Friday, February 29, 2008

CRACK THE SKY / CRACK IN THE 70'S

Digitized from the original vinyl, This is a 80 minute, home made "Best Of" compilation that takes the best cuts (i.e. my favorite tunes) from the first 4 Crack The Sky albums, released from 1975 thru 1978 on Lifesong Records. They are CRACK THE SKY, ANIMAL NOTES, SAFETY IN NUMBERS & LIVE SKY.
Format: Mp3
Bit Rate: 320 Kbps
TRACK LISTING:
Nuclear Apathy / Wet Teenager / Flashlight / Give Myself To You / We Want Mine / Play On / Prelude to Safety In Numbers / Ice / Lighten Up McGraw / She's A Dancer / Virgin? No / Hold On / Long Nights / Robots For Ronnie / Maybe I Can Fool Everybody (Tonight) / Safety In Numbers
THE BAND:
John Palumbo - Keyboards, Guitars, Vocals
Rick Witkowski - Guitar, Percussion
Joe Macre - Bass, Vocals
Jim Griffiths - Guitars, Vocals
Joey D'Amico - Drums, Percussion
Gary Lee Chappell - Vocals, Guitar
Rob Stevens - Keyboards, Synthesizers
WEBSITE(S):
http://www.crackthesky.com/ CrackThe Sky Home Page
http://www.bobbyshred.com/crackthesky.html Bobby Shred Home Page
http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2123 Prog Archives
REVIEW:
By Yours Truly
Crack The Sky holds a special place in my musical heart. I am, and always have been, a large fan of what they nowadays call Prog Rock. When this band arrived they were hard to catagorize. To some it was hard rock, others said Prog and yet others called it Industrial rock. Whatever you call it, it was some of the most off-the-wall, innovative and unique stuff out there in the 70's.
John Palumbo, the person responsible for most of the songs has a special way of looking at the world, like one of those demented genius' who are terribly smart but don't know how to interact with people. The rest of the band is no slouch either. Rick Witkowski plays some of the nastiest / tastiest guitar you're likely to ever hear. Both the Bass and drumming is much above average and moves things along nicely, but it's the songs that make this band stand out.
This CD starts out with an all time favorite tune of mine, Nuclear Apathy. This is an 8 minute kickass tour-de-force that pokes fun at the human race. "On the moon they're laughing at us, on the moon they're falling off their seats". An awesome tune. It doesn't stop there though, the next song, Wet Teenager delivers the message "stop blaming your parents, pick yourself up and get on with it"
This band is still together and still cooking today. As a matter of fact they have a new album that came out December 5th, 2007. I have yet to get all their stuff, alot of it's hard to find or priced beyond what I can afford to pay these days with 3 buck a gallon gas eating into my disposable income, but I'm always on the lookout for CTS music. I highly recommend this band, but be warned....this is not "quiet night by the fireplace" stuff. .... This is Rock n Roll at 11 on a scale of 1 to 10.
CONTACT:
READ THIS for more information on this album.
Tom

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Tom,

I've been enjoying your recent blogs, which I discovered while searching for John Palumbo's Innocent Bystander (thanks!).

I found another blogger who's a Crack The Sky/Palumbo fan at:

http://incaroads-wvkayaker.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html

He has some other CTS and JP stuff you may want to check out.

I thought it was interesting that on your "home made" CD, many of the songs you left off were favorites of mine. I think that just shows how good these guys were/are.

I also am a fan of Mike Fennelly's music. I have a vinyl album of his that uses the same pic as the one for the album you have up.

How about Bill Nelson (Be Bop Deluxe)? He's another unique talent I enjoy.

Thanks for the enjoyable sharing!


Gadjitator

Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 12:51:00 AM EDT  
Blogger Tom Eckels said...

Thanks for the feedback and the tip Gadjitator, I'll go check that out right now.
You're right about CTS's catalog...everybody has a different lineup of songs that are their personal favs. I had to do some heavy pruning to get the most important stuff on an 80 minute CD.
Does Your Michael Fennelly album with the same cover have a different set of songs???
As far as Bebop Deluxe and Bill Nelson goes, the only album I've got of theirs is Sunburst Finish. Just one of the many bands out there that I never got a chance to grab their whole catalog. I don't see much of them on my wanderings eiher.....somebody's gotta have 'em all, right?

Tom

Monday, March 31, 2008 at 11:31:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Camarillo Brillo said...

Crack The Sky's 1st two albums are on my "desert island" list no question!!!
Hope y'all will dig around camarillo brillo for more cool stuff and download a couple of those WHFS tapes too...

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at 12:19:00 AM EDT  

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