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Flash and the Pan — 485, 484

 ALBUMS:  Flash and the Pan (1978);  Lights in the Night (1980)

MVC Rating: Flash: 4.0/$$$;  Lights: 3.5/$$

This is an odd group with an odd, albeit catchy, style.  It was essentially Harry Vanda and George Young, former members of the breakout Australian group -the-Friday-on-my-mind-band, the Easybeats.

Vanda and Young went on to manage and produce songs for AC/DC, for whom Young’s younger brother played.

But between the soaring and crashing of the Easybeats and world domination of AC/DC was Flash and the Pan.

I plucked their self-titled 1978 debut from a bin at WUXTRY  in Athens, Ga.

Their hypnotic studio sound was a little like nothing you’d heard. Although I heard some people describe them as quirky, otherworldly in a 10cc way.

I think the members of 10cc were more clever songwriters. But Flash and the Pan certainly had the stranger sound, starting with their vocals.  The lead vocals delivered usually in a talk/sing style sounded as if it were filtered by a toy megaphone. I guess you could say  it sounded like a voice that could have been used on 10cc’s prison riot hoedown,  Rubber Bullets, The sing-song semi-electronic groove would then explode into a catchy chorus, that across the two albums I have starts sounding a little formulaic.

Best songs on first album: ‘Hey St.  Peter,’ ‘Walking in the Rain’ (covered by Grace Jones, and ‘Down Among the Dead Men,’ a song about the sinking of the Titanic. On the second “Headhunter’ ‘Make Your Own Cross’ and  ‘Calling Atlantis are interesting.

They barely dented US charts, but the second album, Lights in the Night, was No. 1 in Sweden.

The American cover of the debut album (shown at top) is as odd as the sound. People sitting on the beach with Frisbees flying all around them. In the distance is a mushroom cloud. On the back cover, the people are all gone but not the chairs and Frisbees.  Hey St. Peter take me home.

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The Easybeats — 508

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ALBUM: The Easybeats ‘Friday on My Mind’ (1985, compilation)

MVC Rating:  4.0/$$$

I can’t quite figure out the Easybeats, the 60’s-era band from Australia. This could be framed as a tale of two videos by the Aussie band, one bad beyond redemption, one amazing beyond compare. But more on that later.

Billed as Australia’s answer to the Beatles, they had two truly great songs:  ‘Friday on My Mind” and ‘Good Times’ are rock songs that  rank among the best, dare I say, or at least in the better category in our historical referencing language. ‘Friday’ is No. 726 on Dave Marsh’s list of the top 1001 songs of all time. Looking at that list, which I have in the form of an actual 1989 book, I’d move ‘Friday” up and put ‘Good Times,’ which isn’t even on the list, higher than Friday or at least on par.

‘Good Times’ probably loses points for inane lyrics, but the old film footage of the band doing this song has rock screamer lead vocalist Stevie Wright doing a flying knee drop at the right time. Not to be missed although the singing doesn’t always match the lips, if you know what I mean.

In the pantheon of rock songs, these two songs are hanging out at Itchycoo Park. (Damn that’s bad writing). But that Small Face pantheon, er, or park is not a bad place to be. OK let me just say it. Good Times wins by sheer force of it balls-out music and singing. Friday wins by capturing in words and music the powerful promises of an upcoming weekend.

But still it’s hard, as I said earlier, to understand this band, which is later linked to AC/DC through band members George Vanda and Harry Young.  Young was the older brother of Angus and Malcolm of AC/DC and were connected to that group through songwriting and production work. I’ll have more about V&Y when I review Flash and the Pan, a bizarre Vanda and Young project that generated several albums.

Back to the Easybeats. My main issue is that as good as those two songs are, I expected more hidden gems on this greatest hits albums. Instead I wander through what sounds like early Kinks outtakes or Dave Clark Five b-sides. Sounds like the band came unglued, torn between a hard-rocking psychedelic-tinged sound (Heaven and Hell) and hitsmakers a la early era Beatles thing (She’s So Fine.)

Their version of the much covered ‘River Deep/Mountain High’ is decent enough. I don’t know what to think of ‘Heaven and Hell’ whose title and lyrics got it banned in some places. It’s riveting in a rendition done on French TV but riveting in that your frozen in place if this could be heaven or this could be hell.

‘Come and See Her,’ which is not on the album fortunately but is captured on YouTube is  inexplicably bad. What are they doing? I can barely watch it. Is this the  band that has a live performance of ‘Good Times’ which I think is one of the best rock songs of that era. (INXS covered it years later, but the song never got the notice it deserved). Maybe it was all too easy. Easy fever.

Here’s their most popular song:

So two videos. One hideous and one brilliant. Either way, enjoy them here:

 Worst video.

Did you  catch the young woman dancing in the background at the end? She appeared to have pulled  her arms out of the socket or something. Anyway, here’s what I think is their best rock song (performance). CLICK HERE.

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AC/DC’s Malcolm Young Died of Dementia

Malcolm Young, the founder along with his  brother, of the globally successful Australian rock ‘n’ roll band AC/DC died today.

Of dementia. His family said that.

So far, all of the news stories report dementia as a cause or contributor to Young’s death  but don’t describe it beyond that.

I wish they would because I have Lewy Body dementia, the second leading type of dementia  behind Alzheimer’s.

I was diagnosed at age 56 more than a year ago. With Lewy  the life expectancy averages 5 to 7 years after diagnosis.

Young was 64.

I am doing three things with  this blog  www.myvinylcountdown.com

  1. I am shouting for more funding for research, for more awareness of Lewy. Some believe the 1.4 million number often used to describe how many are affected  now is vastly understated. Some whom are diagnosed with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s may actually have Lewy body dementia and there are some treatments for these diseases that are contraindicated for another and could be life-threatening. OK, believe it or not that’s one thing. Two more.
  2. Staying alive is important to me — but with my faculties intact. Right now I struggle to write this because my fingers don’t glide along the keys like they used to.  It’s part of the disease which affects me physically as well as mentally. I have set up this blog to review my 678 records (vinyl) that I have collected over the years. This has been a way to stay connected to my past and remember my love of music and music collecting. I look forward to trying to post every day, if not more. Be sure to check out the About Me page, and click on the post’s title if you want to comment.
  3. Now third is having fun. I want to chronicle and laugh about things I still remember. My music, my basketball, my family, my years in the  news business. That’s fun for me and hopefully will tie into my second rationale.

So I’m not really a fan of AC/DC.

I don’t own an AC/DC album. Of course I know their music as did every teen (male?)  in the late 70s with a car radio (w/power booster and 6X9’s in the back). My younger brother whom I’ve mentioned before in these blogs had the album ‘Back in Black,’ if not more. I always thought AC/DC was like asking for a drink of water and receiving a firehose to the face. Some folks like that.

But I did have some records that have a degree of separation connection to the band.

Malcolm’s younger brother was in the band, Angus (the guy in shorts). But his older brother, George Young, along with friend Harry Vanda were founders of the Easybeats, sort of the Australian Beatles. And they were good. Really good, way back when. Friday On My Mind was an international hit.

They later, Vanda and Young, formed Flash and the Pan and they were good and weird. Very weird.

George, who also produced a number of AC/DC albums, died only about a month ago. I haven’t seen a cause of death reported. I have albums — which I will review as I have been in alphabetical order — of Flash and the Pan and the Easybeats.

The Easybeats video that follows is an old favorite  of mine. Stay with it until the end and you’ll know what I mean when I say I hope he has kneepads on.

There’s also a good documentary on Australian rock from the Easybeats to AC/DC.