FLASHBACK 1978 (City Boy, The Boomtown Rats & Nazareth, and bonus: Judas Priest)

[Niels (Mod)]

Around 1978-79 I "discovered" many interesting bands like Van Halen, Cheap Trick, Jethro Tull and these 3 bands: City Boy, The Boomtown Rats and Nazareth.

 

1. CITY BOY - BOOK EARLY

The first of two "Mutt" Lange-produced albums in this weeks "Flashback" is one of my alltime favorite albums. I never seem to get tired of it. I had heard the european hits "5.7.0.5" and "What a night" on the radio, and bought the album, and to my pleaseant surprise, the album was much more, that those two songs. Notice the guitarist Mike slamer!!! He is/was a great guitarist, and I often wonder, why City Boy never made it bigger, than they did. There were 3 different good singers in the band in 1978. I bought this album in the beginning of 1979. some of my best spend money, that's for sure!

 

 

1. Summer In The School Yard

2. Goodbye Laurelie

3. Cigarettes

4. The World Loves A Dancer

5. Moving In Circles 

 

2. THE BOOMTOWN RATS - A TONIC FOR THE TROOPS

 

The second of two "Mutt" Lange-produced albums. I saw the video for the "new" song, "I don't like mondays" on the TV., and went out and bought the single, but I needed some more music, and bought this album in the autumn of 1979. ("IDLM" is not on this album, but on an album released later in 1979, called "A fine art of surfacing" also produced by Lange). This might be too "european" for the american taste, but give it a try. I think, it's a very, very good album. Of Course Bob Geldorf would go on and make "Do they know it's Chrostmas" and all that "Live Aid"-stuff, but at this time, before all that, he was rocking with the Rats.

 

 

1. Like Clockwork

2. (I never loved) Eva Braun

3. She's So Modern

4. Living In An Island

5. Rat Trap

 

3. NAZARETH - NO MEAN CITY

 

 This was one of the first albums I bought, besides KISS-records, (the first "non-KISS record I bought, was the first Van Halen) and I bought it mostly because of the cool cover. One of my friends, had the former album "Expect no mercy" and I really love that title-song. This album is my second-favorite Nazareth-album (the No.1 is "Hair of the dog"). I really get some good memories, listening to this album. I bought it around december 1978.

 

 

1. May The Sunshine

2. Simple Solution

3. Star

4. Claim To Fame

5. Whatever You Want Babe

 

Bonus:

 

4. JUDAS PRIEST - STAINED CLASS

 

In 1978, Judas Priest released not one, but two classic albums (well, in europe anyway), and one of them, is the "bonus-album" this week. The most known track on "Stained Class" must be "Beyond the realms of death", but it's a great album the whole way through. It's not one of the 3 best JP-albums, but it's WAY better than anything they released after 1984's "Defenders of the Faith". 

 

1. Better By You, Better Than Me

2. Stained Class

3. Invader

4. Beyond The Realms Of Death

5. Heroes End

 

If you want to enjoy this fine music, click here

http://www.podsnack.com/playlists/b458f9b66defbeb207ebacc7ca284353

[Niels (Mod)]

Cool! But do yourself a favour, and stay away from the last album they made, from 1981, "I's Personal". It's definetly not very good. Kind of remind me of a "discussion" we once had here or at CRR, about bands that made a very bad album after a very good one!

By the way, I MIGHT let this one be the first one, I'll buy on the internet. Any more left?  

[RJhog (Admin)]

Niels, I agree with Jon.  I'm probably closer to 50/50 with internet purchases, but it won't be long before I'm closer to 90% like Jon.  I've had two possible problems.  One with Ebay, the seller didn't send my item.  But after attempting to contact the seller, with no result, I filed a claim with Paypal and the seller decided to send my item right away.  That was a bootleg disc, which may explain that the seller wasn't reliable to begin with. 

 

One disc I ordered from Amazon came in with the wrong disc inside the correct jewel case, but as soon as I contacted the seller, I was issued a credit. 

 

Just open an account with paypal and be sure and use paypal to purchase from ebay and you'll be okay.

[Jon]

Most of my purchases come from Amazon. They have excellent customer service, as noted by Rjhog above, and the marketplace sellers I've dealt with have been 99.9% perfect. I did have one issue a couple years ago when I ordered a CD from a seller, they in turn sent me an email asking me to mail them a check or something along those lines, even after I had paid thru credit card. Waited a couple weeks, no CD, sent an email, no response, sent an email to Amazon and within 12 hours  had a credit for the purchase. Never saw that seller again (they could have changed names, who knows). Point is, Amazon is #1 in my book.

 

As for Ebay...I'm barred for life. Guess one day I unkowingly started selling designer sunglasses that were knockoffs. Strange thing is, I don't remember doing that, but Ebay is 100% sure I did. And they're never wrong. Point is, Ebay sucks.     

[RJhog (Admin)]

Not that it matters, but I prefer Amazon as well.

[RJhog (Admin)]

I'll echo Scott and Jon's thought's on 75% of this post.  City Boy was very decent, but not something I'd pick up.  The Boomtown Rats aren't really my cup of tea.  Nazareth is awesome.  I don't have this, so I need to pick it up, along with a couple more from their back catalog.

 

The only one I'm in disagreement with is Judas Priest.  I just can't get into them at all.  The only song here I can even listen to is Beyond The Realms Of Death.