Old Enough to Forget

I suppose the meanest thing I could say about this one is, "Hey look kids it Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo's less talented doppelgangers." Of course that's more than a little unfair. I did say it was the meanest thing I could say, and really, after all this time is it even fair to take pot shots at QuarterFlash? No it isn't fair, then again no one said life was fair. Let's step back and address the elephant in the room, their 1981 hit "Harden My Heart" a song that went gold, and single-handedly carried the album to platinum status by the middle of '82. The album had legs and "Harden My Heart" was an excellent song, and is still an excellent song. The saxophone solo was right up there with  Raphael Ravenscroft's work on "Baker Street" - yeah, it was that good. So we know for certain the album had one killer track and I'm going to just park that one in a safe space and listen to the rest of the album ... you know, the son...

Courtesy flush for the reader ... I will often plop down a long meaderambling introduction before getting to the point ... or as close as I can generally get. I've read this one, it's pretty incoherent at times. If you may want skip intro if you're inclined. SKIP INTRO When Heavy Metal came out in the summer of '81 it was jaw dropping. I really didn't have many of the magazines because they were a little too out there and were more expensive than the comics I normally bought. The movie though - that was another thing altogether. Besides most of the guys from SCTV seemed to be in there somewhere, and there were cartoon titties. Den would have approved ... and he did (if you know, you know). It was the music though. The first scene opens with a space shuttle with the bay doors open, and an astronaut driving a Corvette makes it's way through the atmosphere - and blaring through the speakers is Rigg's "Radar Rider" and from that moment I was hooked. T...

"Short People" was the first song I'd heard by Randy Newman when I was a kid. It was also one of those songs far too many people took at face value based on the title, who didn't even bother to listen to the song. I still remember the tempest in a tea cup and even then it was perplexing. Dang, even Billy Barty wasn't very happy about the song.  I know there were a lot of people who seemed to pride themselves on not listening to the lyrics of a song as a way of defending themselves when listening to "questionable" music. At least that was a defence a lot of "Christian" kids used to defend listening to secular music. The ability to be tone deaf and easily offended isn't something new ... The problem with satire is to some folks it's just truth wrapped in humour as a way of sending in a Trojan horse filled with hate and bigotry. Randy Newman's affinity for first person narratives that cut deep can be a little on the nose, and with ...

Time Peace The Rascals Greatest Hits was an album I found in a dollar bin and for my buck I wanted to get "Good Lovin'" and ended up getting more for my buck than I expected. The record jacket still had the original shrink wrap on it, and I couldn't bring myself to peel it off, so I didn't. The album itself was in better shape than I expected considering the liner was long gone. Very few pops and clicks. Yeah, I got my dollar's worth. Apparently there was a gatefold version as well ... that would have been nice. The cover I assumed was a nod to  Roy Lichtenstein mixed with Andy Warhol. Or not, who knows. I'm just trying to put that one semester of art history to use.  The album crams fourteen songs onto two sides, and while there are a few covers they appear on the first side. From what I can tell the songs are presented in chronological order and in the early days outside writers helped flesh out their repertoire and songs like "Good Lovin'"...

SAGA is one of my favourite bands hands down. Having said that, I'm not as obsessive as a true die hard. I mean I never poured over the lyrics trying to pieces together The Chapters but I did make a point of getting The Chapters Live when the band put the songs out in chronological order.  Living in Canada the opportunities to see the band live are few, so I settled for the live DVDs the band released. I did get to see them in a festival setting they were on second after Haywire (oh how I wished Ian and Paul would have done a song together, oh well) on one of the hottest days of the summer. It was as Eric Idle would say, "Hot enough to boil a monkey's bum." Anyway this is all just prattle, but it's sort of relevant ...I think.  Back to the obsessive comment, while I may not be a die hard who has to dissect everything into little pieces, I am a completest and when I get into something, I generally don't go in half way, if I like it - I want it all. With SAGA t...

I love pleasant surprises. This popped up on an auction site and it looked interesting, so I put in the minimum bid and forgot about it ... until I got a message telling me I'd won and should go pick it up. It was still sealed which was a bonus. Of course the cardboard dust and tight fit was irritating and I'm sure the extra bit of unwanted scuffing as on the record as I tried to get it out of the sleeve is just the way things are nowadays apparently. This is why I seldom buy new stuff. Still, this was about the music, and I had deliberately not looked up the band in advance. I was sort of expecting so indie artsy fartsy stuff, but honestly I had no idea what to expect. From the opening notes of the title track, the album was one unexpected surprise and another. Brave Shores is a synth-pop duo comprised of Jay and Stefanie McCarrol. The credits are a little sparse which is too bad. It merely says Jay vocals / production and Stefanie vocals. Then a little further down it says th...

This was a record I was pretty excited to find. It was the UK pressing, and the gatefold was laminated and looked absolutely pristine. This was also an album I'd never heard. I knew it existed, but honestly I always thought it was a throwaway album kind of like Sentimental Journey that had come out in the spring of 1970. I think one of the reasons I was so casually dismissive was it would be three years before Ringo would regroup and release his self titled album in 1973, which more or less coincidentally aligned with when I really started paying attention to music. Honestly for a long time I had assumed Ringo was his debut. The album is extra ordinary. I mean, this is a love letter to classic country, and Ringo seems so at home it's disarming. There's always been something special about Ringo's voice. It's an odd thing in many ways, but his ability to convey so much emotion and warmth is disarming. His confidence and charm are absolutely infectious. For those who ...