Old Enough to Forget

Hailed as one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever, Led Zeppelin II would peak at number one on most charts around the world when it was released, and would go on to sell more than 12,000,000 copies in the US and just shy of a million here in Canada. My earliest memories are hearing this constantly on my cousin's record player. "Whole Lotta Love" would be a confusing song to me for years and years as I had no idea Robert Plant wasn't saying, "You need Kool-Aid." Make no mistake it was an awesome song, but it was too weird for me at the same time. It didn't help that when Houses of the Holy came out the only song I heard on the radio was "D'yer Mak'er" a song that to this day makes me throw up a little in my mouth when I hear it. The cover was cool though, and my cousin's had it tacked to their bedroom wall. My cousin's were cool. When the band released In Through the Out Door in 1979 it was a perplexing record, as "...

I'll admit that this kind of music wasn't my cup of tea back when I was a teenager. It was generally balls to the wall rock or nothing ... unless it was a power ballad. Of course even back in '78 you'd have had to be living under a rock, with a rock on top of it not to have heard Nicolette's version of "Lotta Love" when it came out. It was a slick syrupy masterclass in soft rock ... the song was a big deal and it pulled the album along with it, peaking at #15 in the States, and #1 here in Canada. The album would go gold in both markets. It was a strong debut. This was all I knew about Nicolette Larson. I was okay with that. Then a couple of years ago right around the time Eddie Van Halen passed away there was a rash of Edward stories. There were more than a few about Ed's turn as soloist on Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and people were talking about it like it was the only time Eddie had played outside of Van Halen. I knew he had been on ot...

Flash and the Pan was the brainchild of Harry Vanda and George Young. The duo had been active since the '60s, first with a band called the Easybeats, and from there they would launch George's two younger brothers Malcolm and Angus' band AC/DC. They would produce them up to 1978 before the band engaged Mutt Lange (who then was still Robert "Mutt" Lange) to produce their 1979 release Highway to Hell. Mutt was an interesting fellow, and although synonymous now with slick hard rock (or slick Shania albums) he also produced The Boomtown Rats The Fine Art of Surfacing in 1979 as well. From what I've read the origins of Flash and Pan go back to the later '70s, where they had released a couple of singles, starting with "Hey St. Peter" in 1977 and "Down Among the Dead Men" in 1978. They would release their self title album at the end of 1978, and then in 1979 the album would be released in North America on Epic. While I don't really remembe...

At the risk of sounding like a broken record and repeating myself, I'll bring you up to speed on my love hate relationship with Payolas ($). At best I was a casual fan but I will give credit where credit is due. When they were good they were as good as it got. Seriously, "Eyes of a Stranger" is just about as good as it gets, and over the decades the song has woven itself into the fabric of Canadian classic rock.  When the band followed up their 1982 release No Stranger to Danger a year later with Hammer on a Drum also produced by Mick Ronson, there was anticipation in the air. This was going to break the band wide open. "Where is this Love" was the song that got me in the feels and I would have picked up the album except the other song that got radio play was "Never Said I Loved You" where Paul and Carole Pope took turns singing ... in other words it was a duet. To say I had a visceral reaction to the song understates the meaning of the word visceral....

Time for a little Canadiana. Funny how some acts can be so influential and yet be totally unknown to the rest of the world. Then again, to be fair some of these albums weren't well known at home either. You pays your money you takes your chance. I didn't have any of these albums back in the day, so it's been an interesting trip down memory lane. With Harlequin and Trooper I knew some of the songs, but on the others they were brand new to me. Sometimes that's awesome, sometimes it makes me sad to be so later to the party. I suppose it's better late than never. Harlequin - One False Move (1982) Lava Hay - Lava Hay (1990)  The Front - Gina's at a Party (1983) The Kings - Amazon Beach (1981) Trooper - Thick as Thieves (1978) Harlequin - One False Move (1982) - Harlequin's third album, and the last of their records to be produced by the legendary Jack Douglas. I still have no idea why I never got this album at the time as I liked the songs I heard on the radi...

Getting this was an accident, but I'm not complaining or crying foul. My old record store shuttered and moved to a warehouse and now runs an auction to purge inventory. For me this is a bit of a double edged sword. Over the last couple of years I'd ended up with a lot of stuff as I fished through the dollar section, and every so often splurged when it was my birthday or Christmas. The end result being a shortage of storage space, and an inability to expand as it was made clear from the onset that I couldn't take up more space. It was the auction section that became my win some lose some playground. I'd scan through the listings, and click on a couple here and there to satisfy the minimum bids, then walk away until things closed. This last cycle there were a couple that caught my eye, and this one. Soft Cell's Happiness not Included was on yellow vinyl. I really didn't want it but it looked interesting, and until I brought it home didn't know it was a relati...

I love a surprise that has a surprise inside. Recently I was out of town, and generally this means my wife gets to go shopping and I'm dragged along to carry the bags and pay for stuff. As it happens there was a little hole in the wall used record store that seemed to have a lot of grossly overpriced product, but the owner was a quirky character and we got to chatting. The filing system made sense to him, but was otherwise indecipherable to the rest of us. We got onto the subject of power pop and I mentioned a few albums I was looking for. His eyes would light up, as I made my inquiries. "Ooh, I have that one ... but not here." Or "Yeah that's a good one, it's upstairs but I can't get it right now. Are you from out of town? Oh, that's too bad." All the while he was rooting around and pulling out albums I wasn't asking about, and piling them in front of me. Among them was this album by Red Rockers. It looked pretty interesting based on the cov...