Old Enough to Forget

As a kid I remember "Your Mamma Don't Dance" as one of those really cool songs, and I always got a kick (and still do) when the song got to the "Outta the car longhair." As for the Poison remake, that goes in the trash alongside the Motley Crue version of "Smokin' in the Boy's Room" neither band had any idea what to do with the source material other than try and rock it up and suck the life out of the song. Anyway ... it was the original that rings true, and it was the reason I picked up the album when I found a pretty decent copy in the dollar bin a while back. I always knew they were a successful band, but I really didn't know anything other than the one song. Kenny Loggins to me was always just the guy who managed to carve out a niche as king of the soundtrack singles, starting with "I'm Alright" from Caddyshack, and then again with "Footloose" and "Danger Zone" I mean to say those were huge is an unders...

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...

By 1974 Andy Kim was already a pretty established writer and performer. Most of us kids knew "Sugar Sugar" but couldn't have told you who wrote or sang it ... it was The Archies and that was that. Of course everything is processed through a lens and there's a huge difference between what I was able to process as an eleven year old who was obsessed with the radio and music and the knowledge and trivia I have accumulated over the intervening decades ... decades . Good lord, when did I get old? Andy Kim was the eponymous release on ICE records in 1974, and it was distributed here in Canada by London Records. The song everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knows is "Rock Me Gently" a song that was made to sing along too. Like so many others back in the day much of my record collection was comprised of K-Tel anthologies, and there were two that I played until I almost wore the needle through the vinyl. Canadian Mint . 22 songs that were carefully edited and condensed to ...

As a teenager Friday night often meant staying up late and watching "concerts" on TV. Before there was MTV and MuchMusic there was Burt Sugarman's The Midnight Special. Wolfman Jack would do something or other, but there would be "performances" by a lot of popular bands and musicians. Sure, they were likely lip synced, but what wasn't? You mean to tell me Dick Clark's American Bandstand was actually live? There would be a lot of stuff I don't remember, some I actively disliked. Yeah, early Prince in a loin cloth put me off his music for years. Then one night there was Christopher Cross performing "Ride Like the Wind" and after the fog machine more or less covers the stage the band launches in, and there's no Michael McDonald. Were they actually singing? I'm enthralled by this giant guitar playing Baby Huey with a receding hairline. The song gets to the end guitar solo and for the first time you can actually really hear what he's...