A Piece Of The Rock

Satin Whale - Lost Mankind (1975)

Tracklist:
1. Six o'clock
2. Lost mankind
3. Reverie
4. Go ahead
5. Trace of sadness
6. Midnight stone
7. Song for "Thesy"
8. Beyond the horizon

Let's start tonight's post with SATIN WHALE. The band was founded in 1971 in the region of cologne. They played an interesting mixture of melodic rock and Prog with symphonic elements. Friends of old JETHRO TULL will like it.

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Dies Irae - First (1971)

Tracklist:
1. Lucifer
2. Salve Oimel
3. Another Room
4. Trip
5. Harmagedon Dragonlove
6. Tired
7. Witches Meeting
8. Red Lebanese
9. Run Off

DIES IRAE were a band from southwestern germany, Saarbrucken, to be more specific. Besides this record, they released one more 7". Their syle can be described as mixture between late 60's style Blues Rock and Kraut Rock. They have been compared to TASTE , but I don't go with that. Anyway, it's a decent album with solid rock songs ("Lucifer") as well as psychedelic parts ("Trip").

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Straight Shooter - My Time - Your Time (1980)

Tracklist:
1. My Time - Your Time
2. Happy New Year
3. Why
4. Love In My Mind
5. All Along The Watchtower
6. Disco Fever Everywhere
7. Now You're Shattered
8. Be With Me
9. Straight Fighting Man

I have already introduced the mighty STRAIGHT SHOOTER. Now, here's their second and by far best release, "My Time - Your Time". Just can't get enough from Georg Buschmann's carismatic voice!
This is the CD release, the tracklist differs from the LP and has one additional song on it, "Straight Fighting Man", originally released on their '81 LP "Flyin' Straight". I'll be posting this one in my next posts.

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From Dublin to Berlin...

On we go. No time to lose, let's get a little deeper into the vault...



Thin Lizzy - Live Tapes 12"(1981)

Tracklist:
1. Bad Reputation
2. Chinatown
3. Got To Give It Up
4. Dear Miss Lonely Hearts

I don't think I'll have to introduce this band to anyone of you, do I? This EP was released during their '81 tour and features four phantastic live tracks. It seems very hard to find and it hasn't come to my knowledge that theses songs are available on CD. So here they are, for your listening pleasure...

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Straight Shooter - Get Straight (1978)

Tracklist:
1. Friday on my mind
2. Look at these eyes
3. Early morning view
4. Need you so
5. Summer in the city
6. Thoughts on my pillow
7. Oh - sometimes

I already presented you this precious band last time with their "Love In My Mind" 12". Now here'e Straight Shooter's first album, featuring two cover versions, one being the Easybeats's "Friday on my mind" and the other the lovin' spoonful's "Summer In The City". Not that they needed it - their own songs are just as good. Like all their other albums, this one was released on the famous Sky label.

If some of you have any information about the band's history, what happened to the members when the band broke up, etc - please tell me! Keep the posts coming.

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Streetmark - Dry (1979)

Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Welcome
3. Sunny Queen
4. Lovers
5. Drifting
6. Disco dry
7. Watch out

Like Straight Shooter, Streetmark came from Düsseldorf, Western Germany (as it was then). But they had more in common, Georg Buschman was singer n both bands. but by the time this one was recorded, Buschman had already gone and formed Straight Shooter.
"Dry" is no extraordinary album, but it has its own style, trying to combine some neo-kraut-prog elements with some sort of mainstream-late-seventies diso style n a very naive way. Check it out, tell me what you think of it!

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Birth Control - Count On Dracula (1980)

Tracklist:
1. Count On Dracula
2. The Rescue
3. Sad Fan
4. Pick On Me
5. Caterpillar
6. Limelight
7. Witchhunters

Birth Control were one of the best known so-called "Krautrock" bands in the early 70's, with their masterpiece "Hoodoo Man" gaining huge success even in the UK and america. By the release of this album, the band had gone through many line-up changes and went to play a more jazz-influenced style. With "Count on Dracula", they had decided to go a bit more back to the roots, play a more rock-oriented style. And they succeeded. IMHO, "Count on Dracula" is, along with "Hoodoo man" their best studio release.

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I hope you'll like what I chose to present you. Any suggestions? Keep the posts coming...

It's the Krauts...

Straight Shooter - Love In My Mind 12" (1980)

Line-Up:
Vocals: Georg Buschmann
Keyboards: Hans Plankert
Guitars: Günther Striepling
Bass: Roland Hase
Drums: Friedhelm Misiejuk

Tracklist:
1. Love In My Mind
2. Happy New Year
3. My Time - Your Time

With tonight's post I'd like to highlight on the german music scene of the early 80's. Many bands thought it would be cool to sing in german and jump on the "Neue Deutsche Welle" train. But few bands kept true to themselves and kept playing decent rocking music. One of them was Straight Shooter, heading from Düsseldorf. They played a very unique style of 70's influenced hard rock with a slight disco touch.
Although the B-Side of this 12" was a very big hit for them in 1980 and gained them a huge following. But nevertheless, by 1984 and some albums afterwards, Straight Shooter called it a day. I hope you'll enjoy these songs as much as I do. I'm going to put up their other albums in the future, so stay tuned.

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Various Artists - Musik Szene Saar II (1981)

Tracklist:
1. Lancelot - You're So Young
2. Jacoby & Schorsch - Saabrigga Läwe
3. Ambi & Arno - Sunshine's Back
4. Double You - Roses From Texas
5. Luca Brasi - Alone Again
6. Luca Brasi - I'll Be There
7. Double You - Looking For Love
8. Ambi & Arno - You Are On My Mind
9. Lancelot - Fire In Sky
10. Jacoby & Schorsch - Es war so scheen...

Nothing much to say about this record except that there are two tracks from Lancelot on it. The band won the "Saar Rocky" (a regional band contest that existed from 1980-1996 in south western germany) in the category Rock and had the chance to put two songs on this sampler. You won't find these songs anywhere than on this sampler, I promise.

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British Steel

Nightwing - Black Summer (1982)

Line-Up:
Bass, Lead & Harmony Vocals: Gordon Rowley
Guitars, Lead & Harmony Vocals: Alec Johnson
Keyboards: Kenny Newton
Drums: Steve Bartley

Tracklist:

1. Overnight Sensation
2. Bird Has Flown
3. Carry On
4. Long Hard Road
5. Searching
6. Evil Woman
7. Black Summer
8. Don't Want To Lose You

The record for tonight is Nightwing's second album, "Black Summer". The Band was founded by Gordon Rowley in the late 70's. Rowley had spent one single day as a member of Richie Blackmore's Rainbow.
The record secured the band a large following in Europe, especially Germany and former Yugoslavia, with the record hitting even the top ten in Germany.
Nightwing is best known for having singer Max Bacon (former Moby Dick, Bronz and GTR) in their ranks, singing on the latter albums.
"Black Summer" contains some great hard rocking tunes with a bit of a boogie touch to it, much heavier than on their latter albums. Highly recommended!

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Hello World...

I'd like to start this blog tonight with two hidden treasures that were shelved in my collection and that I'd like to share with the world because I think this music is too good to be forgotten. ENJOY!

Armageddon - Armageddon (1975)

Line-Up:
Vocals & Harmonica: Keith Relf
Guitar: Martin Pugh
Drums: Bobby Caldwell
Bass: Louis Cennamo

Tracklist:
1. Buzzard
2. Silver Tightrope
3. Paths And Planes And Fututre Gains
4. Last Stand Before
5. Basking In The White Of The Midnight Sun
a: Warning Comin' On
b: Basking In The White Of The Midnight Sun
c: Brother Ego
d: Basking In The White Of The Midnight Sun (Reprise)

Long lost and forgotten Band that was put together by former Yardbirds vocalist Keith Relf. Relf died tragically in 1976.

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Lancelot - Stop Man 7" (1982)

Line-Up:
Vocals: Albert Jochum
Guitar: Bernd Ferone
Bass: Frank Rummler
Keyboards: Volker Herschbach
Drums: W. Schulz

Tracklist:
1. Stop Man
2. Killer Machine

Now on to Germany. This is Lancelot's second single released in 1982. They had a minor wit single two years later with "But I just can't stay behind", got a record deal with ARIOLA and got a support slot on the german leg of the Queen European tour. The title track is a nice little rocker. I also have some of their other stuff that will come up in the future...

Download here