Old Enough to Forget

I was very late to the party with The 77s, and over the years I would work my way backward through the band's discography. The band's first three albums were on a wicked little CD box set, 123 that I spent entirely too much money on, but it was worth it. The downside was it was too much all at once and honestly I never spent enough time with the individual albums. It just ended up being an overwhelming experience and a check in the box for my completest tendencies. Don't get me wrong, I listened and I marvelled at the high points and pushed through the songs that didn't immediately resonate. I was taking in a band more than I was an album.  Whereas now, I'm sitting here four decades after the fact trying to process and catalogue an album that in a perfect world should have been in my collection from the get go. Did I mention I was late to the party? Live and learn right? In my defence 1984 was right in the heart of those dark years where I was disillusioned with so ...

Stealing Fire released in '84 was one of those rare albums that managed to be as awesome as it was perplexing. Despite my mixed reactions to some of his stuff there was a slice of time during the '80s where I kept up with him in real time. I know there's a shit load of love for his 1979 hit "Wondering Where the Lions Are" and despite his appearance playing the song on SNL I never really like it all that much. Oh it got under my skin in the same way that Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown" irritated me as a kid. In a scene worthy of Python where they're accusing Connie Booth of being a witch, I had been a musical newt ... I got better. Although I still revert from time to time. Regardless, I think the point I was trying to make before I distracted myself by thinking of Monty Python, was that for a little while I considered myself a fan, still do - just a tad more casual and less invested than some. I started my journey with T he Trouble with Normal , an...

REO Speedwagon was back in '84 with Wheels are Turnin' and indeed the wheels were still turning. They may not have been able to attain the giddy heights they achieved with their 1980 release Hi Infidelity . It was an impossibly high bar, but REO Speedwagon had enough momentum to be able to crank out double platinum albums back to back. First with Good Trouble and again with Wheels are Turnin' .  I saw the video once for the lead off single "I Do' Wanna Know" and thought it was hilarious ... I never saw it again, and I don't think I heard it very often on the radio. However when they dropped "Can't Fight This Feeling" was a huge hit and seemed to be on the radio all the time. It's a song I still like. Heck, if you're going to write a syrupy sucky ballad this is how you do it. Gary Richrath seemed to revel in laying down rock solos on everything the band recorded. Slow song. Cool. Time to melt a face or two. One rock solo comin' u...

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...

I snatched this up when I found it. Up and Down was released in '84 the same year "Live is Life" was a worldwide hit. Polydor repackaged the album, dropped a couple of songs from the European release and tacked on "Live is Life" which for those of us over here was a pretty good idea. I also suspect they subbed out the studio version of "Flyin' High" as well. Despite their success much of the band's catalogue was never released in North America, and even now the band has a surprisingly small digital footprint on the streaming platforms. The album is really good, and the title track "Up and Down" that opens the album is really strong with Herwig's soaring vocals and Ewald's tasty fretwork. The whole album is full of pleasant soft rock with hints of AOR and some progressive overtones. Knowing there are songs out there that were left off it makes me wonder what they were like. The nine songs here, seven studio tracks and two live ...

Before cell phones the big advance in telecommunications was the cordless telephone ... before that he who had the longest coiled cord ruled the world. If you could make it from the kitchen to an adjoining room you were just showing off. The long red cord is all over the album cover, and the insert. Certainly Chris was flexing. Here we have Chris De Burgh's 1984 follow up to his rather good 1982 album The Getaway , and this was so good. Man on the Line was again produced by Rupert Hine who also provided keyboards and the orchestral arrangements. I also assume he programmed the drums for most of the album. Phil Palmer was again present on guitar, and oh my stars and garters he was ON FIRE throughout the album. The guitar solo on "High on Emotion" is jaw dropping. Speaking of the drums, this is how they should have sounded on The Getaway , oh I'm  not trying to do Steve Negus dirty, the man is a premier pounder but his drums sound absolutely horrid on that album - which...

When Styx imploded after the band's 1983 tour that gave the world the live album Caught in the Act it was the end of an era. Styx had dropped their debut album in 1972, and while those first few albums on Wooden Nickel were inconsistent there was something undeniable going on, and by the time they released Equinox on A&M the band was starting to make a name for themselves. With the addition of Tommy Shaw in 1976 the band would enter it's classic run. With Kilroy Way Here the band started to come apart at the seams. The album would go platinum, but it wasn't the triple platinum their past few albums had delivered. Freed from the constraints of being in a band Dennis would drop Desert Moon in the fall of '83 and not long after Tommy Shaw's Girls with Guns was released. For me this was all gravy - I was, and continue be a sucker for all things related to Styx. Dennis got airplay with the title track, and the same with Tommy. However neither album exactly set the...

Today I'm writing about The Tenants, one of those bands who got together, released a couple of albums and then disappeared. They are a band who was new to me and  their two albums were in stark contrast to one another, and only one is available to stream. Shall we begin? Every so often I'll pop in to Krazy Bob's and see what I can knock off my wish list. I went earlier in the morning mainly because the store would likely be empty, and for me that's when Bob is at his best. I hadn't seen him since well before Christmas and he greeted me warmly and he asked me what I was looking for. I mentioned a few things and he helped me look through the bins. His filing system is organized chaos, but it is organized. Within a few minutes I had crossed a couple things off my list and then Bob did what Bob does. "Hey, have you heard of these guys?" He's done this to me many times, and generally I try to glance at the price before committing, but he seldom pulls out an...

I actually don't remember picking this up. I was sorting through the rather intimidating pile of albums waiting for a spin and this looked interesting in a nondescript and inoffensive way. The cover reminded me a little of Bruce Cockburn's '84 album Stealing Fire . I said reminded , if you're going to do an A/B comparison they aren't that similar at all. Anyway, I was farting around in the basement cleaning records, and I figured I'd put it on. I didn't look at the credits on the back, I just plopped it on the platter and let it spin. Right off the bat the first track "Hold On" the band had my attention. This was the kind of polished rock and roll that still gets the little hairs on my arm to stand up. As the first side played through I kept trying to figure out who the band sounded like. Vocally there's a little Stephen Pearcy from RATT, mixed with Kenny Shields from Streetheart, and musically this is pretty standard early '80s AOR, and so...

I hated this song when I first heard it. It was a clunky, tone deaf bit of musical hubris that seemed entirely self serving. That and it featured a gaggle of singers I ... could ... not ... stand. Over the years the song has managed to worm it's way into my subconscious, and I will begrudgingly admit that there are some pretty catchy bits and I actually enjoy the song now. To the point where I look forward to hearing it over the holidays. It's still completely tone deaf, but now it just feels like something that was okay in the olden days, and a tad out of step today but that's okay. It's hard to imagine that it's been forty years. Good grief. Of course, to celebrate the occasion there's a 40th Anniversary remix that has managed to recreate all of the vitriol I felt when I first heard it back in '84. Now, it's not just a case of me being a borderline boomer, it really is a stinking piece of musical crap. Even my daughter who loves all things Christmas ha...

In the fall of '84 two albums dropped that were huge for me. Toto's maligned Isolation , and Don Henley's Building the Perfect Beast . Toto's album will be another day but today I'm sitting in the basement with the music on and pretending in twenty one again and discovering the album for the first time. David and Steve from Toto show up here quite a bit which I always thought was cool. I'd heard "Boys of Summer" on the radio and that song was so good, and the fact I had a Grateful Dead sticker on my car at the time only added to the fun. I always think of the album as being excellent, but honestly the two songs I really associate with the album are the aforementioned "Boys of Summer" and "Sunset Grill" ... I try not to think about "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" because I still think it's a giant musical turd. I still remember pouring over the credits while listening to the album, and "Boys of Summer" drove me...

The Riddle dropped in the fall of 1984 several months after his debut Human Racing was released. 1984 was a good year for Mister Kershaw, although the The Riddle not as successful as his debut, it was the album I preferred. I likely picked this up a couple of years after it came out as I still think of this as being an album that I was listening to in 1986 or 1987. Which means I found it on sale and took a chance on it. Sounds about right. Listening to this now, with the benefit of hindsight and perspective that I didn't have at the time. I'm struck by the change in tact between his debut and the what he was writing and recording for his follow up. Right out of the gate "Don Quixote" was an odd blend of techno with elements of funk. A little bit like what Level 42 was doing as well - oddly enough Mark King would guest on the closing track on side one, "Easy." At the time I wasn't a big fan of Level 42, although Mark's talent as a player cannot be ...

Here was chugging along into August, and I have to admit that my self imposed schedule of cranking out two of these a month may have been a tad ambitious. It's likely I'll take a step back and go to once a month. I mean, I'm spending a lot of time jotting down my meandering thoughts that frankly for the most part are just on this side of being coherent ... I'll let you pick a side. Still, I've been grinding my way through my pile of records. Up for grabs this time out are another gaggle of odds and sods and repeat offenders. Let's get right to it ... are you seated comfortably? Chilliwack – Look In, Look Out (1984) Neil Diamond - Love At The Greek: Recorded Live At The Greek Theatre (1977) Pete Townshend - All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982) Loverboy - Wildside (1987) T Bone Burnett - The Talking Animals (1988) Chilliwack – Look In, Look Out (1984) At the time this felt like a reset for the perennial Canadian stallwarts who'd been cranking ou...