Starcastle, "Islands", San Francisco 1985

[Bruce]

Below is a link to another song from the Starcastle 80’s lineup called “Islands” from 1985 performed in San Francisco. Sometimes the songs flowed easily and took shape quickly, but Islands wasn’t one of those songs. It took a while to get the basic structure of the music together while George (the lead vocalist) sat patiently listening. After a couple of weeks one night as we were working on it again George suddenly began intensely writing in his notebook. The entire melody and lyrics came to him all at once. Hope you enjoy this.

https://youtu.be/1NjKGIhNrM4

[Baribrotzer]

Not too bad.

It sounds (to me) as if it could have been some sort of unknown outtake from Going for the One or Drama. Which may read like a put-down, but (again, to me) Starcastle tended to sound not quite like Yes, but like Yes covering REO Speedwagon songs - the sonic palette and fiddly, full-of-notes excursions of the first playing the meat-and-potatoes Midwest hard rock of the second. But this really does resemble work by, if you could imagine that, understudies for Yes. Which seemed (yet again, to me) to be what Starcastle were trying for.

[moecurlythanu]

^ Good description.

[zeprogmeister]

Just curious why the name Starcastle was used in the 80's instead of calling it a new name? The name Starcastle would seem to have been very unmarketable in the 80s.

[Bruce]

Just curious why the name Starcastle was used in the 80's instead of calling it a new name? The name Starcastle would seem to have been very unmarketable in the 80s.

The band was called StarCastle because that's what Gary decided we should call it. He felt that the music we were creating was in the spirit of the original group. Gary spoke with all the former members, explained what we were doing and he received their blessing for us to move forward as StarCastle.

[arturs]

Islands is one of my favorite songs off your Alchemy download. Definitely worthy of the name StarCastle.

But I can see how it must have been hard to gain traction with this music in 1985. Born in the USA, No Jacket Required, Purple Rain... All about concise, repetitive riffs and hooks, all about monster production, and all about selling an image. A band playing good music??? Tough times.