BAND X
BEST OF BAND X (RSD24) - LP

UPC: 603111761411
Label: RIDING EASY
Format: LP
Release Date: April 20, 2024
In stock items ship within 48 hours

This product is a Record Store Day 2024 product. It will be available in store on April 20th, 2024 at 8 a.m. ET when our store opens.

Any remaining stock will be made available online on April 21st, 2024 at 8AM EST for LOCAL PICKUP orders. Orders for shipping will be available at 7PM Sunday April 21st

For more info please visit the RSD page here.

DESCRIPTION 

With it's tongue in cheek title, The Best of Band X (there had been no previous Band X releases) snuck into the record racks in 1976, the first the world was to hear from musician/producer/writer/arranger (and later all-American hero) Craig Peyton. Fitting in somewhere between contemporaries like Weather Report, Headhunters and Stone Alliance, Craig Peyton definitely ploughed his own musical furrow even in an exceptionally fertile era. Originally a jazz drummer and vibraphonist, Craig was interested in utilizing the potential of some of the new synthesizers that were coming onto the market in that era, (beating even Stevie Wonder to the use of the Fairlight keyboard). Band X consisted of Alan Grzyb, Victor Preston and Joey Bellomo alongside their auteur, Craig Peyton. Despite being, broadly speaking, 'jazz', Craig's music had a synthetic feel and, like many musical conceptions of the future, sounds decidedly retro-cool today. Drummer Bellomo contributed synthesizer work, and horn-player Grzyb also contributed keyboards. Bass-man Preston also played trombone, and alongside Grzyb's bassoon and clarinet and the assorted electronics, it was not your standard jazz ensemble. Quirky song titles (some of which wouldn't sound out of place on a prog-rock album from the same time) confirm the image we have of a musical maverick. Much of the current demand for this very hard to find album owes itself to DJ Amir's championing of the track Home: many have remarked on it's similarity to the classic Steely Dan sound of the same era; other reference points might be Shuggie Otis and Michael Franks. It's a poignant, floaty and ultimately unique song, with Craig providing the 'blue-eyed' vocal, as he does on the other vocal track Afterthought, which also sounds like it could've happily lived alongside Shuggie's Inspiration Information album. A vocal and a lively slice of sequencer space-funk with some truly trippy keyboard work, here's another track with loads of potential for contemporary appreciation.

TRACKLIST

1 Rip Van Winkle
2 Red Cloud
3 Trullion Alastor
4 Afterthought
5 Picking Mushrooms with Rabbit
6 Home
7 Black Hole