Elpee-pop Special April 16th 1988: Spirit
My first encounter with Spirit was on April 16th 1988 in a radio show called Elpee-pop Special, in which album tracks from one group or artist were played for almost an hour. I discovered many bands in those days, like Horslips, Steely Dan, The James Gang and King Crimson. Bands that would never be played on mainstream radio, except in this very program, and that I still rank among my favorites. Spirit however would be the greatest discovery. I taped this show and played it many times and soon became totally obsessed by the amazing mix of styles that could hardly have come from one single group.
For all of you who already know Spirit, these songs were played in this order:
Fresh garbage (I didn't like it at first and was actually even tempted to stop the tape from recording, but it grew on me)
New dope in town (great intro, very unpredictable and one of my absolute favorites)
Mechanical world (one of those songs that completely overwhelm you and make you grasp for air afterwards)
Cold winds (for the first few seconds the intro suggests this is just another version of Lean on me, but this is much more beautiful than that)
Prelude/Nothing to hide (the delicate Prelude coupled to the hard rocking Nothing to hide makes a great combination, and by the time this ended I had decided I wanted to hear every single second this band ever recorded)
Animal zoo (started at half speed but I recognized it anyway. A very catchy song)
The next few songs soon had me thinking I was being fooled, as they sounded nothing like the songs above. It would take a while until I understood why.
Like a rolling stone (Dylan may have written it, but this was the first time I actually liked hearing this song)
Thank you (a short but nice tune)
America the beautiful/The times they are a'changing (a very pleasant and surprising combination, again Bob Dylan was not missed)
Victim of society (probably my favorite Spirit song in those days, and I still like it very much)
Lady of the lakes (again, just a nice tune)
Magic fairy princess (nice but nothing spectacular)
Circles (as above. Very nice intro though)
CB talk/Stars of love (sometimes called Stars are love and I believe that's what the lyrics say. Future games was played from its very first seconds until the end of the show, and I immediately liked so much silliness)
Kahauna dream (as above)
Buried in my brain (as above. During this last song dj Harro de Jonge starts mentioning the album titles and also makes some remarks about the sound quality and the fact that he couldn't get his Spirit collection complete. Apparently, at this time no Spirit albums had been released on CD yet. He also announces next week's show: Fleetwood Mac. I taped that one as well, but only played it once 'cause I found it extremely dull. I've never been a blues lover and never will be.....)
It took me several years to identify all the song titles.
Perhaps this is not a good representation of Spirit's music, but it definitely was good enough to capture my total attention. Spirit-fans may also see why I had great difficulties believing that all this music came from one single band. The complete lack of any information about the band made my obsession complete. No names of band members, no photographs, not even song titles; all I had were some album titles that didn't lead me any further anyway. And in those days there wasn't such a thing as internet to ease my curiosity. I already had decided to buy any CD of this group I could possibly find. It would take about six months before I finally was able to buy my first ever Spirit-cd, called Clear. Next came The family that plays together, Best of..., Potatoland, Twelve dreams..., Spirit, Future games and Son of Spirit, in that order.