ooh, i liked Starcastle! and Camel, good call. i can see it.
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This mystery music is interesting, there’s definitely a lot of very good writing and arrangement, sort of mainstream with some proggy moments. But the lower voiced woman singing does not have such great pitch, particularly when put right next to the incredible range and clarity of pitch in Annie Haslam’s voice. Amazing! But the mystery ladies still have some very nice harmony moments.
The male lead singer in the mystery group does remind me of Styx and Dennis De Young, he’s got a much stronger voice. And those songs have a similar bad-ass big rock feel to them like Styx and others of that time. Almost sounds like a different group.
Thanks to those who posted these wonderful Renaissance pieces!
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I did too. Saw them live, opening for Yes. (Of course) Like a lightweight Yes. Their lead singer was pretty good but nowhere near as powerful or nuanced as Jon Anderson.
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This is a jingle for radio DJ Allison Steele, “The Nightbird.”
Man, I never get tired of the Boing Boing forums. You all lost me in a rabbit hole of bands I’d never heard of, and I consider myself well versed in alternative and prog rock. But apparently not as much the prog as I thought.
Since I can’t keep up, I’ll totally derail my own post with my current favorite obsession. I’d never before heard “oompah” (sort of like Polka) music mashed up with rock, but I can’t get enough of it now. Yeah, my tastes are all over the place. (Note: try to make it to the first chorus for the payoff).
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That’s very early Styx. Before Tommy Shaw
I can’t find any examples of either Tradewinds or TR4, the proto-Styx bands, for comparison. But Styx’s first album is already far more diverse in sound than this band.
And while I do think the lead singer sounds like DeYoung, it doesn’t have the “bark” that his voice has between words and phrases. I suppose theoretically a younger DeYoung didn’t sing the same, and without Tommy Shaw they had a more homogenous sound.
But it seems like it would be easy for someone to positively ID if it were actually pre-Styx Styx.
I was obsessed with them too, but mine was in the 70’s … My friends and I would sit in a darkened car and listen to Black Flame on late night WLAV, and let it blow our minds. In college Prelude was playing on the turntable and I guess it was a little too loud - the RA came down and said “I don’t know what the fuck that shit is, but turn it down!”
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Back in the late 80s and early 90s when bands were trying to get signed or produced by me they would drop cassettes of demos to me. I’d find them on my doorstep, under the wipers on my car, handed them at bars. Some I still have. They were cassettes with hand written labels containing a piece of paper with contact info etc. This sounds and looks like alot of them I received. Probably just a sign me demo tape.
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I did used to listen to Renaissance (for example) as a kid,
now I prefer Glam, Proto-Punk, Punk, Post Punk and Noise,
why do you ask?
Huh. You may have something there:
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Wow, how did I ever miss out on this one? Then again, I don’t ever remember it played on the radio, even 1970s FM stations.
The instrumentals have kind of an ELP vibe to them.
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Definitely not Renaissance. Renaissance’s Annie Haslam’s voice is very distinctive and instantly identifiable.
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Any relation to Bill Mercer (one of the original 102.7 DJs)?
That was my conclusion, too. But she was far from the band’s only vocalist in its history.
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The tape may well be a demo for a band that never got picked up. There has to be many, many more tapes (and CDs) of such bands than that of bands that achieved at least some general renown.
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Oh, yes.
I’ve still got a few from my days in that business, and digitised several of the better ones from cassette, recently.
One is a complete mystery to me. I’ve no memory of who it was (unusual for a demo tape - I may have made a tape copy of the original, 40 years ago, because otherwise it would be marked with band details and phone numbers, etc.). But it is brilliant. It’s some of the best ‘classic pop’ music I’ve heard for a long while. Wish I knew where it came from.
(No, I’m not going to post it somewhere and ask, as per the mystery here.) 
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Josh Freese used to drop copies of his solo album in the CD stash at Starbucks. No one knew how to ring it up. 
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Think early Sweet.
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trippy
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