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Gary O' - Strange Behavior

Strange Behavior is an album I remember fondly and for many years I looked for it on CD - I never did find a copy. When I set up my old system in the basement, this was one of the first records I played (to be fair, it's not like I had a lot of vinyl left to choose from, but what I had left was special, at least to me). I could picture Gary standing there playing his Roland G-707 in a sheepskin collared bomber jacket - he was the epitome of cool. In short I was having a great time reminiscing. I'm playing this now and partway through the first side the little things that irritated me back then, weren't as pronounced now. I'm a sucker for hi-hat work, and a good drummer, sure the Simmons kits in the early 80s had a sound that defined the decade, but in terms of any accentuating hardware was practically non-existent here. The result on Strange Behavior is a driving beat without any accoutrements so to speak, although here and there buried in the mix you can hear a symbo...

38 Special - Tour de Force

I was thinking about bands with two drummers (mainly because I'd just finished listening to Dickey Betts & Great Southern) and 38 Special popped to mind. It was them or Adam Ant, and at the moment (because, well, you never know) I don't have any Adam Ant. So it was 38 Special, and as I'd recently found a mint copy of Tour de Force I figured this was worth a spin and a reminisce. My first introduction to the band was through a cassette copy of Wild-Eyed Southern Boys my little sister was given by someone she babysat for ... I think that's where it came from ... who knows maybe she stole it. As she didn't have a cassette player and I did, I "borrowed" it - forever (until I lost it). I seldom made it past the first song - "Hold on Loosely" blew my mind, and it didn't take long for me to get the triptych of releases from 1981 through 1983. Each album had something special, but honestly trying to remember any of the deeper album cuts eludes m...