"REELING" through the years...
Or, adventures in collecting the most obscure music I can find...

Well, the weekend is here, and I don't plan on posting an awful lot over the next couple of days, but I've got a little something for y'all here. Also, the weekend is a time to be "not so serious", right? So, this post may be inconsequential, but it is also (slightly) informative. Here is a 1975 album by the group "LOVE", who had been recording since the late 60's. The title? "REEL TO REAL", a whimsical exercise in wordplay; kinda cool...from the "Reel" of tape, to each "Real" listener out there. That's one interpretation, anyway. "Love", led by guitarist/songwriter Arthur Lee, never really had any big hits, although their 1967 album, "Forever Changes" is considered to be a classic. I ordered this album over Ebay, and even though this disk is 30 years old, it was still in the shrink-wrap, brand-new, and unplayed. Which I thought was really, really cool. I'll settle for anything that is playable, as long as the scratches aren't so big that the tone-arm does swan dives as it negotiates the grooves.

But ya know, that title..."Reel To Real", somehow seemed oddly familiar. Where had I seen that title before? And then I remembered that I had a couple of other records with similar titles...so, I did the "Google Image Search" thing, and found pictures of those other two discs. They're not exactly widely-known pieces of music, either. Just goes to show you can find virtually anything on the 'net...

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So here it is..."REAL TO REEL" the 1979 album in which the group "STARCASTLE" reverses the philosophy of the "Love" album (see above)..."Starcastle" obviously felt they were taking their "real" experiences and putting them down on "reels" of tape. I don't know if that was actually the case, but it sounds intelligent. (I hope) Starcastle was basically an art-rock band that recorded 8-and 10-minute long, progressive rock songs, and when they began their career, they were in the same league as early Genesis, they sounded a bit like Yes, but as time went on, their record company forced them to record shorter songs (all the better to get radio air-play with), and the group fell apart due to all kinds of pressures. Starcastle's lead singer had actually been REO Speedwagon's original lead singer; his name is Terry Luttrell and he vocalizes on REO's very FIRST album, from long, long ago.

So far, we have one "Reel to Real", and one "Real to Reel" album, in what is appearing to be a best-2-out-of-3 album title faceoff. (Why does everything have to be a competition? I don't know!) There's one album to go. Which title will WIN???? (This is almost as exciting as watching poker on TV!) (ZZZZzzzzzzz......)

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And here it is...the 1980 album by "CLIMAX BLUES BAND"...and the title is..."REAL TO REEL", which means that either "CBB" was in cahoots with "Starcastle", or these two albums had the same album title, out of dumb luck.

The Climax Blues Band was formed in England in 1968, and they have a website, and they're STILL playing gigs, even though there have been quite a few changes of members over the years. Founding member Colin Cooper, the guy with the low voice on the hit, "Couldn't Get It Right", is still with the band, and the group forges on. Actually, I'll always remember this band, because I saw them perform in 1975 at the University of Idaho, and their longtime guitarist, Peter Haycock, sounded easily as great as Eric Clapton or Carlos Santana. In the record business, though, I guess not everyone can be a big star. For every big group out there, there were bunches of good groups that didn't really get noticed. Such as the three bands featured in this posting...Love, Starcastle, and the Climax Blues Band.

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Whenever I go to a record shop (RECORD, as in "VINYL"), oftentimes I'll comb the record bins looking for bands I've never heard of. I'll check out the instrumentation (often listed on the back cover), and more often than not, I'll buy an album based upon how I "feel" about the album when I've seen it. Case in point: I bought the first "Boston" album back in 1976, before they'd had a hit...their album just "looked good"; I bought it, and it only turned out to be one of the biggest albums in history. No, I'm not taking credit for that, but I did buy the album, and when I first played it, I thought it sounded really good. And so did a whole lotta people. But, I had "Boston" before anyone knew who they were! So I think that's kinda cool.

So you want some more obscure bands to check out? In no particular order, here are some of them....Camel, Barclay James Harvest, Man, Family, Renaissance, Brian Auger's Oblivion Express, Triumvirat, Captain Beyond, Potliquor, Sad Cafe, Savage Grace, Spirit, Flash, Randy Pie, Crack The Sky, Armageddon, Widowmaker, Moonquake, Groundhogs...all of these bands released records during what I think is the "golden age of progressive music", from about 1968 to 1977 or thereabouts. Some of this music can be found on CD's, sometimes "original album releases" have been deleted, but you can find "anthology"-type compilations of the group's material. Used vinyl shops, 2nd-hand stores, Ebay or Gemm.com are great places to find this obscure music as well. Happy listening!

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In conclusion, my Dad once accused me of having a "turntable in my head"...hey, I resemble that. I tend to "tune out" on a lot of stuff, but as far as record collecting, you could say I'm "all ears".