Old Enough to Forget

Looks like I almost got stuck in the '70s this month. Not a bad thing. Considering how much I go on about the '80s and all that, blah blah blah - I have collected a lot of stuff from the decade of my childhood. Which shouldn't really be a surprise considering most of what's available on vinyl is heavily concentrated in the '60s and '70s. When CDs came out I quickly jumped ship ... hence the lack of records from my favoured decade. Still, man, there was some great stuff coming out of my childhood, and a lot of new to me stuff that has truly stood the test of time. Let's take a look at this months ... Five For Fighting No. 10 Nick Gilder - Frequency (1979) Joan Armatrading - Armatrading (1976) Ian Thomas - Calabash (1976) Linda Ronstadt - Prisoner in Disguise (1975) The Vapors - Magnetic (1981) Nick Gilder - Frequency (1979)  Nick followed up City Nights and "Hot Child in the City" with Frequency and the single that should have been huge, "(Yo...

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 test of 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 its place. I do...