Townspeople, I dare you to listen to this live 1979 studio jam featuring Journey with friends, including members of The Doobie Brothers and Tower of Power horns! Just as Journey was hitting it big, with the addition of new vocalist and sex kitten Steve Perry, they performed live in the studio with other San Francisco musician friends for a very special edition of the King Biscuit Flower Hour. Legal entanglements stopped this historic jam session from ever being broadcast. Now hear’s your chance to witness history…if you dare.
Your mission, should you accept it, is to listen to this concern in its entirety and report back to the Hall with your impressions. All entrants will automatically be registered in a drawing to determine the winner of the patented RTH No-Prize!
May I instead opt for bamboo splinters under the fingernails or having my teeth extracted by Lawrence Olivier? Please?
I am not–repeat, not–going to listen to the whole thing. No es posible. But, I’ll tell you, hearing portions of People Get Ready and Crossroads, featuring Perry and other vocalists, is something you won’t soon forget. Peace to the shades of Robert Johnson and Curtis Mayfield, who, if they have truly gone to a better place, have no knowledge of what has been done.
Konajinx’s stirring defense of Billy Joel in another thread, something I would have thought impossible (and which, I admit, I am still partly convinced is a put on), leads me to wonder if anyone can defend Journey. My feeling has always been that it is a toss-up between Styx and Journey for my most detested band of that era. Styx, at least, manages to make me laugh sometimes, what with DeYoung’s unsurpassed campiness and the pitiable tough guy posturing of Shaw and whatshisname. Whereas Journey provides me with no “It’s So Bad It’s Funny” entertainment value; instead, they provide me with “It’s So Bad It Makes Me Angry” hypertension.
And, yes, obviously I know that I should be over this by now, and I am sure, eventually, the treatments will take effect.
So, if it hasn’t already been done: Can anyone say anything in defense of Journey?
I agree with you COMPLETELY re: Styx vs Journey! I’ve tried to pass these distinctions onto my sons, and will continue to pass them onto present and future generations. Even past ones, if that’s possible. It’s comforting to know I’ve got a brother-in-arms on this key subject.
I, too, agree with the Styx vs. Journey comparison. My fave member of Styx is the *other* guitar player — the guy in the white spaceman jumpsuit with Barry Gibb hair and beard. Bonus Look points for appearing to be eight feet tall when rockin’ next to the elfin prince of 80s concept rock, Tommy Shaw.
I would have guessed that you’d go with Journey over Styx, Mod, for some primal reasons.
Despite the experience Styx had with writing about evil post-ap-rock-alyptic regimes, if you threw both bands into a Mad Max-like setting and had each in their own walled off villages waging war on each other with primative weaponry (they would be fighting, we can only assume, over the dwindling supply of silk kimonos left in the world), surely the Journey tribe would crush the Styx tribe and have its way with the costume collection and now inoperable synths that Styx had been hording, wouldn’t it? Journey has that one tall guy, and Schon would definitely thrive in a Mad Max kind of world.
Or, if you move them into the techno-fascist futures that DeYoung warned us about, who would really make the convincing Kilroy? I say Perry does a much better job freeing humanity from its robotic overlords using only the power of his rock voice than DeYoung could ever do.
And finally, when Perry teamed up with Kenny Loggins, Perry was obviously the cooler, badder dude of the two. This is, of course, nothing to be proud of. But I bet that if there had ever been a Loggins/DeYoung collaboration, Loggins would have come off as the alpha male. For this alone, I remain surprised that you’d back Styx over Journey, Mod.
Finally, for any newer Townspeople, I recommend going back to one of our earlier looks at Styx for some insight into the band’s struggles and why I think they would have been a much more formidable – though even worse, surely – band had they been fronted by Billy Joel. Please excuse the obvious technical/formatting issues present in this early visit to the RTH labs:
https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/index.php/a-living-document-styx/
Thanks for reminding folks of that KEY piece of work on Styx. I encourage folks to check it out.
Yes, you would think I’d have a soft spot for Journey, but no. Despite the fact that Perry was a fox in that black silk kimono and that Neil Schonn would be a guy I’d select in a game of schoolyard football, I can’t stand their music – and that’s before they got really bad in the ’80s, with that Jonathan guy leading them into showtunes territory. Styx at least started out with an endearing degree of innocence and enthusiasm. Who didn’t want to sail away with them when we were 12 years old, or whatever we were at the time?
That earlier posting is great. And if I have never mentioned it before, the Styx Behind the Music, which surely must be on youtube, is absolutely priceless.
I tell ya, whenever I read in Creem that his name was James “JY” Young, probably 1982ish, I’ve been struggling, consciously struggling, to figure out the meaning of calling someone with a short and innocuous name by their initials. Was he a deceptively hard-ass thug? A well-known mover and shaker among the many boards of directors he surely leads? Thing is, at no time have I ever seen him referred to as only “JY.” His nickname seems only to be a part of his full name.
By now I’ve figured that it was a familiarizing move, and there’s an outside chance he gave it to himself. He is comparatively monstrous in that band, and this is taking into account the Eddie Deezen-like presence of the drummer. Eight-foot something, looks like he’s just waiting to take everybody out (curiously without a Mjollnir-shaped guitar), even while smiling. The nickname constantly reminds everyone who sees his name that he’s just a regular guy, you know, “did you wind up hanging out with JY the other night?” “JY’s solo in ‘Miss America’ was so awesome!” “Tommy just isn’t as melodic as JY.”
Well played, JY.