Old Enough to Forget

Before Frank Mills punished the world with "Music Box Dancer" in 1979, Hagood Hardy had an unusual cross-over with "The Homecoming" back in 1975. Okay, to the purists out there yes "Music box Dancer" was actually recorded in 1974, but then "The Homecoming" got it's start in a commercial for Salada tea in 1972. What this has to do with anything is beyond me, but there you go. By 1978 Mr. Hardy was a known commodity with his brand of piano tinkling and it made sense that he put out a Christmas album at some point ... and then it happened.  A Very Special Christmas  was licensed to K-tel from Attic Records. Who knows how this came about, but there was a time the little label from Winnipeg wasn't that little. The album features sixteen tracks that cover all of the required bases. It should be noted that this album predates the A Very Special Christmas anthologies of Christmas music by about a decade. Those were good, but each album was a lit...

"Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to the Universal Amphitheater. Well, here it is the late 1970's going on 1985. Y'know so much of the music we here today is pre-programmed electronic disco, we never get a chance to hear master blues men practicing their craft anymore. By the year 2006, the music known today as the blues will exist only in the classical records department of your local public library. So tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen, while we still can, let us welcome from Rock Island, Illinois, the blues men of Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues - The Blues Brothers." - Elwood Blues As a kid I remember seeing them on SNL and they were amazing. I was a tad perplexed as I thought there would be a punchline ... this wasn't a joke. This was reverence and it may have been wrapped in a performance piece, but this was serious stuff and it was delivered like a love letter. From what I've read it was Dan Aykroyd who was the music aficionado, and introduced Jo...

I recently picked up a few albums (three) by The Babys - I'm still looking for their debut, but honestly I'm not looking too hard. I have   fond memories of the band and even though I can't remember much other than a couple of songs I still like them enough to want to hear their old stuff. Go figure. Head First was released at the end of '78 and they'd enjoy some chart success in April of '79 when "Every Time I Think of You" came close to cracking the top 10. It would be the band's most successful single ... but not their best song.. It's funny listening now, as I probably enjoy it more now than I did in the early '80s when I bought this one along with On the Edge . I know that "Every Time I Think of You" was the big hit, and it's a decent enough song, but for me it was the title track that floated my boat. It was a gritty, crunchy rock song with a great riff courtesy of Mr. Wally Stocker and his tasty guitar work. Not every s...

I picked this up because it looked like an interesting album. The back credits caught my attention: Produced by Gary Lyons, mastered by George Marino and recorded at the legendary Caribou Ranch in Colorado. I figured the album would lean one of two ways - a sucky late '70s Dan Fogelberg type album, or a straight ahead boogie woogie rock and roll album with a bit of twang. Guitarist Geoff Whitehorn was credited with playing "fiddle" so I figured that plaid jacket was appropriate. The anticipation of dropping the needle and those first moments of dead space are so good ... "Sail On" opens the album and the brief harmonic and sliding bass note is quickly followed by thick crunchy power chords that then give way to an infectious groove that has a lot of bounce and swing - in short swagger. The vocal harmonies are great and the interplay between the guitars and keyboards is simply awesome. I haven't had a truly great holy shit moment for a while. This was so good...

As a kid I remember liking "The Gambler" ... and then it became a song I couldn't stand. It didn't help that he came back with "Coward of the County" that pushed the same story shtick and that cemented him in my mind as a one trick pony and it was tiring. With that settled I moved on and hardly ever thought about Kenny Rogers, and I'm sure good old Mister Rogers (not that one, the other one) never thought of me either. It didn't help that his hits were cringe infused sappy ballads or duets. Everything seemed to further cement the judgment of a fifteen year old kid. Not that long ago I inherited a box of records that contained a whole lot of stuff that I'd be reluctant to donate to charity. However there were a couple of Christmas albums, some K-tel records (one was broken) and other odds and sods that I thought would be worth cleaning up. Among them was The Gambler , complete with the colour poster that was promised on the cover. Over the last li...

There are a few "HOLY SHIT" albums from my youth that still deliver the goods. Their debut is something to behold make no mistake, but in 1978 it was Boston's second album that was my first real introduction to the band. The title track was pure sonic magic and I couldn't get enough of it. I remember trying to dial in the rock stations on my stereo at night because sometimes the signal would be strong enough to reach Vancouver from the small town I grew up in. Every so often I'd be rewarded and I'd hear the song. It probably only happened once, maybe twice but it was enough to be indelible. Heck me and my buddy Andrew who was a hell of a guitar player when we were in our teens (far better than me) decided we'd learn how to play "Don't Look Back" and as Andrew had figured out how to play the cool rhythm parts I'd have to learn the lead fiddly bits. To our credit we did a passable job without a bass player, singer or a drummer ... although ...

This is the album that changed it all. Funny, I'd not listened to this one in a long time. Back when I was a kid I played this nearly to death. Even back then it was an album that had a few clunkers - at least to me. I know there are legions of fans who will lose their shit over "Atomic Punk" and that's just fine. It's a technically amazing bit of fretwork, but I didn't 't like it as a song at the time. I'm starting off on the wrong foot. I'd take a mulligan but I've used so many I'll just keep plowing on. As a teenager in the small town where I grew up there was no such thing as rock radio. Oh sometimes you'd hear something resembling top 40, but it was an all things to all people station and didn't seem to make anyone happy. I think I heard "You Really Got Me" on the radio, but I'm almost sure I didn't. It was the other kids, the cool kids at school who had records, or older siblings who had records and I'm p...

City Nights was Nick's second solo album, and for most of us it's "Hot Child in the City" that he's best known for ... as a solo artist. He's still somewhat infamous as the guy who left Sweeney Todd just as they were taking off ... but for many years now he's been touring as Sweeney Todd so I guess he ended up having the last laugh anyway. Regardless, there's no denying how good "Hot Child in the City" was ... it was huge on both sides of the border, and Nick's balancing of the glam elements mixed with rock and emerging new wave was pretty impressive. A big part of this was the songwriting team of James McCulloch and Nick Gilder. When Nick left Sweeney Todd, it was with guitarist and songwriter James, and if Nick had a secret sauce it was James' both as a writer, and more impressively - a really tasty and economical player. The album was produced by Peter Coleman, and Mike Chapman. Both had deep roots with power pop and glam. Mike C...

Teaze Tour of Japan . This is the one that got away from me back when I was in high school. There was a great little second hand store I frequented all the time. It was where I got my used comics, and picked up a seemingly inexhaustible number of Robert A. Heinlein paperbacks. Occasionally I'd get a Clarke, or Asimov but Heinlein was my jam. They also had a small section with some records. I picked up the first couple of PRISM albums there, and my once coveted copy of The Beatles White Album on white vinyl. There in the piles where I found April Wine's Live! was a copy of Tour of Japan .  I'd never heard of these guys, but it was a cool looking cover, and the inside of the gatefold was really cool too as it had an extra panel with band photographs. They looked like they were killing it. I'd pick up, and put back that album many times and then one day it was gone.  Dang. Fast forward more than a few years ( fine ... decades), and I'm digging through a bunch of recor...

For most of us Warren Zevon generally conjures up one song, "Werewolves of London" and that's about as far as it goes. That particular song was one I was very dismissive of back in the day. To me it was a hatchet job that borrowed too much from "Sweet Home Alabama" and tried too hard to be clever. Yeah, fifteen year old me was a pretty harsh critic. I will begrudgingly admit that over the years the song certainly had it's charms, and Warren's unusual voice and writing is oddly engaging. In the mid '80s my old roommate had the record, and I remember playing it quite a few times and I really enjoyed a number of the songs, particularly "Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Lawyers, Guns And Money" as well as the title track, which was about as dark and twisted as songs come. With the passage of time I'd more or less forget the album, and when Kid Rock's oddly goofy and somehow catchy sampling of bits and pieces of "...

1978 was an unbelievably cool year for music. From hard rock to new wave, and yes (unfortunately) disco (for those who liked that sort of thing) music was alive and well and it was a heady time. The Cars seemed to come out of nowhere, and while they wore their rock credentials on their collective sleeves they were also very different. They were living in the future and bringing it to the present. Yeah, that's as confusing as it sounds. The band enlisted the legendary Roy Thomas Baker to produce the album, who certainly knew a thing or two about getting the most out of a band. The guy's list of credits is unbelievable.  It's kind of weird and fun sitting here listening to an album I actually never had as a kid. I mean, it's not like I didn't know the songs but for whatever reason I wouldn't pick up the album, and all the others, until the early '80s. Before Heartbeat City , I might add, and that was because the rock station here played "Since You're ...

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...

If there was an artist I actively despised as a kid it was Leo Sayer. "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" was just plain stupid, and that horrific Frankie Valli falsetto was too much. I always thought he looked liked a diminutive version of Robin William's as Mork flying through the air. Which just shows how time blurs things, as Mork and Mindy wouldn't debut for another two years or so after this album came out ... but I remember the cover, and the blurring of time certainly hasn't helped.  I always thought of Leo Sayer as being huge in the disco era, and that songs like the aforementioned dancing song and the ballad "When I Need You" were later than this ... apparently I was wrong. Funny that. I have memories of Leo Sayer on those late night music shows, and I guess it just all sort of ran together. Anyway, back to my active dislike of all things Leo Sayer. It really wasn't based on anything other than he wasn't rock, and I didn't like how he s...