Old Enough to Forget

Journey released Frontiers in '83 and the band was messing around with their winning recipe. The band had always been good, but the addition of Jonathan Cain, who took over keyboards from Gregg Rolie after 1980's Departure  gave the band an extra gear. Jonathan co-wrote all of the songs on Frontiers except for "Faithfully" which he brought to the band. Heck he was all over Escape too, but that's another story. You can read it here if you want ... or not. The band had gone diamond with Escape , a nearly impossible feat to replicate and I'm sure there was more than a little tension in the studio as they cut the tracks. I know that Journey was supposed to be Neal's band (according to Neal), and in many ways it is, but when Steve Perry arrived it was Neal and Steve, and then with Jonathan he became the third leg of the milking stool. I'm not dismissing Ross or the other Steve. Those guys were integral to the band's sound ... right up to when they weren...

When Escape came out in the summer of 1981 Journey went from being big to HUGE. I first heard the band back in the summer of '78 when I was stuck in a forestry camp for the summer and one of the other kids had a copy of Infinity among his collection of summer tunes. I loved "Wheel in the Sky" even though the opening riff seemed to be an unabashed rip off of "Layla" and nobody seemed to mind or care.  The band would follow up a year later with Evolution and then in 1980 Departure contained "Any Way You Want It" which was also featured in Caddyshack. That to me was pure ear candy. How could the bad ever top this? Escape would be the band's seventh album in as many years and would be the band's crowning achievement. Everything seemed to be in place for Journey, REO Speedwagon the year before had seemingly paved the way with their Hi Infidelity album and people were ready for what Journey was about to bring to the table. No, I'm not sleeping...

Up to today, my knowledge of The Vapors pretty much started and ended with their seminal hit "Turning Japanese" a song that has more than stood the time. In 1980 a lot of bands were riding the first wave of new wave, and the raw energy of those heady days was pretty awesome. I always liked the song, but back then my purchasing power was pretty limited and there was an awful lot of music I would have liked to have ... but it was the age old balancing of needs and wants. I wanted a lot of stuff that I honestly didn't need. Well, that and I had no money. This was always a band I was curious about, and figured one day I'd pick up the album. As fate would have it, I found a copy that had seen better days - the cover was worse for wear, but the vinyl inside was immaculate. I could live with that. I'm managing to scratch a lot of things off my old "want" list ... and it seems with every item I cross off, I find something else to add in it's place. I don...