Let's go all the way back to the 1980s when I was a kid of nineteen or twenty. The tunes coming out of that decade were pretty much a crapshoot: hair metal and "We Are the World", along with bands allegedly being "alternative", initializing their names, and poised to be corporate-sponsored arena rock... with a message. The real alternative acts were being celebrated in one-off or serialized 'zines, made by the disaffected youth such as myself. By using the art of xerography, and often scamming for the office supplies to make our productions look sweet, we were going beyond Flipside and MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL... and the great thing about those bands and singers who wouldn't be heard otherwise, is that they packed the music that influenced them into their guitar cases. It wasn't all punk and new wave, either. Through them, and my beloved Sunburst Records in Huntsville, Alabama (I salute you, Jay Ratts!), I became reacquainted with Tim Buckley, Big Star, and John Cooper Clarke... then hello, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Fairport Convention, Todd Rundgren, The Dwight Twilley Band, Girlschool... and this brilliantly insane band of jazzy psychedelic rock outlaws called Spirit.
By the time I picked up a pristine used vinyl copy of "Clear" for three bucks, it was already sixteen years past tense, yet the sonic boom grooved into the vinyl wasn't dated in any way. The album cover was intimidating with four of the members seemingly inside drummer Ed Cassidy's head, yet further investigation into their other albums and magazine interviews revealed a most content bunch of gentlemen... and Cassidy was always smiling big.
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