Styx: Wooden Nickel Era - Your Favorite Album?

Does anyone else think it's unusual that there is no live material available from them before Tommy Shaw joined? Or a box set (unless I am missing something)?

 

The way I discovered record shows was that in 1985, I was going to record stores looking for the wooden nickel albums. They were all out of print but still listed in that big book stores used to have pre-internet. After trying and trying to track down Serpent and Miracles, the clerk told me to try a record show. Never heard of one but the next month, my mom drove me to the local holiday inn (I was in 7th grade) where I had no problem scoring original pressings of all the LP's plus a German Styx II. I still have all of those LP's today. I remember the smell when I walked in the room. I felt I'd found my people. It became a monthly ritual for the next 25 years.

 

Wow. Don't think I've ever seen one of those either.

 

"Man Of Miracles" for me. I played that album a lot back in the late 70s and early 80s.

 

Mine is pretty nice, still...

Those little tabs on the S and the Y are usually broken off.



Record slides out from the inside, too...

 

I have one of these. Mine is a promo and had a big promo sticker stuck to it. Took that off to see if I had the little tabs for the S and Y and they are still attached but bent pretty good.

Pat

 

I bought the digital download of Styx II from Pono and it came with the song "Unfinished Song" tacked on to the end. Seems the same mastering as The Wooden Nickel Collection though, so less that great. The whole album on Pono is seems to be the same as the WNC.

Pat

 

Wish I could hear their live take on Yes' version of No Opportunity Necessary that DDY refers to...

 

The "Unfinished Song" version of Man of Miracles is my preference for that album. We already have "Best Thing" on I, of course, and the "Lies" cover never seemed to fit the band well, in my opinion, especially since they do it fairly faithfully, as opposed to transforming it the way that Yes transformed covers in the early days.

 

Styx II is one of the only albums by anyone where i play every track. IMO is outshines all the other Styx albums by far.

 

Yeah, it is hard to come by but I do have a bootleg show from 1974 from the Man Of Miracles tour. They played all Wooden Nickel tunes. They opened the show with "Quick Is The Beat Of My Heart and closed with "Children Of The Land". The sound quality isn't great but it is very cool to hear those songs live. JC does lead on "Serpent Is Rising" and "Krakatoa" (which I'm sure might have been pretty odd to see live). Also, Lady has no piano. It is played on guitar. This may have been one of those times when Dennis talks about in the early days the headlining bands didn't like them and would mess with their lights or not let them use the grand piano.

 

Love to hear that.

 

Serpent Is Rising.........The first three songs are all very good, Witch Wolf, Grove of Eglantine and Young Man. As Bad As This a decent little acoustic. Winner Takes All is an upbeat poppier song in the vein of what they put out on Paradise Theater. 22 Years is not a favorite. Jonas Psalter is a decent mid tempo rocker and the title song is OK also. I believe this to be the best of the early stuff top to bottom.

 

@jmpatrick send me a PM with your email. I tried to send you a PM but it didn't send.

 

And it's the only Styx album with Mellotron. Always a plus!

 

This thread inspired me to go to Amazon to buy the complete Wooden Nickel Recordings on Amazon. It's just a little over $7. I was missing Styx 1 and Man of Miracles. I've had downloads only for years of these two, not counting a beat up vinyl copy of Miracles. So I'm going to give those two albums a fair chance. On a side note, Man of Miracles was recorded a few miles down the road from me.

 

Nope. Never seen that before. Thanks for posting the pictures.

 

While II is clearly the most ambitious, the more straight-ahead 70's rocker "The Serpent is Rising" is more my style.

 

I had a lengthy interview with Dennis back in 99 for the radio station I where I was working at the time. We discussed Wooden Nickel for a bit and I told him how much I loved that stuff. I told him to pick a song he really liked and he said from the last 2 albums his favorite song is "Christopher, Mr. Christopher". Sometime I need to post the audio of that interview somewhere, I also interviewed Tommy the week before and this was around the time of Gowan being announced as a new member.

A 30 second clip of the interview can be found here at StyxCollector.Com 2.0 where we talk a bit about the Roboto mask. When you go to the site click "Roboto Center" and click "DeYoung's Comments".

 

Any other cool Styx related audio bits you can share with us, because I would love to hear some of these interviews and such.

 

I'll see what I can do. I have my Dennis and Tommy interviews on CD at home, if I can find the time I will try to post them somewhere. I'd like to listen to them again because I haven't listened to them since I did the interviews in 1999.

 

Complete Wooden Nickel set on amazon for $7.39. I picked up a set. Styx - Complete Wooden Nickel Recordings [2 CD] - Amazon.com Music

 

Styx II


By FAR!

The Serpent Is Rising has the worst production I've ever heard, Man Of Miracles is rather sub par in terms of material and the debut album is kidna weird, lol.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy them all, but Styx II really sticks out as a "classic rock album" in my opinion.

Great stuff!

 

To illustrate how bad they can get, here's a pic of the front of mine:

The record is minty, so that's a plus.

 

Other than Lady does the current group even acknowledge these 4 albums?