Racket - It's Our Night / Cruisin' (Down Main Street). 1981 USA-Pittsburgh

An older sounding 45 than the date suggests, while there is synthesizer, there's also Hammond organ and phased guitar. A better than average hard rock, and it looks to be related in some way to Poobah (Peppermint Productions). Good stuff.

Recent evidence places this 45 from 1981 and the band is from Pittsburgh.

Own. Online acquisition (2022).

12/22/22 (first listen / review); 1/1/25 (new entry)

Sterling. 1981 USA-Minneapolis

Classic yacht rock here. Softer than standard AOR with a higher sophistication. Good looking guys singing about love while presumably the sexy female audience are drinking highballs. Get out your white pants and double breasted blue coat.

Own. Thrift shop find (2024)

9/2/23 (first listen / review); 1/1/25 (new entry)

Ground Attack - Red Lion / Every Mother's Son. 1981 England

Though associated with the NWOBHM movement. Ground Attack sound more like a standard issue early 80s hard rock band. Not very heavy or original, the two tunes here blow by without much notice. A little AC/DC can be heard on the B side. 

11/25/24

Caretaker - Rampage / Sin Trips. 1981 USA-Illinois

From Zion, Illinois (on the shores of Lake Michigan bordering Wisconsin). Pretty cool phased riffing opener. Goes into a more straightforward early metal styled track. Still like the phasing throughout. Four minute song that is two minutes longer than it needs to be. B) side catches Judas Priest in their British Steel stride. Nice guitar soloing on this one, and I like the hyperactive drumming as if there's no tomorrow (there probably wasn't). Pretty good rendition of the style I'd submit. 

4/15/24

3.0 / 3.5

Doug Mays & The Sticky Kids - Raining in My Heart / Part Time Lover. 1981 USA-Mississippi

From Biloxi. About as bad as you would expect. A) side is straight up early 80s dummy hard rock. B) side is worse with a bluesy angle that makes you want to forget the decade altogether. 

2.5 / 2.0

1/23/24

Zed Pawl - Back Seat Boogie / From This Side. 1981 USA-Columbus

Zed Pawl were a hard rock band from Marion, Ohio (north of Columbus) and were somewhat typical of the underground at that time. The title of a) doesn't inspire much confidence that this will be anything special, but it's actually the highlight. Excellent hard rock, with a rough guitar sound, and piercing vocals. There's also a couple of odd progressions that recall Rush's Permanent Waves. The flip side borrows from another major act of the era, that of The Who. It's good, but doesn't live up to the promise of 'Back Seat Boogie'.

Ownership: SP: 1981 Blue Ash. Online acquisition (2020). Both sides say Side A, though the catalog number clearly distinguishes which is which. 

7/6/20 (first listen); 5/16/21 (review / new entry)

Dream'r - What the Hell / Stranger. 1981 USA

'What the Hell' starts off with some harmonica and that gets into a southern hard rock riff, while chorusing the namesake track. Not bad, but rather typical hard rock for the era. It's the b side that you're after here. 'Stranger' is completely different - and completely out of time. Sounding like Uriah Heep circa 1972, this is a killer heavy prog track with searing guitar leads and beautiful crunchy Hammond organ. Dig the breezy vocals too. I'm really hoping these guys put more to tape here than this. What a great archival release it would be.

I can't find anything about these guys. One Japanese reference says it's related to a group called The Boyzz from Chicago, but none of the names match. In any case I've seen copies turn up on ebay from time to time, so guessing there was some unsold stash found. And Discogs has a few as well (not expensive - so worth nabbing if you collect SPs). My copy is basically new, another sign of that.

There's some evidence that this could be from the Eugene, Oregon area. There's a label from there and the catalog number fits. However, there's no label logo on this release like the others.

Ownership: SP: 1981 Triad. Online acquisition (2020). 

5/13/20 (first listen); 2/28/21 (review / new entry)

The Slapp - Naughty Little Secrets / Paper Woman. 1981 USA-Chicago

The Slapp, of unknown origin (possibly the Chicago area), definitely have the sound of the early 80s. More of a straightforward, hard driving rock, that reminds me of Cheap Trick at times. The songwriting on both tracks is a cut above the usual, and could easily have been radio hits in their era. Best of all is each track features a raw hard rock guitar solo, more rooted in the mid 70s which recalls Ted Nugent or even Frank Marino at times. Excellent little pickup here.

Ownership: SP: 1981 Rock Candy. With picture sleeve. Online acquisition.

6/25/20 (first listen / review / new entry)

Algue - Descente aux Enfers / Les Enfants. 1981 France

Interesting. I knew the name Algue sounded familiar, and that's because their moniker sits with the Jean Luc Hamonet album, which I own (and need to revisit again). I guess I'd thought Hamonet was the leader of a band called Algue. I'm just now catching on that Algue were their own group, and likely Hamonet hired them on for his sole recording.

Prior (or maybe after, we'll get to that in a minute), Algue released this extended single (nearly 11 minutes) with two tracks. 'Descente aux Enfers' is a fine rock song with extended jamming toward the end, which gives off a whiff of a west coast psych feeling. The song itself is relatively non distinctive however. The gem here is 'Les Enfants'  - which conjures up the ghost of none other than Jimi Hendrix. Mostly instrumental with some fierce wah wah guitar soloing. Great stuff. If the Hamonet album ever does get reissued, it sure would be nice to append these two tracks to it!

Now to the date of the recording. The "generally accepted" date is 1981. Once again, I'm at a loss where that comes from, as there is no date on the single itself. And there is no corroborating data (that I could find). The French Discography book (i.e. the analog internet for you kids scoring at home) calls out 1984. The problem is... this single sounds more like 1972! Then again the Hamonet album is from 1982, and it certainly sounds earlier than that one, so I question 1984 for sure. Who knows... perhaps the story will emerge one day. Pay no mind to that, check this one out if you have the chance.

Ownership: SP: 1981 private. With picture sleeve. Recent online acquisition (2022).

5/10/19 (first listen / review / new entry); 7/25/22 (update)