An Appointment with the Past: Sunburst Finish

The robbery took place in the front seat of my truck circa 1981, although neither victim nor thief knew at the time that a crime was being committed.  In the moment it seemed a fair exchange; Kyle would get temporary possession of my Sunburst Finish cassette and all the joy of discovery that went with it and, in return, I would bask in glory as influencer and guide.  Kyle, a new friend, had earned the gift of Be Bop Deluxe through to his recent turn providing understated acoustic guitar accompaniment to an earnest young woman’s vocal performance of Rush’s ‘Madrigal’ at the annual high school talent show.  The friendship would prove fleeting however and, at some blurred point during the ensuing four decades, our “noble loan” story transformed into a tale of selfish misappropriation.  Many years would pass before I would be made whole.

Having settled naïve and comfortable onto the shiny CD train with the onset of the 90s, I occasionally thumbed the racks for any Be Bop Deluxe but only ever lucked upon one compilation, Raiding the Divine Archive, in a Tower Records in San Antonio, Texas.  My beloved and I had traveled there one weekend in the fall of 1991 so she could recite the three branches of government for the federal bureaucrat who would subsequently judge her worthy of U.S. citizenship.  I was pleased with the find but had to make do with just four songs out of the Sunburst Finish ten.

In the summer of 1996, work friend, mentor and fellow tunes enthusiast Dave-O approached me with news of his entry into the murky world of ‘internet’ and his discovery there of a mysterious marketplace from which one could purportedly order hard-to-find CDs from ‘anywhere in the world.’  He offered to act as proxy should I wish to test the dial-up waters and asked what my first pursuit might be.  Suspecting probable folly, I nonetheless offered up Sunburst Finish as acid test.  A mere seven weeks later, Dave-O appeared at the office sporting an envelope and a doubt-dismissing grin.  He handed over my treasure, noting having kept it in the “CDNow” packaging to avoid the ‘naughty’ album art offending his missus.  My prolonged time of lacking ended, and I once again owned.

In the new millennium and to alleviate a dull but lingering anxiety left over from the post-Kyle fallow years, I have made a few additions to my Sunburst holdings, to include two vinyl copies, an original US EMI release from 1976 and a 1986 Revolver Records UK reissue.  Most recently I have further soothed myself with Cherry Red’s amazing 3CD/1DVD Sunburst Finish 2018 box set, containing the original plus new stereo and surround sound mixes of the album and an assortment of contemporaneous live and bonus material from 1976.

An aside:  For any unaware, Be Bop Deluxe was a distinctive 1970s English glam/rock/pop band built around and by guitar hero-cum-musical explorer Bill Nelson.  Sunburst Finish was the band’s third album and ranks as my personal favorite. My review of the album is that it is freaking awesome, laden to bursting with heaps of head-bopping groove, hard-rocking chug, memorable words, and soaring guitar. Recommendation:  Buy this under-recognized masterpiece if you enjoy good things.  

I still hold out hope that a guilt-ridden Kyle will leverage modern-day digital tracking opportunities to find me and return the pilfered cassette, although this reflects more a concern for his eternal soul than any continuing need of personal healing.  In the meantime, I take solace in the knowledge of my important, if unintended, role in what I imagine has been the creation of a strong community of Be Bop partisans among Kyle’s progeny.

[And before you ask about that cassette copy of Panorama by The Cars in my stacks, know that I in no way rate innocent possession of material stolen by others as felonious, let alone the equivalent of the vile crime described herein.]