Music Monday Oct 30: A band you’ve probably never heard of.

Songs for a Sunday: Coincidence Tuesday Top Ten: Sitcoms

Music Monday Oct 30: A band you’ve probably never heard of.

Unless you grew up in Canada in the 80s, that is.

Helix

They formed in Kitchener, Ontario in the late 70s and were primarily a bar band before recording two EPs, Breaking Loose and White Lace and Black Leather.

Their first full album, No Rest for the Wicked, saw them change their image from jeans/tshirts, to the leather outfits hard rock bands like Motley Crue and others were wearing.

Wait. Did I say Motley Crue was a hard rock band? I never considered them to be heavy metal, and we could spend hours debating the genre and the criteria…

Anyway, this was the album my friends and I played the shit out of.

It was the age of videos, but I could only find one for the debut single.

Were they any different from the plethora of bands in the early 80s? Not different enough to leap to the top of the charts, only getting to #186 with this album.

Their next album, Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge, doubled the sales of the previous album.

Rock You was their biggest hit making it to #27

What’s a rock band without a ballad or a cover song? Here’s their version of A Foot in Cold Water’s Make me Do Anything You Want.

Is there an AC/DC influence in this next one?

Shades of Judas Priest in this next one:

Speaking of power ballads, here’s a track from their fifth album, released in 1985. Note the outfits and hair. Were they now a hair metal band?

After that, I moved on and never continued following them them. They do the classic rock festivals around the country:

I’m torn between feeling kinda sad that this is what becomes of many bands or being happy that they still get to play music.

-Leon

Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words, and his latest sci-fi mystery, Euphrates Vanished.

My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/