more subtle than Deep Purple was when they were singing about knocking on a back door. You can take the 12 year old out a teenager, but you can't take a 12 year old out of a teenager. No that wasn't a typo. Now while I'm being casua...

Big Country hit it big in 1983 with their debut album The Crossing . The album would go gold in the US, and platinum here in Canada. "In a Big Country" was huge, and frankly to most of us is the one hit we know by the band. Audiences are fickle, and who knows what the band's follow up Steeltown didn't resonate outside of the UK where the album would hit number 1 and go gold. I don't remember anything being played on the radio. My buddy Otto had a cassette copy of the album and I remember playing it a couple of times and thinking it was pretty cool. Steve Lillywhite was producing, and comparisons to U2 were inevitable. There were some sonic similarities at times but the bands could not have been more different. U2 were Irish and Big Country were Scottish. One of things that sucks about getting old is having the time to let music percolate. It's one of the reasons most of us are so drawn to the music of our past. We have a deeper connection and more of an emotio...

Spoons were never a band that was on my radar back in the day. I knew who they were, "Nova Heart" was a pretty great song, but there were a lot of great songs that never made it into my collection. Talkback  was produced by Nile Rodgers. Bowie's Let's Dance  was the other project Mr. Rodgers produced in '83. Oddly enough Nile passed over Culture Club who were hotter than something that was really hot to produce Talkback by Spoons. You'd have thunk that this would have helped secure Spoons a decent distribution deal ... but nope. Talkback would only see the light of day in Canada. Good for us I guess, bad for them and everyone else. Like the band's previous album Arias & Symphonies , Talkback would go gold in Canada, but the band's subsequent releases wouldn't fare so well. The big single was "Old Emotion" which is a song I sort of like and am sort of irritated by. The whammy bar dives never worked for me. It's not like Gordon Depp...

I don't go into the mall record stores very often. I'm not in the habit of shelling out for new vinyl. I am though a sucker for a deal, and the other day when my wife dragged me out so she could take some returns I found myself wandering the corridors feeling adrift while I walked past a never ending array of women's clothing stores and the occasion shop dedicated to baseball caps or luggage. There is one little record store that somehow manages to stay in business. They also have a bargain section where the records are only $25 bucks ... what a bargoon!  I started flipping through and I noticed there were quite a few records with a 75% off sticker. That was more like it. It was a small section and I found a few albums that looked interesting. I liked the cover to Are We Having Fun?  I looked the band up and the first line of the wiki page described them as an "alternative rock band from Los Angeles." Good enough. Of the near handful (four, I found four) of ten do...

I remember when this came out in 1982. It was just in time for Christmas and I bought two copies. One for me, and one for my best friend Mike. At the time I didn't know the album would be a mostly forgettable collection of songs, with one really annoying "hit" with an S song in "It's Raining Again".  There was a certain degree of pent up excitement at the thought of a new album and the stop gap release of the obligatory live album certainly didn't count, at least to me. Heck, let's be honest, the live version of "Dreamer" got a second life no one saw coming, or wanted ... again, just me. Breakfast in America was huge in Canada going Diamond, with over 1.5 million copies out there. I suppose the pressure to try and have lightning strike twice was enormous. With the benefit of hindsight, and the internet there's a lot of information out there about the tumultuous gestation period that birthed "...famous last words..." The delic...

I'll admit I'm sort of a sucker for this era of soft rock. It likely explains why I'm such a big fan of Christopher Cross ... no I am not kidding. Before Mister Cross though there were others - one of whom was Stephen Bishop. A year earlier he had contributed a couple of songs to Art Garfunkel's 1975 album Breakaway , and this helped him secure a record deal. Careless would feature some of the best players of the '70s: Andrew Gold, Jay Graydon, Larry Carlton and Eric Clapton played guitar, Russ Kunkel and Jim Gordon among others on drums, and Chaka Khan who was also on ABC records appeared as a backing vocalist on a couple of track. Art Garfunkel also appeared on a few tracks. For a debut this is pretty awesome. Stephen co-produced the album with Henry Lewy who also engineered the album. Lewy was no stranger to great sounding albums which included  Mitchell's Blue and Neil Young's Harvest . The album opens with Stephen Bishop's biggest hit - or at least ...

Lonesome Jubilee  introduced the world to John Mellencamp ... no more John Cougar, or John Cougar Mellencamp ... it was John Mellencamp thank you very much. John's transformation into a full fledged folk rock (Americana is the term that would later be applied, but at the time this is just roots rock) hero was complete. While John had maintained his multi-platinum run in the States, here is Canada would find his greatest commercial success with Lonesome Jubilee . His previous three releases, American Fool , Uh-Huh , and Scarecrow all sold in excess of 500,000 copies. That an RIAA gold album from a population literally ten times small than our neighbours to the south. With Lonesome Jubilee he moved over 600,000 and this would be the peak of his popularity at least in terms of commercial album sales. He's never stopped creating music, and has released another sixteen albums, the last being Orpheus Descending (2023). However for me this was really the point where I stopped payin...

Back in the day I had two of Melissa's albums: this one and her follow up Brave and Crazy . I was a rocker (at least I said I was, but I still liked Christopher Cross, so go figure) and not hearing anything as captivating as "Bring Me Some Water" I stopped listening to her stuff. It didn't help that the radio stations I liked didn't seem to play anything of hers so I just moved on. Of course she'd go one to have one hell of a career I know little or nothing about. Despite me thinking her debut was as good as it got for her history tells another story. If you're a fan, I mean a REAL fan you know more than me. So I'm going to just listen to this one in a vacuum and contain my commentary to the ten songs on her debut. Seems like a reasonable compromise and it'll keep me contained and hopefully on track.  The album opens with "Similar Features" and man is it a great track - it still sounds so good. I bought the album because "Being Me So...