In the late 80's, Tommy Shaw (from Styx), Jack Blades (from Night Ranger), and Ted Nugent (from the gun range?) formed Damn Yankees to revive their flagging fortunes and came up with a surprising commercial success. The songs are credited to all three but in reality, it sounds a lot like a Night Ranger album. "High Enough" was the major hit, prerequisite power ballad, and enduring track from this one, while Ted's narcissistic complex comes to the forefront on the ugly-as-sin "Piledriver". His solos are mailed in to say the least. Look for "High Enough" on a compilation somewhere and don't bother with the rest.

Is everyone obligated to gush over this record? I can't do that. It's mildly amusing, though.

This was originally released as Limited Edition in 1974 with a different cover, not as many tracks as what is on this disc, and was limited to 15,000 copies. Both albums contain the cutting room floor outtakes of tracks – which there were many – from over the years as Can had the luxury of recording their material in their own studio. The obvious mistake (or trick) was to take a ton of these so-called studio riffs, bundle them all into one giant track, and call it “Cutaway”, but it comes off like a hideous, never-ending blooper reel. Most of the time the goofs simply come and go, and sometimes showcase other points of view in a rather light-hearted fashion – like the “Ethnological Forgery Series” tracks. There are quite a few tracks which do seem to stand on their own, especially the bookends (“Gomorrha” and “Ibis”) and a few of the spots with original vocalist Malcolm Mooney (“The Empress and The Ukraine King”, “Mother Upduff”, “Connection”). Fan interest only.

Now Can completely switches gears – Future Days is, for all intents and purposes, the big, relaxing, idyllic comedown from the manic trip which was kicked off by Tago Mago three albums ago. It is a rather strange contrast – the same group which spent extended amounts of time repetitively grinding you to the edge of senility are now gently sifting your ears through the sands of some faraway vacation spot, or something similar. There are only four – count ‘em – four tracks here, Damo’s vocals have been relegated to second division status at this point, and even the main instrumental players take somewhat of a backseat to the general atmosphere of the overall theme in play. Only on “Bel Air”, the massive but still somehow light and airy 20-minute track which ends the album, do we get hints of the old, classic Can tension at work, and even then, it is more like the song simply ends up dissolving into thin air, only to regenerate itself and begin again on its’ original theme. I have to say, the older I get the more static this album becomes for me, but you have to give them credit here – it is a radically different sound, even though upon re-listening it is not as appealing as I thought it would be.

The second disc in the Can/Damo Suzuki trilogy has often been cited by critics as a letdown from the manic peak of Tago Mago, but in its’ own loose, earthy, and free-flowing way, Ege Bamyasi is just as progressive in certain places, if not more so. And I'm not sure the group ever was more effective than on "One More Night", where everything seems to tangle around each other 1,167 times by the time this song is over with – as if they were intent on proving that now, they could do more in a third of the time than they did before. This is my go-to Can disc.