Missionaria Protectiva

  SPARKS  No.1 In Heaven  (Virgin,1979) - Synthpop, Disco       Ever the chameleonic band, California pop duo Sparks haven taken many shapes in their 50-year career. However, few projects stack up against their eighth record, No. 1 in Heaven .  Energized by the hit synth-disco single (and Joy Division-influencing) “The Number One Song in Heaven,” No. 1 in Heaven is a club record that combines the iconic collaboration between Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer with their own bizarre taste. In turn, Moroder produced No. 1 in Heaven and helped transform Sparks into one of the most daring bands around. Gone were the days of their guitar-focused records that preceded their work with Moroder. They quickly adopted sequencers and synthesizers and built witty, energetic and genius songs like “Tryouts for the Human Race” and “Academy Award Performance”—both of which expanded the contemporary palette of synth-pop, a sub-genre that was only just recently getting i...

      Neal was a founding member of REO Speedwagon, the only one still in the current line-up.     157 Riverside Avenue, the oldest track still in the REO live set, owes a great deal to Neal’s virtuoso improvisation, whereas on Ridin The Storm Out (1973), Neal introduced the classic Minimoog synthesizer sound to REO’s line up.     Neal also wrote Sky Blues from 1973, and more recently, One Lonely Night from 1984 and Variety Tonight from 1987, from the album Life As We Know It, which also features an electronic sax solo played on an Emulator digital sampling keyboard. R.E.O. SPEEDWAGON You Get What You Play For - Live EPIC, 1977 LP1 -  https://www.sendspace.com/file/jayfbkyi LP2 -  https://www.sendspace.com/file/1ki2is0w

  NO DICE  No Dice  (EMI,1977) - Hard rock       T his is one great hard rock record very much in the style of The Babys underappreciated debut, Mott The Hoople and related one-off British Lions as well as The Faces and The Rolling Stones 'Black And Blue' album. TRACKLIST: Why Sugar                    Happy In The Schoolyard                    You Can't Help Yourself                    People That Make The Music                    Fooling                    So Why I                    Murder In The Rain                    Silly Girl                    Counting...

  DEKE LEONARD  Kamikaze  (UA,1974) - Rock       After being sacked by Man in early 1972 Deke recorded his first solo album Iceberg , starting in May of that year, with the album eventually being released in 1973.       Mixing rock’n’roll stompers with souped up psychedelicised country rock, Leonard is joined by a fine cast of the Manband family past, present and future, and by members of the closely related band Help Yourself. Dave Edmunds lends production assistance on future Man track A Hard Way To Live , a song released as a single. Deke had to deconstruct Edmunds’ layered production, lest it sounded “exactly like a Dave Edmunds record”. Deke ponders in his wryly humorous way that had he left it alone he might have had a hit with it.       All in all this album is a fine representation of Leonard’s good time vibe. TRACKLIST : Cool Summer Rain                       ...

  SHUGGIE OTIS  Inspiration Information  (Epic,1974) - Psychedelic soul       A blues guitar prodigy who’d been playing with his father  (pioneering R&B bandleader Johnny Otis) since he was 11, Otis played on Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats when he was 16, and released an album with blues-rock gadabout Al Kooper before he was 20.  Upon release in October 1974, Inspiration certainly sounded like the work of an isolated L.A. savant. Smooth, organ-driven California funk, quasi-new age psychedelia, loungey jazz instrumentals, string interludes-- all propelled by the same kind of analog drum machine that had piqued Ralf & Florian's interest at the same time .       Inspiration instantly earned comparisons to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, and reportedly made Sly Stone’s jaw drop upon hearing it.  The album failed to live up to Columbia’s expectations, such as they were, and Otis was unceremoniously dropped from the label after its...

  VAN DYKE PARKS  Discover America  (WB, 1972) - Progressive pop, Calypso       On paper, Discover America is a calypso record, with Parks remodelling traditional songs in a celebration of Trinidadian culture. It does that, and it sounds joyous. But it’s not all sunlight. Hidden behind the breezy rhythms, he’s also making a sly comment about post-colonial Trinidad and, by implication, race relations in the US. That sounds grim, but it’s largely playful, and sometimes straightforwardly funny (see “G-Man Hoover”, which tirelessly mocks the fabled FBI chief). Little Feat provide the salty atmospherics on “FDR in Trinidad”, and the gangster theme is continued on the lazy, tropical-sounding “John Jones”. Ry Cooder is an obvious point of reference, but, really, it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that The Clash colonised this territory a decade later in their pan-global phase (though Parks is slower to anger, and has superior table manners). TRACKLIST: Jac...