Old Enough to Forget

Tonio K. is one of those artists you need to spend a little time with before you get to the payoff. I'll freely admit I came to Tonio K. through iDEoLA - more specifically because of the connection to WHAT? Records, which was distributed by A&M. For whatever reason, I still tend to think of Romeo Unchained and Tribal Opera as musical bookends. Which, of course, is pure unadulterated nonsense. Other than a heavy dose of '80s production, the albums are nothing alike. Romeo Unchained was an album I didn't give much more than a cursory listen to when I first got it many years ago. There were some catchy songs here and there, and musically this was a mid-'80s mix of alternative and techno - it was very '80s, with all of the trimmings. It was sparkly and new. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but after a couple of cursory spins it got shelved. Which was a shame and, frankly, my loss. A couple years ago I found a copy of Life in the Food Chain , and I took the...

The little sticker on the shrinkwrap says, "You may remember David Baerwald from David & David's Boomtown ..." You bet, I remembered David Baerwald. Back in 1986 Boomtown was an album with moments of sheer brilliance. The whole album may not have been as top shelf as the first few tracks, but that didn't matter - it is an excellent album. I waited for a follow-up ... and waited, and then in 1990 it was a solo David, David Baerwald,  who dropped Bedtime Stories . I snapped it up. "All For You," the opening cut, is still my favourite song on the album. It was mesmerizing. I'm not sure if the song got any airplay, it may have, but that may have been wishful thinking on my part as it was on a lot of mix tapes at the time and I heard it a lot in the car. The CD had a great booklet with all of the musician credits and lyrics. Oddly, when I found a sealed copy of the record (a great score), it just had a plain paper insert - the picture of David walking wit...

David Baerwald and David Ricketts released Boomtown back in 1986. I remember when I first heard this on the radio. I was enthralled. Who were these guys? I've only experienced this feeling a few times, one memorable time when I was driving my little sister home after a New Year's Eve party and I heard for the first and only time "Last Plane Out" by Toy Matinee. Thankfully the DJ mentioned the band as I committed that to memory. Hearing "Boomtown" was like that. Who were these guys? They would show up on MuchMusic and they'd talk about their tour, and how much they liked their opening act Robert Cray, who was riding a wave with the success of his Strong Persuader album. I don't know why that stuck with me - trivia is a wonderful thing and my accumulation of useless knowledge will certainly come in handy when the zombie apocalypse hits. Of course I bought the album right away - and the lead off track was the money shot, but then it was followed up by ...