Vinyl Voyage Radio

Tom Flannery and the Shillelagh's debut album, Teen Angst and the Green Flannel is not available on vinyl. But it should be. It has a pure rock and roll sound that is a throwback to another era; something you rarely hear on the radio today.  And it is a refreshing accompaniment to a hot summer. I've known Tom now for a few years.  He was one of the composers for my two films, Facing Sudan and Crayons and Paper .  In fact, he provided the very moving song " Crayons and Paper " that accompanied images of war and death drawn by children in Sudan and Sri Lanka and is the centerpiece of both films.  Tom has always been the acoustic guy with a guitar. Not any more.  Wanting to deliver a hard rocking sound now for years, Tom assembled a band and put together a stellar album of pure rock, full of angst, pain, and love (or something like it).  It is a guitar driven reflection on life from the point of view of what has always driven rock and roll:  ...

You have voted and it's official:  K-Tel's Pure Rock is next on this month's Adventures in Vinyl . Pure Rock was released with little fanfare in 1981.  This is an interesting album and very different from K-Tel's earlier compilations.  Unlike other K-Tel albums, there are no tv or radio commercials associated with this record.  One of the hallmarks of K-Tel in the 70s was was their ubiquitous presence on tv.  In addition, the album is not overly edited.  There are only 14 songs on the album as opposed to the usual 20 or so on most K-Tel albums in the 1970s.  This was a change that K-Tel began implementing in the 1980s--less songs, but higher quality. And finally, this album has very little to do with 1981.  The more popular K-Tel albums capitalized on hit songs ("20 Original Hits! 20 Original songs!") and contained songs from the year in which the album was released.  On Pure Rock , only one song dates from 1981---Pat Benatar, "Hit Me W...