I Was So Much Older Then......

"The storm has come,
Or is it just another shower?"
- Swamp Thing by The Chameleons


I'm sure this will be a recurring subject in this blog, so a little back story is in order. In Grade 11, back in 1975, I took a vocal music class which was being offered for the very first time at my school. There, I met a guy who would become my oldest and dearest friend. Steve was a big time star wrestler at our school, and I was a middling basketball player. We did not know each other in our first 2 years there as we had come from different feeder schools and hung out in separate crowds. But, we hit it off immediately in that class and the rest is history. He had, for me at the time, a very eclectic taste in music and introduced me to many of the artists that I still love today. He was listening to Iggy, Lou Reed and Bowie way before anyone else of our age group, and he had the t-shirts to prove it! His Mom was responsible for a lot of his listening choices as she was much cooler than anybody's parents that I knew.

Fast forward to 1983 and Steve came over to my place one day with this album that his Mom had picked up by a new band from Manchester called the Chameleons U.K. They added the U.K. over in North America because some impostors apparently already had the name. The album was Script Of The Bridge and it was for me an instant connection. Layered guitars and urgent vocals with lyrics that really hit home to my 22 year old head. In 1985, when my marriage was breaking up, their second album What Does Anything Mean, Basically? ( now there is an awkward title) came out and solidified how I felt about these Mancunians and got me through many a dark, wasted, depressing night. About a year later came Strange Times, which was a very appropriate description of my state of mind back then. Their songs deal with feelings of alienation during the reign of Margaret Thatcher and helped crystallize my lefty political leanings. Three glorious albums by these guys who none of my friends had ever heard of! Even better! In early 1987 (memory just a little fuzzy here) they played in Toronto at what is now Kool Haus but was called R.P.M. back then. Steve and I ventured to the Big Smoke to see them and it remains to this day in my top 5 of any concert I've ever seen. A roaring, sweaty, rapturous show it was! Steve didn't like them as much as I did, claiming to this day that he liked the opening band, the Mighty Lemon Drops better. But, he would be quite erroneous in regards to this you see. In 1992, the Chams released an album of the very show I was at! The sound on it is iffy as it was from a CFNY (known to you young'uns as the Edge) broadcast, but I can say I was present for the recording of a live album. If you listen closely, that's me woo-hooing very loudly throughout. They had a very acrimonious break up in 1987 and then got back together in 2001 and toured and put out another album called Why Call It Anything? but they had lost the magic in my eyes. I prefer to remember them from those 3 killer albums in the 1980s and that one live show which I will never forget.

So, now to my Best Of The Chameleons:

1. Don't Fall
2. Monkeyland
3. Singing Rule Britannia (While The Walls Close In)
4. A Person Isn't Safe Anywhere These Days
5. Swamp Thing
6. Inside Out
7. Thursday's Child
8. Perfume Garden
9. Second Skin
10. As High As You Can Go
11. Soul In Isolation
12. Seriocity
13. On The Beach
14. In Answer
15. Pleasure And Pain
16. Up The Down Escalator
17. Silence Sea And Sky