The 1981 Listening Post - Crow - On the Run

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1981 Crow On The Run Genre: Blues Rock Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Highlights: User Magic Boy Gone, Gone, Gone Many times, when you listen to a rock act from the '60s or '70s, you just know that these guys played a four hour long covers set several days a week for years before entering the studio. Those guys could play. The bass and drummer are in the pocket, the guitars swing, and the vocals are self assured and full of personality. A Minnesota Rock/Country Hall of Fame boogie band with gloriously fuzzy tube amp tones, Crow's earlier 1960s incarnation had a Top 20 hit with Evil Woman, which Black Sabbath and Ike and Tina Turner covered. This is the short lived 1981/82 version of the band, minus keyboards/organ and with only founding singer David Wagner returning. On The Run is music to sweat and drink to in a cramped smokey bar. Magic Boy is their radio-friendly stomper, kicking off Side 2 with a guitar riff and chorus that sound surgically lifted from a hundred 1970s classic rock singles. Someone sounds like a throwback 1960s R&B track with Motown horns. User is the stand out, a slow and steady confessional about a selfish lover, with blue note riffs and forceful drum fills. Gone, Gone, Gone is a bluesy 9 minute slide guitar wonder which allows Wagner to show off his soulful side, and John Richardson and Jeff Christenson to trade solos before a call and response chorus fade out. If these nice Midwestern boys perhaps had a little more swagger in the lyrics, Crow would be better known today.

The 1981 Listening Post - Bandera - Knights

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1981 Bandera Knights Genre: Southern Rock Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Highlights: Illegal Blame It On The Full Moon If Ronnie Van Zant's 1979 death was the beginning of the end for the Southern Rock that reached it's commercial height in the 1970s with the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd, no one told these guys. In fact, they may have been troubled label MCA's attempt at keeping the music, and the money, going. (Read the lyrics to Skynyrd's "Working For MCA" to get a feel for what they thought of the Yankee slickers who signed them.) Comprised of session players from Nashville who were originally a backing band for others artists' showcase nights, and fronted by singer/songwriter/guitarist Lore Orion, Bandera toured a while but broke up when their debut album flopped. This is Orion's band, and he's the legacy of this group; in the years since, Orion's songs have been covered by Bill Anderson, David Rogers, Waylon Jennings, and Tim McGraw, who recorded two of Lore's songs on 2002's 'Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors' album. Album opener Billie The Kid owes more than a note or three to Johnny B. Goode in it's melody line, before a jangly country rock chorus over a walking bass line and driving 4 on the floor beat. Illegal shows the genre's blues roots, especially throughout the melodic pentatonic solo, combined with harder drums and twin guitars leads on the fadeout. While Illegal may be the song McGraw chose, album closer Blame It On The Full Moon is the real gem here, with soulful vocal harmonies and an LP's worth of dueling guitar licks. It's the type of track that you listen to and wonder: "Why isn't this better known?" So what happened? Was Bandera's failure to chart the result of a label that couldn't get out of its own way? Did the band just form too late in the commercial life cycle of Southern Rock? Did they miss out on MTV just a few years later, unlike ZZ Top with their iconic looks and videos? Or is it simply that minus the jazzy jamming of the Allman Brothers, and the more in-your-face rebellious lyrics of Skynyrd, Bandera were just a little too vanilla? Orion's fans may just blame it on the full moon, crack open a beer, and sit back and enjoy this little known treasure.

The 1981 Listening Post - Straight Lines - Run for Cover

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1981 Straight Lines Run For Cover Genre: Lack-Of-Power Pop Rating: 1 out of 5 Highlights: It's Gotta Be Tonight Illusions The CanCon Regulations Toto. Session musicians Bob Buckley (UK) and David Sinclair (CA) played out on the Vancouver scene and got signed to Epic in Canada. This is some lukewarm early 80s pop, with no instrument other than synth sitting prominently in the mix, and competent but not particularly exciting 8 bar guitar solos. Side 1 closer Illusions is the most thoroughly composed track, with different parts for verse, bridge, chorus, solo, and the best vocal harmonies. Side 2 opener It's Gotta Be Tonight has a too-short sax lick, which livens up the proceedings ever so briefly, and should have been the lead single rather than Letting Go. The Casio keyboard sound on songs like Everybody Wants To Be A Star isn't the album's biggest culprit. It's the lack of memorable hooks. What makes a song pop instead of elevator? Straight Lines has the answer. This, their second release, didn't chart well, and the band was dropped. Sinclair went on to be a hired gun for k.d. lang and Sarah McLachlin, and Buckley wrote ad jingles. Run For Cover is best left behind even by the most completist collector.

The 1981 Listening Post - Bad Boy - Private Party

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1981 Bad Boy Private Party Genre: Bad Rock Rating: 1 out of 5 Highlights: (that there's no 13th track) Van Halen if you ordered them on Wish. Hailed by no one outside of the Midwest as "The Band That Milwaukee Made Famous." Here is a list of better things made in Milwaukee: The typewriter, malted milk, the cast iron bathtub, and the Babcock milk tester. 1000 items down the list is Bad Boy. Guitarist/singer Steve Grimm is doing his David Lee Roth "Louis Prima on coke" imitation. The rest of the band is doing an AOR songwriter imitation. Put on the pablum, I mean album, and thrill to "verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus-fade out" 10 times in a row. The album sounds like it was recorded live, with minimum overdubs outside of the gang choruses. Everyone is competent. Barely. Fans of the band called them a great bar band. That is probably true. They are decent at 9pm, good at 10pm, really good at 11pm, and sometime around midnight they magically turn into a great band. In a bar. Bad Boy is a bad band whose private party should never be attended.

The 1981 Listening Post - Legend (UK) - Legend

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: June 1981 Legend (UK) Legend Genre: NWOBHM Rating: 2 out of 5 Highlights: Buried Alive Song For A Soldier What happened to Iron Maiden could very well have happened to Legend, one of two now-forgotten UK rock bands with that name to release material in 1981. The band leader or a producer listens to this early NWOBHM group's songs, and says "With a new singer this could go someplace!" Alas, the almost David Byrne type warble of Mike Lezala is what we have instead. But the Killers-era Maiden comparison stands; this has a punk feel to it, with some progressive time changes thrown in and more athletic guitar work. A lot of the bands around this time juggled with the question of writing about "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" or more worldly and literary subject matter. Legend decided "Why choose?" and so we have both BAD GIRL, which could have been written by any Sunset Strip band, and the tepid HIROSHIMA. It's a shame the band never acquitted itself commercially, because musically it had a lot to offer. The late Pete Haworth's guitars and Jack Pallot (the real star here) on drums delivered interesting and dynamic breakdowns and instrumental sections in BURIED ALIVE and SONG FOR A SOLDIER especially. This LP's sound may have ironically come back around again. What was, back then, a self-financed, thin, and sometimes muddy production, could now be marketed as "lo-fi metal" and probably score the band an opening slot on a club run with a more established headliner. One that presumably had a stronger singer to start with.

The 1981 Listening Post - The Lydia Taylor Band - The Lydia Taylor Band

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1981 The Lydia Taylor Band The Lydia Taylor Band Genre: Corporate Rock Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Highlights: Some Guys Always Late After a 1979 self-titled debut album, Taylor broke through commercially in her native Canada with this LP. It even garnered her an American distribution deal on Three Dog Night and Wendy O. Williams' label Passport Records. The first side opens with a 3 punch combo of hit single Some Guys, All Night, and Always Late. While none can be called an ear worm, they've got a good beat with some corporate rock guitar tones and catchy choruses. Taylor chased the styles of the times, singing in a sweet but powerful Ann Wilson voice on this album before she adopted a more Laura Brannigan rasp in the wake of Gloria for her '83 EP Bitch. Written almost exclusively by her guitarist Richard Zwicewicz, what counted as hard rock in 1981 makes Huey Lewis sound like Metallica. A lot of the instrument parts sound like montage music from early 80s teen comedies. There are some real bouncy catchy synth fills, but they sound like Disney's Main Street Electric Parade. The guitar work on track 5 Dreamer is the strongest, even though it's one of the more tepid songs overall on the album. Indeed, Lydia herself becomes more of a cameo on the song. That's what happens when the guitarist writes 8 out of 10 of your tracks. The songwriting and vocal performance, particularly on B side opener Miracles, have aged well, it's the synth sounds that trap The Lydia Taylor Band firmly in a time warp. You don't know if you're listening to a rock album, or you just finished a round of Qbert. The second side is as weak as the first side is catchy, to the point where you might as well credit Gibby Lacasse with "drums on filler 6, 7, 9, and 10," and which may explain why Taylor recorded an EP next. Her chief songwriter simply couldn't come up with the material. The album ends with a cover of AC/DC's Highway to Hell, and the less said about it the better. Falcon, the Canadian record company which signed Taylor, went bankrupt soon after, so perhaps there wasn't the money to pay outside writers. Unfortunately for Lydia Taylor, she couldn't get out of her contract and drifted out of the music industry. She had the voice and personality to be a pop rock female force on the early 80s scene, she just didn't have the writing and promotion. Some girls have none of the luck.

The 1981 Listening Post - Killer (CH) - Ladykiller

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1981 Killer (CH) Ladykiller Genre: Treble Metal Rating: 3 out of 5 Highlights: Get Up Get Down Ladykiller In the incestuous 80s Swiss metal scene, the band name Krokus was taken, so guitarist and band leader Edgar Kocher called his band Kaktus. He and Kaktus singer Mark Broman started a new band called Lady Killer, which is a flower variant of the snow crocus. See what they did there? The band's debut 7" was then co-produced by Krokus bassist Chris von Rohr. They then signed with Vertigo, the stalwart label for progressive rock in the 70s. Ladykiller is proto hair metal, before the clothes caught up with the glam production, or perhaps treble metal is a better genre name. The bass is the low part under thin toms and kicks, with layered pop metal choruses with a 2 part harmony and lots of reverb. The title track forgoes a guitar solo entirely, with just a slight breakdown before the intro riff revives for the party vocals chorus about being wanted for killing a lady in NYC. Throughout the record there are hints of early Def Leppard (Get Up Get Down and DL's Hello America from one year prior are kissing cousins) meets Hanoi Rocks. Alas, Killer may have had ambitions of arenas, but they wrote material for bars. You may dismiss it on first listening, but I'll be damned if you don't find yourself humming a hook from one of the album's guilty pleasures like the title track and Midnight Highway Rider 20 minutes later. No review of this album would be complete without mention of the album cover, which depicted a dead young lady on a bed with blood coming out of her mouth. It may have been a career killer, because stores wouldn't stock the album without black bars covering the offensive (and offensively silly) cover, and who knows how many just didn't carry it at all? Post Killer, co-founding guitarist and bassist Many Maurer and Beat Koflmehl started Headhunter, and were produced by Krokus' Rohr, and Maurer then played on, you guessed it, Rohr's solo album Hammer & Tongue.

The 1981 Listening Post - Bow Wow - Hard Dog

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: August 21 1981 Bow Wow Hard Dog Genre: Hard Rock Rating: 3 out of 5 Highlights: Gonna Be Alright Big Shot "I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more treble on the vocals," said apparently every hard rock producer of the late 70s/early 80s. Hard Dog (apparently a reference to their album cover mascot, but still, what the hell is a hard dog?!) is Motley Crue's Too Fast For Love if it were good. You can't always understand the verses, with the reverb making a muddle out of the words, but the solid melodies still come through. This album is a return to form, as it were, for a group that was originally put together in mid-70s Japan as a manufactured boy band, then decided to rock out for three albums so as not to neglect the guitar skills of it's six string dynamic duo Kyoji Yamamoto and Mitsuhiro Saito, but then for some reason opted to be a pop act for three subsequent albums anyway. Yamamoto and Saito traded off on lead vocal duties throughout the years, with Yamamoto serving as the front man here, and his raspy rock voice gives the songs an appropriate hard partying character. Although the mix hasn't aged well (the drums sound like they are recorded on one overhead mic, and I couldn't even hear a bass line for the first few songs), this is still a really solid hard rock album, with some traces of the then-current New Wave of British Heavy Metal, especially in self-serious epic wannabe track The Breakdown of Earth. But when Bow Wow lighten up, they're terrific, as on Big Shot, with it's almost Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies on the catchy chorus. The guitar work is the real reason to revisit this album. Yamamoto and Saito could really play. Long after the thin production and the typically adolescent lyrics fade, it's the guitars that shine through. No Randy Rhoades classical arpeggios, just tasty Ace Frehley style rock licks and solos like on Judas (In Blue). Indeed, Bow Wow opened for Kiss twice in the 70s, and obviously were taking notes. The next year, 1982, Bow Wow released two albums, and the second of them, Warning From Stardust, was ranked Number 23 on Rolling Stone Japan's 2007 list of the "100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time." Every hard dog has it's day.

The 1981 Listening Post - Blue Steel - Nothing But TIme

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1981 Blue Steel Nothing But Time Genre: Southern Boogie Rating: 3 out of 5 Highlights: Good Friends Or Lovers Nothing But Time Years before Derek Zoolander's signature stare, members of Linda Ronstadt's backup band broke away to begin their own bands, one of which was called Blue Steel. The other one was called The Eagles. Blue Steel was a country rock band led by Texan guitarist Richard Bowden. They opened for The Eagles, and recorded two albums before folding, 1981's Nothing But Time being the last. Bowden and his former bandmates stayed tight: Don Henley did backing vocals on this album, and Blue Steel drummer Michael Huey went on to drum for Glenn Frey. Each track on Nothing But Time boasts a nice fat bass tone over laid back beats and fills. There are richly layered guitar and vocal harmonies, especially on Good Friends Or Lovers, like a country boogie Steely Dan. There's a bit of a pop gloss in the bite sized under 3 minute running times, double tracked lead vocals and high harmonies, possibly rubbed off from Ronstadt, but mostly likely due to producer Ron Capone, who cut his teeth as an engineer at famous Southern Soul label Stax Records. Guitarist Howard Burke was tour manager for Jackson Browne and co-wrote "Nothing But Time" with Browne, then toured extensively with Little Feat. The Blue Steel title track version is not as spare and intimate as Browne's, but somehow clocks in around the same time with a bar band's jump and verve. Their cover of Roy Orbison classic Oh, Pretty Woman is energetic and faithful, while not exactly making you miss the original. The Price Is High has a jangly guitar riff throughout, with a soulful lead vocal by Bowden. The playing on this track especially is the opposite of the hard rock and metal that would take over guitar-driven music in the later part of the 80s, in that there's lots of space between the notes, and room in the sound between each instrument. After Blue Steel folded, Bowden was in a country comedy duo Pinkard & Bowden for 16 years, guitar teched for the Eagles, and is now a city council member back in his hometown of Linden, Texas. Nothing But Time may not be an album you'll ever reach for, but you'll never be sorry it's playing. Oddly, while there may not be an obvious hit single, there's no filler. The writing and playing are uniformly good, never more or less. And I guess that's where they went wrong. Blue Steel never embarrassed themselves, but they never acquitted themselves either. They were a better band's really good opener.

The 1981 Listening Post - EF Band - Last Laugh Is On You

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan / LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

Released: 1981 EF Band Last Laugh Is On You Genre: Heavy Metal Rating: 4 out of 5 Highlights: The Last Laugh Is On You Two former swedish prog rockers, bassist/vocalist Pär Ericsson and guitarist Bengt Fischer (the titular E&F), started this power trio, along with drummer Dag Eliason. Derek Lawrence, who had produced three Richie Blackmore era Deep Purple albums, oversaw Last Laugh, and he proves to have good rock and roll ears. This isn't the Mutt Lange wall of sound that took over the 80s in just a few short years, but the drums still sound robust and give an unusually heavy bottom to the sound for the time. The title track main riff is fast, furious, and a bit sleazy, and could quite nicely fit in the setlist of Live Like A Suicide early Guns N' Roses, when it was still Izzy Stradlin's band. What's remarkable is not how big the sound is for a trio, but how everywhere on the album you find something reminiscent of production and songwriting that came later. Hard Liqueur And Women could be the B side to Whitesnake's Slide It In. This album represents the beginning of 80s excess. Not just longer solos, but drum fills galore as the pocket gave way to fast beats. There's no room or space left in the music, every second is filled with playing. Who knew that in the coming decade, musicianship would become such an athletic endeavor? Possibly with some help from producer Lawrence, EF Band opened for Blackmore's Rainbow, and what a tour that must have been. E.F. Band had two more albums before calling it a day after 1985's One Night Stand. A shame, because this was terrific hard rock/proto 80s metal. E.F. disappeared, and David Coverdale recorded with Jimmy Page. The last laugh was on them.

The 1980 Listening Post - Danny Spanos - Danny Spanos

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1980 Danny Spanos Danny Spanos Genre: AOR Rating: 1 out of 5 Track Highlights: Queen Of The Boulevard Danny Spanos' Rolodex in the late '70s must have read like a greatest hits of the rock and drugs scene. He drummed for Sly and the Family Stone, was produced by Zeppelin and Stones engineer Andy Johns, and claimed to have been threatened with a recording contract or else by both Spencer Proffer of Quiet Riot infamy, and Sharon Osbourne's London gangster father Don. His video ramblings about his coke-fueled exploits are still up on YouTube, and quite frankly are more entertaining than his listless self-titled 1980 offering. Released on John Denver's RCA sub-label Windsong Records, the soupy, schmaltzy keyboard laden production sometimes gives way to legitimate rockers like Queen Of The Boulevard and the Smoke On The Water like riff of Under My Skin, but for the most part doesn't know if it wants to be Billy Squier or 52nd Street era Billy Joel. Album closer Rock Me, Shock Me decides to do neither of those things, with cloying fake handclaps on the chorus, when applause should have waited until it was mercifully over. Spanos had great AOR pipes, like a Stan Bush clone, and never gives less than an energetic performance. Curiously, for a drummer turned singer, he never gets behind the kit for his own album. Ross Salamon and A.J. Mayday capably handle the simple beats and fills, while Earl Slick of Bowie/John Lennon/Robert Smith fame steals the show when he is allowed. Three years later, Spanos finally started rocking out in earnest for Epic, and recorded Hot Cherie, which became a minor hit both for him that year and in 1992 for Neal Schonn's post-Journey band Hardline. He also recorded one soundtrack song each on the Tim Matheson comedy Up the Creek and Tom Cruise's All the Right Moves. By 1984, his coke addiction had rendered him impossible to work with. He was arrested for disturbing the peace and being a public nuisance after giving an impromptu record listening party to "industry executives and friends" at a Mojave Desert motel, as one does. After his arrest and tepid sales of that year's aptly titled Looks Like Trouble, even the gangster managers and producers gave up on him. Spanos descended into obscurity, and passed away in 2022. Most of his songs don't live on, but thankfully his video reminiscing does.

The 1980 Listening Post - Laurie and the Sighs - Laurie And The Sighs

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: May 1980 Laurie And The Sighs Laurie And The Sighs Genre: Rock-ish Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Highlights: Never Go Back Can the woman who replaced Betty Buckley in Cats sing a Pretenders album? SHOULD the woman who replaced Betty Buckley sing a Pretenders album? Broadway vet, and now Broadway legend, (the Laurie Beechman Theater at the West Bank Cafe is named in her memory) Beechman signed with Atlantic in 1980, and released this rock LP. But is it rock? Beechman singing at full throttle throughout makes it sound more like a cabaret performance with an electric guitarist accompaniment. A Chrissie Hynde barroom singer approach would be more appropriate for this material. Beechman was the real deal vocally, and she shows her chops here. The problem is, she may show them off too much. Barishnikov, when discussing choreography, used to say "Don't open all your Christmas presents at once. " Meaning, save some good stuff for last. Here, Beechman is Broadway belting from the first verse. Love Hostage is the worst offender. It gives her, and the songs, nowhere to go dynamically, and makes the album sound like karaoke. Party Lights, a cover of the 1962 Claudine Clark hit, has no backing vocals, or even double tracked vocals, it's just Beechman alone throughout. Would a group chorus have killed them?! The songs themselves are nothing special, but are played with an endearing 1980 pop energy. The sound, most crucially the drums, is thin and tinny, so there's no rock punch. At times, the whole thing sounds like a glorified demo. Beechman was in the original Annie, and A Star To Be was written specifically for her voice when the producers heard what she could do. And a star to be she was, performing in the original Broadway cast of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and playing Fantine in Les Mis on Broadway. But she was not a star to be thanks to Atlantic Records. The album was a failure, and Laurie and the Sighs were no more. I'm going to lay this one at the feet of first time producer Roger Probert, who should have stepped into the vocal booth and told Laurie to sing it to Row B, not to Row Z.

The 1980 Listening Post - Bongo Fury - Bongo Fury

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1980 Bongo Fury Bongo Fury Genre: Hard Rock Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Highlights: Patience Never Trust A Stranger Getting Out Ostensibly named for the 1975 album by college friends Frank Zappa and Dan Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart), Bongo Fury was here the pseudonym of Canadian drummer and songwriter Bill Wade. This 1980 disc is Wade’s wacky brainchild. He had also worked previously with fellow Canuck artists Moxy (whose song Young Legs from 1978 is covered, with Moxy’s Buddy Caine on guitar) and glam rock band Brutus, whose Gino Scarpelli contributes background vocals throughout. The album is 10 tracks of typically constructed pop rock songs, with verse, chorus, verse, chorus, breakdown, back to chorus, then a fade out on a solo being the most popular model. Bongo Fury is best described as melodic hard rock with tongue firmly planted in cheek (The album opens with Patience’s adorably adolescent lyrics “She knocked on my door/ got down on the floor/ with the nerve of a New York whore”) and great gusto in the playing. The band sounds loose, the solos are an afterthought, and no track sounds like they bothered with a second take, but the energy is infectious. Song titles like Alaska Shuffle and Paper News Rag say it all. This is a bunch of guys having fun in a side project that went nowhere but had fun on the journey.