The Adventures - The Adventures (Theodore and Friends)

The Adventures popped up on my radar back in 1988 when I heard "Broken Land" on the radio ... once. I was at work at the time and the some caught my attention. I waited patiently in the hopes the song would be identified, and thankfully when it was over I got to hear a mumbled titled by The Adventures. I found the album, and got more than just the one song. It was so good and so different than most of what was in my CD player at the time. A year later they dropped Trading Secrets with the Moon, and while I never heard any songs on the radio, my mix tapes pulled a few songs and then I lost track of them.

During the dying days of Krazy Bob's I popped in more than usual, often dropping more cash than usual because it was the end of an era and there were still treasures to be had while they could be had. This particular trip was only to mine his discount bins, which he would often seed with hidden gems. He was never shy about pointing out stuff I missed. On this particular visit I found The Adventures 1985 release, I assumed it was the same band, but the cover sort of confused me. Was this a nod to Devo? What was going on. Was it even the same band? I was pretty sure it was ... so I put it in the pile and brought it home.

I still got close to a hundred records in the backlog (first world problems) and today I felt like seeing what this was all about. Right out of the gate with "Send my Heart" this was exactly what I needed. This was indeed the same band. The new romantic voice, the blend of organic and traditional meshed with '80s pop. It sounded very modern while being grounded at the same time. It's funny, I like this kind of pop more now than I did back in the day.

Since I have your attention, may as well talk about this particular release. I've bitched about this is the past, but why do labels feel albums from other territories have to be re-sequenced, remixed and changed for North American audiences? Apparently when The Adventures dropped their debut on Chrysalis records, the folks over here figured a cool cover and an album title, in this case Theodore and Friends, wasn't going to work over here. So they just made it a self titled release because anyone who could read would be upset when they realized there was no Theo in the band, and if there was no Theo did he really have any friends? To be safe they just scrapped the cover and we go the one we got ... which was still confusing. There are five figures but on the back there are seven musicians. I suppose having them all on the back cover makes up for it ...

The Adventures were:

Terry Sharpe - lead vocals
Eileen Gribben - vocals
Spud Murphy - vocals and percussion
Pat Gribben- guitars
Tony Ayre - bass
Paul Crowder - drums
Jonathan Whitehead - keyboards

The Adventures were from Northern Ireland, and while the traditional elements that were more prevalent on later releases weren't on full display here, there was still something about the arrangements that brought to mind The Silencers ... although they were Scottish they seemed to share similar DNA. Recently I've discovered Horslips who seem to be the grandfathers of mixing celtic influences with rock and roll.

My ears aren't the reliable witness they once were. I'm inclined to proclaim this is timeless music, but the reality is probably different. This is definitely from the '80s, but boy howdy this was the best of the '80s for me.

I may be late to the party, and finding this was pure chance, but it was my lucky day.

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 , ...

Billy Rankin - Growin' Up Too Fast

Growin' Up Too Fast was never widely released on CD (if at all), and it was one of the albums I really wanted to get back after a basement flood wiped out my vinyl collection in the '90s (when no one really gave a shit about records, and my insurance gave me a couple hundred bucks for an appraised $10,000 collection). Way back in 1984, my (dearly departed and greatly missed) buddy Dave let me borrow his cassette copy, which included a bonus track of "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." When I eventually bought the album, I didn't know it was a bonus track, or even what a bonus track was. If that sentence was hard to read, just go back and skim it. I'm sure you'll get the gist. I'd find out later Billy was an off-and-on-again member of Nazareth and wrote some absolutely killer songs for them. At the time, though, all I knew was this guy laid it out cold with the opening cut, "Baby Come Back," then proceeded to lay down one killer tune after another bef...

Garfield - Strange Streets

I'd seen this before in the bin, but kept flipping through the stacks. I'd see it a few more times, each time stopping to look at it a little more. There was something kind of cool about the cover where the stylized Celtic knot had the dotted yellow line - it was a strange street for sure. I pulled the record out of the jacket and I was struck by the centre image. There was the familiar Mercury label, the same one I'd seen a thousand times on BTO's Head On album. Well, I'd bought things based on odd associations before - like when I had to buy anything that Solid Rock Records released (this was generally a good thing) - so who knows, maybe this was a hidden gem. There weren't any real scratches or rash, just a lot of dirt and dust. It seemed to clean up okay, but we'll see how it goes. The album opens with the title track, and this wasn't straight-ahead pop or rock. It was leaning toward the progressive, but with a pop bent. Oddly enough, the vocals rem...

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