Old Enough to Forget

It was sealed, and it was cheap, and it followed me home so I got to keep it. New Regime, stylized as New:Regime was a relatively short lived '80s new wave tinged rock band who released two albums on RCA, their self titled debut in '85 and The Race which was released in '87. Me personally, I don't think I'd heard of them and reading through the credits I can't say I recognized any of the main players. I did recognize Neil Chapman's (Pukka Orchestra) name along with Dalbello under the additional musicians section which did lend a little cred from my perspective. I had been puttering in the basement, so I figured I'd just put this one and crank it up. Admittedly not the best way to road test a new album but it is what it is. Musically this sort of hit where I thought it would, which was cool. It was very mid '80s and reminded me a lot of Robbie Nevil (only on the first listen, after that it was harder to hear) but you'd be forgiven if you came up w...

Today I'm taking a break from my vinyl reminiscing and writing about Graeme Williamson's wonderful and breathtakingly beautiful posthumous release Because You Were There . Those who know me, know that one of my favourite records ever is Pukka Orchestra's debut album. For whatever reason that album is indelibly ingrained in my musical DNA. I remember Neil Chapman (Pukka alumni, and fret wizard) mentioning in passing through one of our infrequent exchanges he was working on fleshing out some demos and recordings Graeme had made before his passing in 2020. Then the other day I received a digital copy of the album, complete with a comprehensive booklet (something sorely missing from the majority of releases, and sadly when I looked for it on iTunes it wasn't part of the download, hopefully that can be fixed). They say you can't go home again, but hearing Graeme's distinctive voice was like a homecoming of sorts. There's still a bite to his lyrics but the angry y...

The Pukka Orchestra were Graeme Williamson (who sadly passed away a couple of years ago)  and guitarists Neil Chapman and Tony Duggan-Smith. Neil in particular became a pen pal of sorts over the years, and remains one of my favourite guitar players. The image to the left was sent to me by a friend (Jeff, my friend Jeff) who lives in Illinois who has impeccable taste. I sent him the album because he'd not heard of the band, and frankly when I found a used copy (which is in far better shape than mine, as all I have left is the vinyl as the jacket was damaged and lost) I boxed it up and sent it to him because he was missing out and needed to hear why I kept fussing about these guys. Back in 1984 I was old enough to drink and party, but didn't do either. Instead I tended to geek out to records in my basement. Apparently Eastern Canada played "Listen to the Radio" but where I lived on the wet West Coast the song I heard and fell in love with was "Might as Well be on...