Posts by Witchwood

After the release of Cured, Highly Strung and then GTR, I was almost ready to give up on Steve. But then Bay of Kings pulled me back in.

As I get older, some of the harshly dismissive views I held in my youth haven’t stood the test of time.

Fifteen years after its release, I was playing Highly Strung in the car during a long late night drive. It might have been two years since I had previously listened to it. Something clicked and I thought, ‘Wow, listen to that guitar. This is a great album.”

I concluded my long-held initial views of the album were wrong.

While I can’t claim to have that same illuminating experience with Cured, I do have a much greater appreciation for the album now than when I was 17 or later on into my 20s.

I still don’t care for the cheap-sounding production values and weak vocals, but they also don’t seem to bother me as much as they once did.

Quote from Backdrifter

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Just out of curiosity what female artists and female-fronted/voiced bands do we like? I ask also as I find I Iike quite a few and am always up for hearing of ones I don't know.

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The one I am most fanatical about is Sandy Denny.

I like virtually everything she’s been involved with.

The Fairport Convention albums featuring both Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson in the lineup are nothing short of iconic IMO.

I thought Fotheringay and her initial solo releases were great, and even the early Strawbs album she was on was enjoyable.

Janis Joplin would probably be my second favourite, but there are at least a dozen more artists or female-fronted bands I have albums of and enjoy listening to.

Those include Etta James, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Jefferson Airplane, Magenta, The Cranberries, Sarah McLachlan and the first couple of albums by the Eurythmics.

My first concert was Max Webster in 1979.

I was a fan since their debut and when I finally saw them in concert, they were touring their fourth album, A Million Vacations which, of the five they put out, this one ended up being their biggest selling release in Canada.

Prior to that, I think they tended to play clubs and licensed establishments where young teens like myself wouldn't have been allowed entry.

To this day Max Webster remains one of my favourite bands from Canada. They never gained the popularity outside of this country I thought they deserved.

When I have encountered non-Canadians who have heard of MW it is usually because of the song “Battlescar” (Rush guested on that track – and in exchange, MW’s lyricist Pye Dubois provided the words to "Tom Sawyer").

Quote from Christian

I have put on that record for the first time in years. I still think Hideaway is a nice ballad, and some tracks are quite unqique - and also a bit cool. Sometimes it sounds a bit like The Police, then, as you said, awful. But it's a different album and part of Mike's carreer.

That strained singing voice of his works on Hideaway - he comes across actually quite convincingly.

Unfortunately, it's the only track on the album I like.

Other than my feelings for Hideaway, I agree with Ned. I just don't think the other songs are any good and combined with his poor vocals - it's like handing a drowning man an anchor.

Quote from StillCan'tDance

Well, Steve is really preaching to the converted isn't he? I mean, the only people who are going to see him are his fans and, without his solo albums having any significant impact on the mainstream charts (which is probably harder now than it ever was, given the how the market has changed so much in recent years) I can't imagine he's picked up many new fans during his career. So those fans are already well aware of his past with Genesis. I just think it's a sad indictment of his solo material that the old Genesis tunes now form such a major part of his performances.

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It stands to reason if he’s playing to larger audiences in bigger venues, the people showing up aren’t just those who have been closely following his solo career for decades but are ones who have been enticed by the promise of a Genesis setlist.

How effective has that been in attracting new fans to delve into his back catalogue? Your guess is as good as mine.

But as someone who has seen him perform several times since 1980 and enjoyed the one GR show I attended, I'd like to see him return to predominately performing the songs that made many of us fans of his solo work in the first place.

Quote from StillCan'tDance

Really? Why?

It was thrill for me seeing his band perform some of my favourite songs of all time, among them Salmacis, Musical Box and Giant Hogweed, and being seated in the second row right in front of him and watching him perform the solos from songs I love - ones that, up until then I had only seen performed on archival video.

I was also hoping they'd play Blood On The Rooftops and of course they did.

It was just a very satisfying evening from beginning to end.

I absolutely loved, was thrilled and at moments had tears of joy when I saw Steve during his first North American tour for GR six years ago.

But I suspect for a lot of fans who’ve been following him since Spectral Mornings or Defector, some of the novelty has worn off, and they’d welcome a moderate shift to a 70/30 split in favour of Steve playing more of his solo stuff. I imagine privately Steve would express the same preference.

These GR tours have evidently been more lucrative for him and, in the words of one great band, “who can escape what he desires?”

He’s probably reluctant to do anything that would see him step back into a lower income bracket.

Quote from Sredni

I had a Cat Stevens (re)discovery phase as well recently. You can't go wrong with his first six Island albums.The last two of those, Foreigner and Buddha, might take some time to sink in, but both are worth it, IMO.

Never heard the two latter albums though I recall reading praise for the Budha album as something of a return to form. Back in the day I had the first four Island releases with Catch Bull At Four being the most recent.

Quote from FeelItComing

Can't wait to hear what you think of STP. As for Teaser, it's a wonderful album.

As I was awaiting the arrival of STP, which I now have, I picked up the deluxe edition of Down The Road Wherever.

Off the bat, I can say I like STP and DTRW more than Golden Heart.

But I've also had DTRW on repeat since I got it and have been really enjoying it.

At this moment, I'd say I like that one the best of the three I have, though in fairness I feel I need more time with STP to properly weigh its merits.

EDIT: One month later, STP has really grown on me, especially love the opening track ("What It Is"), some of it very reminiscent of the last Dire Straits album. I'd say it's now my favourite of the three solo albums I have. Will likely explore his solo output a little further.

Lately I've been listing to a lot of...

The Guess Who

Dire Straits

Robert Cray

Yes

King Crimson

Two albums recently ordered and awaiting their arrival...

Mark Knopfler — Sailing To Philadelphia

(Inspired by conversation in the Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits thread)

Cat Stevens — Teaser And The Firecat

(My 3rd favourite album of Cat's behind Tea For The Tillerman and Mona Bone Jakon. Yet, another album that I have had in my collection for decades on cassette but hadn't gotten around to getting on CD)

Quote from StillCan'tDance

...and then the unbridled delight of seeing just the three of them up there (something which I don't think they'd done since the days of the Selling England tour when Banks, Collins and Rutherford would play the instrumental section of Cinema Show) bashing away during the instrumental.

It was just the three of them playing that same instrumental section when I saw them in 82.

Chester got up from his stool at the end of ITC to leave the stage and Daryl followed.

Quote from Christian

We have been listening to this album in advance for a week or so.

A full track-by-track review is now online!

https://www.genesis-news.com/c…Info-and-review-s704.html

Very thorough. Good read.

Saw them in 80 and 82 and I cherish my memories of those shows.

There were opportunities for me to see them again on subsequent tours but I never did go to a lot of concerts – even back in the day, it was usually one or two, maybe three shows a year at most.

So because of that I tended to spread myself out and try to see different bands, and skip out on ones I’d seen before, especially if I didn’t care for the venue

That was the case in 2007. I was planning to go and then changed my mind, I didn’t want to see them in a stadium.

I noticed Sailing To Philadelphia was ranked No. 1 for a couple of you who seem very familiar with MK's solo work.

I took that as a recommendation from a pair of reliable sources and just ordered it.

Quote from OneForTheVine

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5) Communique (I'm surprised that this album is higher in other people's rankings, but to each their own - to me, it is very similar to the first album in sound, and I thought they did it better on the debut album)

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By the mid 80s, I had heard about 4 or 5 hit songs on the radio from various albums of DS. They seemed like a decent band with a good guitarist but I wasn’t really convinced this was a group I would want to buy an album of until one day I was at a friend’s place and someone put on Communiqué.

Never heard the album before, never heard any of these songs before but it immediately piqued my interest from the opening notes of Once Upon A Time In The West.

As the album went on, I found the music endearing and I remained completely captivated throughout.

By the time I had heard Lady Writer and Portobello Belle – which to this day are my two favourite DS songs – not only did I feel I had to have this album in my collection, I needed to have all of Dire Straits in my collection.

That’s how much of an impact Communiqué had on me.

I like them, and have all their studio albums.

I never saw Dire Straits live, though the second time I saw Eric Clapton in concert, Mark Knopfler was the other guitarist on stage.

I'm a great fan of Clapton and of the various bands he's been in, however, I recall being more impressed that night with Knopfler than Clapton.

The first two DS albums are my favourites. If I was to rank their entire studio output, I would end up listing their albums chronologically except the first two would switch spots — Communiqué is my favourite.

The only Knopfler solo album I have is Golden Heart, which I also like — not as much as the DS albums, though.

Nonetheless, I keep meaning to add more of his solo stuff.

Quote from Schrottrocker

Weren't they left over from the reunion concert with Peter? On that one show they played the entire Supper's Ready, Back in NYC, the entire Musical Box, that short-cut Knife and a whole bunch of other fine stuff - a lot of Daryl never had had to play otherwise, so now as they were able to perform these numbers why drop them altogether.

The reunion show was 82.

I saw them during the 80 tour in Toronto.

I thoroughly enjoyed the show (it was my first time seeing them) though years later, I was little envious when I learned they performed The Knife the following evening, same city, save venue.

For the North American tour, they also dropped Carpet Crawlers from the setlist and replaced it with Misunderstanding, which is understandable as it was a bit of a hit here, though I would have preferred they had not made that switch.

My first thought was this is an April Fool’s joke – but I am going to assume it isn’t.

I love the original album. In fact, I rate it higher than even some Genesis albums.

But Mike never seemed all that keen on it – and that’s where he and I are worlds apart.

I’ll be curious to hear the results of his re-interpretation, but I’m not a great fan of anything Mike has done on his own since SD, so I couldn’t be more sceptical.

I still have my collection of cassettes and a means to play them, though I rarely do.

Perhaps once or twice a year, I might play a cassette that I have sudden hankering for.

But chances are if it’s an album I like and want to listen to occasionally, I probably already have it on CD.

The exceptions are lower ranked titles I just haven’t gotten around to replacing on CD, or the odd one that I have either never seen on CD or have never seen at a reasonable price (Steve Winwood’s self-titled debut solo album, and Van Morrison’s A Period of Transition are two that immediately come to mind).