General Music Chat

I'm amazed Crack the Sky is still doing it. I've been listening to that album (Crack the Sky) and Animal Notes since the late 70's. If you can find it, I looked and it didn't seem to be on the youtube list, Animal Skins is a great song and was played on Houston radio KLOL for a while in about 78 or so.

I was pretty impressed how close Hold On was to the original album cut, they added some stuff in Surf City but the basics of the song were still very close too, and damn the vocals...John Palumbo writes most of the stuff, (guitar player and lead singer) and he's a great writer.

The first album, Crack the Sky also has some other great songs. Look through the list, a few are there. Ice, I Don't Have A Tie, She's A Dancer and I think Maybe I can Fool Everybody.

I think Animal Skins is my favorite of their songs, semi title track of their second album, Animal Notes.

OK Wait, I found Animal Skins...Studio and unfortunately no video, but check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8zRuoh3 ... re=related

Crank it up!!

That jogged my memory and I had to throw out another one from the same time frame.

City Boy. Another of my old favorite bands, the Dinner At the Ritz album has several fantastic cuts. This is from Book Early, their next one, I think also played on KLOL at the time Crack the Sky was being played. (I know this song was played on KLOL, just not sure if it was the same time as Animal Skins.)

A friend came out and got me at the swimming pool and told me he had something I had to hear. He put on Dinner at the Ritz and played Momma's Boy, the first cut. Momma's Boy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPiJM33E ... re=related

The next day I bought a copy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SiuhGv1 ... re=related

Look down the list, Summer in the Schoolyard is from Dinner at the Ritz, also a great song.

here's Take a Walk on the Water, from Dinner at the Ritz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiSnsQaP ... ure=relmfu

and the title track, Dinner at the Ritz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inuDwCqb ... re=related

Great guitar part and I love the sax...On the album liner notes it says "Extra vocal revelry by Van Der Graaf Generator." That's the spoken part at the end of the song.

Great songwriting, excellent production (Mutt Lange)

Also check out Cigarettes and The Violin. The Violin can still bring tears to my eyes sometimes. After 30 years of listening to it...I didn't see State Secrets, wish I could find it, that's a great song too. This is one of the albums I managed to transfer to CD a while back, I still love it...Dinner At the Ritz and Crack the Sky were played literally every day for years. Then I discovered Eric Johnson and Van Wilks...

OK are you tired of me yet???

Since I'm onto that time frame, here's my favorite Texas guitar player Van Wilks. I've mentioned...ummm...plugged Van on here lots of times, decided to check Youtube. This is Boy's Town, his first and most popular single. Don't know if it got any airplay in Houston, but Austin's radio station played it alot, he's from Austin. This is the first time I've ever seen Van do thisa song on anything but a strat he bought in the 70's. I think his is a 59 model. He told me one night, I can't remember...but I've seen Van do this song dozens of times live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvxEzktgAc8

The Marshall on the right, small logo, I think is his same amp he recorded this song on. He's used it for many years, he keeps the other one onstage because it cuts out now and then and he has to swap amps.

Pete, I am "blown away" by these guys! My exwife's Husband turned me on to them! I vaguely remember them. We have music in common and the fact that he is from "Keep Austin Weird" doesn't hurt either!

Jeff - (I think that's right???) I lived in Houston/Baytown/Pasadena in the 70's and in north Houston a mile from Intercontinental Airport in the 90's. Went to several KLOL rock and roll auctions, (Van Wilks played at one) and KLOL was the only decent station, so that's where I picked up in most of these guys, except for Van Wilks. I first heard him on KLBJ in Austin, looked for years for his stuff, it was not in the record stores.

Crack the Sky and City Boy are old favorites, I still listen to both, and was listening to Dinner At the Ritz before KLOL ever picked up on 5705, which was on the next album. That's also where I got into these guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c93aaCza ... re=related

Wish they had a live one...well, someone did post one but it's not the original band...did have a few members though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMh8P-q9wJg

I notice both guitar players just about pegged the original leads...cool...

As well as a few I saw on the lists and remembered...Donnie Iris, Saga, Warren Zevon, April Wine, Bob Welch, Jay Ferguson and a few others. Yeah, I'm mostly into a bit older stuff, but these were some of the better ones from that time. My interests have always run toward Pink Floyd, Genesis, Joe Walsh, Clapton, Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Tom Petty and a bunch of other classic rockers. The 80's didn't have a lot I really liked but some were just excellent. I just wish most hadn't been one hit wonders...

Excellent band! Loved 'em the very 1st time heard 'em, & they're STILL great.
Weren't they from PA?
When they 1st came out, ppl said they were a Yes clone, which I never got...

Damn Haley, Good Find, Ive never even heard of these guys!

my brother played in the Baytown Galveston area in early 80's late 70's with a band names South Texas Express.. Don Watts played pedal steel and Strat, Larry Pelloquin played guitar too..

OK are you tired of me yet???

Since I'm onto that time frame, here's my favorite Texas guitar player Van Wilks. I've mentioned...ummm...plugged Van on here lots of times, decided to check Youtube. This is Boy's Town, his first and most popular single. Don't know if it got any airplay in Houston, but Austin's radio station played it alot, he's from Austin. This is the first time I've ever seen Van do thisa song on anything but a strat he bought in the 70's. I think his is a 59 model. He told me one night, I can't remember...but I've seen Van do this song dozens of times live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvxEzktgAc8

The Marshall on the right, small logo, I think is his same amp he recorded this song on. He's used it for many years, he keeps the other one onstage because it cuts out now and then and he has to swap amps.

Van Wilks came to Beaumont a few times and he was always in Dallas. I thought he was from Houston? Maybe I'm getting his hometown mixed up with Alan Haynes? Did you ever see Alan when he was playing with Tommy Shannon and Uncle John (Johnny Winter's Woodstock band)? They were playing at Fat Dogs in Beaumont after Christmas one year, and Johnny came in to join them because he was home to visit his parents. Wow...can you imagine 2 Johnny Winters on stage?


I am SO glad that I'm not the only person who knew about Crack the Sky. I had the "safety in numbers" album in the late 70s and wore it out. We all thought they were from Canada for some reason? My favorite song was Nuclear Apathy. What musicianship!?

I used to go deer hunting in Bastrop, Paleo.


Any of you Texans remember Blitz or The Pin Ups? What about Scott McGill?





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Any of you Texans remember Blitz or The Pin Ups? What about Scott McGill?

I remember Blitz and Scott McGill!




.[/quote]

Any of you Texans remember Blitz or The Pin Ups? What about Scott McGill?

I remember Blitz and Scott McGill!




.

[/quote]


How about Lick? They were my favorite Houston band.

Scott McGill is a pretty close friend of mine. I opened for him 6 nights a week for 3 years at the Foxy Lady in Beaumont during the late 70s. I always thought Scott was a fabulous guitarist but his own worst enemy when it came to inter-personal relationships.

One of my musician cousins, Tony Castie, played lead guitar with him and sang in the late 70s too. Tony is King of the Blues in Beaumont (which really is saying a lot) but never played outside the area, even with Scott.


Oh man...this is taking me way back to some good memories that didn't seem so good at the time.

Yes I remember Lick. Do you remember Firewater? Tophat? Southbound?

Yes I remember Lick. Do you remember Firewater? Tophat? Southbound?

Sounds familiar but I can't say for sure. Was playing full-time and half-owner of a booking agency that brought bands from all over Texas to Beaumont when I was 19. Joined one of those bands and moved to Dallas because all those bands had to go to Dallas for a decent paying gig.


Formed a booking agency to gave me half-off 20% commission from (what was the name of that agency that had all the big rock clubs sewn up back then?) whenever we'd play Houston/Galveston.

Can't say I remember any of those bands.

yod - Van Wilks has been a resident of Austin for many years, at least since the early 80's. I don't know where he is originally from.

I'm feeling totally left out. GOTTA MOVE TO TEXAS!