Old Enough to Forget

The other day I was listening to GNP's lone album, the one with Robert Bevan on vocals, and it brought to mind the old CBC television show The Raes, featuring Robbie Rae (who was really Robert Bevan, if that wasn't obvious) and Cherrill Rae. Prism guested on the show, and they played a couple of songs from their latest album. It's funny the pointless stuff you remember, but I still can't figure out where I hid my spare keys in case there was an emergency. Armageddon was Prism's third album in three years, and it would become the band's commercial high-water mark. In the summer of 1979, the title track "Armageddon" was the best song I'd heard in a long time and, over the decades, has aged into one of the coolest rock songs ever. It pushed nearly eight minutes, but there were no wasted moments. My summer job in 1979, the year I turned sixteen, was with the forestry service. Along with a youth crew of close to forty other raging, hormonal teenage boys...

Continuing my trip through 1978, here's Prism's second album, See Forever Eyes . I remember going with my cousin to a hole-in-the-wall record store to pick up an 8-track copy he'd special ordered. Yeah, it was like that once upon a time in smaller towns and suburbs. Like any good Canadian kid, I thought "Spaceship Superstar" was as close to a perfect song as there ever was. Here was the follow-up, and I was finally going to hear more than one song. After ejecting the ever-present Double Live Gonzo! from the truck's player, this one got a fair amount of play over the summer, and I liked what I heard - especially the rockers where Lindsay tore it up. The early Prism albums were driven as much by the interplay between guitar and keyboards as they were by Ron Tabak's soaring vocals - a pattern some of my favourite bands employ, much to my delight (Saga, I'm looking at you). When the album launches into "Flyin'," arguably one of its best track...