Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Gold - No Class What So Ever (USA 1980)



A chromatic downgoing arpeggiated riff tears the still air into shreds on "Light Speed" leading into the stellar clusters of the "milkyway" on the second track of side a ... absolutely a one-two punch worth the price of admission to this incredible ultra-unknown secret and long-lost set of music from Miami, Fla.

There are considerable similarities to the "Mr. Euphoria" record I posted some time ago, and if you follow this blog you'll recall Isabelbc posted their first record here ("Night Ride") about a year ago.  So I'll dedicate this newly-ripped version of the second record to Isabel, wherever she may be.  Oddly enough the guys reverted to an all-instrumental album here but they brought all the power in the book to play here.  On the back, the following note:  "This album was a first take live recording with no over-dubbing."  Pretty cool!

The album was written by the lead guitarist whose name is Bob Wamnes  ("the Wam" as he is called on the back cover) perfect in his mustachio and tuxedo.  His band is rounded out with Ed Mallett on drums and wind chimes, Tom McCance on bass and Jeff Powers on lead guitar as well.  I'm guessing these guys were high school pals who started a band, I wonder where they are now?  I sure would love to hear from the brilliant Bob Wamnes, truly a lost artistic genius in the US prog sphere as I think Tom would agree.  Just listen again to those big fat huge guitar chords on Light Speed and the way drummer Ed machetes his way through the jungle of power cables to the end to clear the way for the next track.

Truly a lost treasure of the late American guitar-based progressive style.  That late, great, style.




As samples I will post the aforementioned starter track:


And the classic jazzy guitar sound of "New York New York" which really should have been a radio hit but I'm pretty sure wasn't.  What I find fascinating in this track is that Bob Wamnes keeps changing it up instead of a long solo or ad hoc gratuitous middle portion, we get passage after passage of well-crafted music with odd chord changes and melodies and ideas.  Truly this one track is a mine of musical ideas, always changing and creative, until that beautiful f major/f minor riff closes out the song again.  Genius!







13 comments:

Tristan Stefan said...

http://netkups.com/?d=209124b295019

Tristan Stefan said...

I forgot to add, thanks again to the mighty osurec for introducing us to this amazing band. And in fact if you look on rym you will see he is the only one with ownership of the vinyl other than myself. Would love to know how he heard of them.

Mr. Banstead said...

Tristan,
Thanks for all of your great shares.
Please accept my humble LP rips of
Troll-Turned to Stone(1981)
Troll-Burning(1982)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/uhucfr
Two albums in one folder.

Anonymous said...

Waow! I am impressed!
Still a magic album deposited right in front of our ears amazed by the fairies and princes of this site.
Sincerely thank you!
This masterly opus will join musiconaute.info and I by of delighted in advance.
How PNF lives!

Musiconaute

ushaped said...

Again, thanks Tristan, this is really great. Any chance of a re-up for Night Ride?

All the best!

Tristan Stefan said...

thanks, mr banstead

Tristan Stefan said...

http://netkups.com/?d=569152751bb89

Tristan Stefan said...

this is gold - night ride btw

Anonymous said...

netkups seems to not be working at the moment. The intial page loads up, but once you enter the captcha code and try to proceed to download, gateway timeout every time :-(

Unknown said...

thanks. great tuneful ripping stuff. love that tone

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this fantastic album.Is there any way you could make this available as a lossless version, in FLAC or WAV?Thanks again.

Anonymous said...

I have signed , original copies of both vinyl records that the band recorded. Wool on that ....;-)

Julianryan said...

reuploaded on my blog along with Night Ride:
http://progressreview.blogspot.ca/2014/09/golds-night-ride-from-1979.html

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