Old Enough to Forget

This was the shit when I was a kid. The album was legendary, and the two killers "Ballroom Blitz" and "Fox on the Run" were so good they were essentially career defining. I could stop right now and that would be enough. Mic drop and walk off.  ... I'm back.  I wanted to just jot down a few things because it's sort of my thing. It may be worth it. Maybe not, you never know ... this isn't a cheese shop, I could be deliberately wasting your time. Regardless, pull up a chair, or at least watch where you're walking if you're on your phone. I have vague memories of the cool kids talking about the song "A.C.D.C." and "Sweet F.A." and then giggle knowingly. I didn't have the album and I never heard them so I wasn't in on the joke. I knew what the album looked like. I would see it when I would browse through records dreaming about what I'd like to buy. Even then it was a long list ... it seemed long to me at the time. That ...

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...

I was this many years old when I finally realized it wasn't Seals & Croft ... it was Seals & CROFTS. Well, better late than never I guess. Seals & Crofts had a pretty good run through the early '70s. While I'd never have called myself much of a fan I had to admit that their radio hits were syrupy ear candy. I still love "Summer Breeze" and "Diamond Girl" and when I saw the Greatest Hits album in the bargain bin (along with about twenty other albums that came home with me ... it was a good haul) I had to get it. So I did. The album after a deep clean was remarkably pristine and the liner notes were still inside the jacket. Sadly it was just a lyric sheet with no credits. At least the back cover listed the producer - Louis Shelton, the legendary session guitarist who I assume also played guitar on the album.  This is a great sounding record, and the intertwined harmonies of James Seals and Dash Crofts are so good. It would have been cool to ha...

Crack the Sky. I have no idea why I picked this up. The cover looked intriguing, and the logo was embossed as was the doodad looking thing in the centre. The band looked cool and I figured it was hard rock or glam ... both were appealing. I bought it a couple of years ago and it's been sitting on a shelf waiting to be played. I just kept adding albums to the pile and frankly this one got buried.  I was flipping through my inbox shelf to see what might catch my eye and paused on this one. The heaven's opened up and it was time to crack the sky (it's okay, you can roll your eyes, I did). I dropped the needle and the opening chords to "Hold On" immediately caught my attention. It called to mind Rush for a moment ... only a moment until John Palumbo started to sing, which was of talking narration that gave way to an infectious chorus. The guitar solo was an honest to goodness face melter. Not that it was a blistering flurry of notes, the opposite in fact, but dagnabbi...

I had no idea Ambrosia were THIS GOOD! Holy snot balls, rub tiger balm in my eyes I did not expect this. I mean, I knew of David Pack was from Ambrosia mainly because I'd seen his name on Kerry Livgren's solo album Seeds of Change . I couldn't place the band though, as the only song I could recall was "Biggest Part of Me" that honestly sounded like a cheap knock off of The Doobie Brothers. Heck even the name, Ambrosia sounded wimpy. I thought it was a flower or the kind of drink that came with cherries and a wee tiny umbrella.  The album opens with "Nice, Nice, Very Nice" and it's a killer song that has soaring keyboards and a great groove. Heck Kurt Vonnegut gets a writing credit so you just know it's going to be something ... nice. From the opening song I could not reconcile this as Ambrosia ... this was cool. Turns out the sucky stuff started on their appropriately named album One Eighty from 1980. However, take anything I write with a heapin...

This is one of the albums I saved from a box of rather suspect records my mother in law found in the crawl space. It seems that no one was entirely sure of the origins of the box, but it was an eclectic mess of audible bric-a-brac. Mixed in with a very beat up Supremes double album (that couldn't be salvaged) were a few things that looked like fun. None more so than this Freddy Fender record. "Wasted Days & Wasted Nights" was a song I remembered, but the version on this collection likely dates back to the original 1959 recording. It's hard to tell as the credits are sketchy - well, non-existent. There's a certain charm to this one and it's rough and spotty in places but the bones of the song that he re-recorded to greater fanfare in 1975, the same year this collection was released by Pickwick, the king of budget opportunistic hits packages. I should have known it would sound like dogshit, especially with the little blurb on the top left on the back cover: ...

Equinox is by far the best album Styx released - by the original line up that is. It was the final record to feature John Curulewski before his departure ushered in the band's next phase with Tommy Shaw. When I started working my way backward through Styx’s catalogue, I always wondered what happened to John. On those early albums, I really enjoyed the guitar interplay between James Young and John (note, I know the drummer was John too, but when I say John I mean John the guitar guy). In fact, I found myself liking a few songs—especially the ones John sang—on the band’s second 1973 release, The Serpent Is Rising . If I’m being honest, my favourite was actually the hidden track, “Don’t Sit Down on the Plexiglas Toilet,” which Curulewski wrote. Apparently, the band hated The Serpent Is Rising , calling it one of the worst albums ever made. Ouch. I guess they forgot to listen to Man of Miracles . Anyway, back to Equinox and why it was such a great album. After four records on the sma...

Oh boy here we are with the twelfth instalment of Stylus Over Substance. What was supposed to be the short bite sized impressions of stuff I didn't feel like waxing all nonsensical over and wasting too many words.  I've not always been successful, or coherent. Does it really matter? Probably not, you're either in, or you're out. It's all good. Sometimes it's better. I'm still working my through the piles of records I got for Christmas, and the additional pile I just got for Father's Day will eventually get my attention. Sit back, put your feet up, let's celebrate the fifty five other entries that came before, and get to the next five. Howard Jones - Action Replay (1986) Martha and The Muffins - Trance and Dance (1980) Terry Jacks - Y'Don't Fight the Sea (1975) Barney Bigard & "The Pelican Trio" - Barney Bigard & "The Pelican Trio" (1978) The Alpha Band - Spark in the Dark (1977) Howard Jones - Action Replay (19...

Ladies and gentlemen, MUD. I had no idea these guys existed until the early '90s when one Christmas I saw Bernard and the Genie . It's probably the greatest holiday movie ever. With Lenny Henry and Alan Cumming and an incredibly nasty Rowan Atkinson. I taped the movie from the television broadcast and for years and years we'd re-watch our spotty copy, complete with the cheesy commercials. The soundtrack to the Richard Curtis film was absolutely amazing, and among the many, many classics was "Lonely This Christmas" by MUD. Okay, to be fair I didn't know who sang the song at the time, but I really, really liked it. When I found a CD called Instant Christmas Collection that featured a lot of UK artists I finally knew. It was MUD. Of course it was produced by the kings of Glam, Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman. Goodness gravy them there two dudes were a gold spinning dynamic duo. Oh, the remake simply called Genie with Melissa McCarthy ... um.  Pass. I tried, and ...

I found these a while back, and they got filed and eventually ended up at the bottom of the pile and the pile just kept getting bigger. I decided maybe I should shuffle things a little and see what's in there. Well, boy howdy I here are the first two albums by Angel. Their debut and their follow-up Helluva Band in 1976. I remember finding these and being kind of stoked to hear them. I recognized Greg Giuffria's name from "Call to the Heart" back in'84. A song that was out of the Journey playbook, but I always liked it. So there. The Angel albums were on Casablanca, the label KISS was on ... for me this was the label of the gods. Except that the label would become profitable when they moved into disco and unleashed The Village People like a virus on the people of the world. The Angel albums came out back in '75 and '76 and as you may have guessed, these records while really really cool - didn't exactly make the band a household name. Shit, even the wiki...

Thanks for popping in, this month is a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I seemed to be in a but of a maudlin mood and went back to the '70s for a couple albums by Dave Loggins and Ian Thomas. They were both young men at the time with a level of maturity that seems beguiling to me now as I sit here listening as an old man. Yeah, make no mistake, my youth is in my rear view mirror now. Told I was feeling maudlin. Regardless, for a bunch of albums that go back several decades it's funny how this still feels fresh to me. Peter Schilling - Error in the System (1983) Toronto - Lookin' for Trouble (1980) Steve Winwood - Arc of a Diver (1980) Dave Loggins - Personal Belongings (1972) Ian Thomas - Delights (1975) Peter Schilling - Error in the System (1983) From the catalogue of one hit wonders on this side of the Atlantic Peter Schilling hit it pretty big with "Major Tom (Coming Home)" a catchy song that seemed to be here, and then gone. Which is too bad, ...

A new year and the whole Five for Fighting thing was fun but it's run it's course. I still like the idea of shorter blurbs so I'll do the same thing with a different name and see how it goes. After all who doesn't love it  when you repackage the same old shit and give it a new name? Given the volume of stuff I have on my desk I may end up doing this more often ... or not.  Let's under promise and over deliver. Les Dudek - Les Dudek (1976) Bay City Rollers - Bay City Rollers (1975) Smith - A Group Called Smith (1969) The Inmates - First Offence (1979) Sniff n' the Tears - Fickle Heart (1978) Les Dudek - Les Dudek (1976) The dollar bin giveth, and the dollar bin taketh away. Today it was in a giving mood, and I stumbled upon cover that just screamed "LOOK AT ME!" Good lord, who doesn't want to hear an album where the guy is playing a wicked looking Gibson Goldtop with P90s that had a parrot perched on the headstock? What sealed it was a scan o...