Missed a couple of days as I was making my way to Orlando by car. But I'm going home tomorrow and thought I'd put up another great driving song. This one is yet another instrumental, but of a completely different flavor than the Joe Satriani tune I posted last week. This one circles back to band (Project?) that began in the '70s and continues to this day.
While a college student, I read Billboard magazine religiously. Until I went to college I hadn't even heard of it--a sequestered upbringing, I guess--but once I got to dig into the charts and see who was moving up and who was moving out I was hooked. And it was always cool to see advertisements from the record labels for upcoming releases. I would know 2-3 weeks out when something was coming. In the fall of 1976 a series of ads ran that showed a person mummified in recording tape. The tagline was "All Wrapped Up In The Project".
What on Earth was that all about? "The Project"? Didn't sound like anybody I recognized. As it turns out, the ads heralded the coming of The Alan Parsons Project, and its take on Edgar Allan Poe's works called Tales of Mystery and Imagination. For the next 10 years The Project released an album a year, always on some general theme and always including instrumentals (usually 2, sometimes just one).
The ninth album from The Project was named Stereotomy, and the second instrumental is today's destination for the Time Machine (which, by the way, was also an album title by The Project that included a very good instrumental to open up the album. I'll get to that somewhere down the line). "Where's the Walrus" was one of those songs that caught you early and hung on for the rest of the song. It had a driving beat, a great set of synthesizers, and a fabulous sax solo in the middle that led to a chaotic finish. It's definitely top 10 in my Project favorites, and worth a listen (with the caveat that it may cause dizziness and difficulty driving or operating heavy machinery). Enjoy...
Safe travels. See you tomorrow...
Pete
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