Aural Surprises

A few weeks ago I found myself wondering, "Was Billy Idol's White Wedding ever actually released on white vinyl?"

Which would only make sense, right?

A quick trip to Discogs answered that question, and $15 later it's in my collection.

Along the same, "I wonder if…" lines, the other day I was listening to The Peter Jacques Band's Fire Night Dance (all four cuts on the LP massive disco hits back in 1979) and started wondering if they'd done anything thereafter. Once again I headed over to Discogs, and discovered that indeed, they had a followup release in 1980 called Welcome Back. Were they gone?

Anyhow, the album cover looked familiar, so I either had it in my collection back in the day and somehow neglected to catalog it at the time, or it was one of those I'd heard in the clubs, saw in a record store, and decided it really wasn't worth spending $5.99 on.

I went over to Spotify, not really expecting to find it there, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it—along with a couple other releases that I'll explore at another time.

In tone and tempo, in a lot of ways it reminds me of Rice and Beans, another group from the era I only became acquainted with a few years ago. It has that definite not-disco but also not-quite-dance-music sound of the early 80s. It's not bad. It's not great. Welcome Back and Exotical L.Y. are catchy tunes. But I definitely understand why at the time I didn't add it to my collection—or if I did, it slipped under the radar when the time came to catalog it.

Discover more from Voenix Rising

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading