Since Christmas is a time to remember and replay with shared memories, I trot this out every Christmas/New Years season like a ritual; The look!! The lights!! A tune I first heard in summer 1979 and was hit with a burst of full-on Boardwalk Boulevard Party-Power rock/blues/soul/jazz fusion (The swing!! The HORNS!!)
This caused me to want to investigate further who this dude was. In his evolution he didn't compose many more like this using such West Side Story vernacular and coloring -- he was already movin on in his palettes and coloring books -- but this was a flare of a signpost along the way which then included lifts from both Manfred Mann and the Pointer Sisters covering him on top 40 radio. What was that name again??
Before that he was like a some phantom shared secret -- revolutionary, society-overturning lyrics scrawled on the walls of college bathrooms keeping Punk alive when the spirit of CBGB's was in the air everywhere;
AM alternative college stations playing some incendiary bootlegged live track in an era when that was still blessedly possible and lawyers didn't own quite as much of the world.
We've chartered a course from CBGB's to CBDCs in way too quick of a heartbeat.
It was fun to be hangin ten on the forefront of something before anyone else knew -- before the wave crested. Smack dab in a town where he'd played parking decks in the financial district downtown 10 years and several bands before...Crankin out the news and testifying when some of us were still listening to the Partridge Family!! LOL.
This network live gig via a now-embalmed legacy media stands as one of the final blasts of that enduring era when soul world was the whole world -- and it came 23 Christmases later at a time many of us were struggling to remember what was special about what we never forgot.
Now it's been ANOTHER 23 (!!) And this strata of unclassifiable isn't made anymore, not in any way, shape or form...
...yet somehow still stands testament to that place in our hearts where we're always the Punks....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCfSu99bAqc
Merry Christmas again Challengers!! And thanks for being along for the ride...
Work. Strive. Endure. Remember.
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