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BarryL
12-14-2009, 01:12 PM
I still love that first Angel album.

Back in the '70s the radio DJ played Mother Dear off the new Styx album, Equinox, followed by Tower by Angel. I went out and picked up both albums. I think I wore them both out. But now, 30+ years later, I don't listen to either very often, but I reach for Angel about four times as often as I reach for Equinox (that's once every 2.5 years for Angel versus once a decade for Equinox - LOL).

There was some good stuff on Angel 2, but then that was it for me.

I stuck around with Styx for Crystal Ball and Grand Illusion and that was it.

Kansas is still the hands-down winner of the American popular prog bands. I stuck with them, ironically, until The Point of Know Return. They lost me with Monolith and thereafter have been like dust in the wind.

Troy
12-14-2009, 01:21 PM
I hope you're familiar with this:

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Frank Zappa's love-letter to Punky Meadows, guitar player for Angel. (I hear he's more fluid than Jeff Beck)

The best thing about Kansas Monolith was the cover, with it's postapocalyptic indians camped under crumbling overpasses. Loved that cover, the album, not so much.

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/religionnaire/artistes/kansas/art/monolith.jpg

BarryL
12-14-2009, 01:47 PM
Frank Zappa's love-letter to Punky Meadows, guitar player for Angel. (I hear he's more fluid than Jeff Beck)




Saw Dweezil with the band this past summer, opened for Dream Theater. They did a great job with an awesome band, as this video shows.

They played Inca Roads, which was awesome. Mike Portnoy joined them to sing the lead vocal on Bobby Brown.

Mr Peabody
12-14-2009, 07:33 PM
Love Styx but I'm a Midwest guy. Pieces Of Eight is really good it's just the two hits off the album over shadowed the other good stuff. Renegade and Blue Collar Man are so over played people probably just don't want to play the album any more. I've got the first Angel on CD and a couple others on vinyl, all are over do for a spin. The first two songs on Monolith are great, People of the South Wind and Turn Around. I've got a bunch of Kansas. The Vinyl Confessions is a good album from the later catalog. As much as I like Kansas I'll never understand why the song Point Of No Return was big. As an album Song For America remains my favorite. If Steve Walsh was on board with that Classical mix album that could have been excellent. Some of the songs are still pretty good versions.

BarryL
12-15-2009, 07:58 AM
As an album Song For America remains my favorite.

The two long tracks are outstanding. And Leftoverture was great considering the general pressure at the time for bands to produce radio-friendly material. They managed to shorten the track lengths and maintain the progressive Kansas sound. The whole POKR album sounded thin to me, although there was some okay songwriting. Good era for the band.