1980's

Flash and the Pan – Randy’s Rarities

randydafoe36 Comments
“Hey St. Peter” by Flash and the Pan

Harry Vanda and George Young, formerly members of the Australian group the Easybeats put this band together and came out with a New Wave creation that my buddies and I thought was some cool music. Their first album charted #80 on the Billboard 200 Album chart which is pretty decent. It was much more popular here in Canada where it got to #25. The above song was actually the B side to their only charting song on the Hot 100, “Walking in the Rain” which went to #74.

Grace Jones covered this song in 1981 on her album Nightclubbing, as a single it charted in New Zealand, West Germany and Australia..

“Lights In The Night” is the title track from their next album, released in 1980, it went to #1 in Sweden.

36 thoughts on “Flash and the Pan – Randy’s Rarities”

  2. Zappa is a very acquired taste. He can be too much very quickly. That said, the times I’ve switched off the TV which was torturing us with the latest cooking/Kardashian/Adventure Unreality/Lost interminably shows and muttered ‘I Am The Slime’ means some Zappa has stayed with me!

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  4. Thanks for the ‘blast from the past’ Randy. It was great listening to those songs again. I think the last time I heard them they were on tape.

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    • You’re welcome buddy! Yes it may very well be we listen to this on cassette tapes! I was sure I had a couple albums but it’s not among the stranglers I’ve held on to.

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  5. Very cool memories! I didn’t think I knew it, but as soon as I listened it was instantly ‘oh yeah! I like this one’ and I’d heard the Grace Jones version too. Plus, ‘Hey St Peter’, never knew who did that song. I got their name mixed up with Sniff N The Tears from around the same time.
    A good find

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  6. I actually knew the Easybeats version of it… George Young is brother of the Young brothers in AC/DC… there is a different connection!
    It doesn’t sound like a song that would be covered a lot but there it is. I like it.

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  7. Like Christian, the name resonated right away, but I couldn’t remember any of their songs. I do remember the beach/frisbee cover art from the “Walking in the Rain” video above, but more remember Grace Jones’s version of the song. “Lights in the Night” did not ring any bells in my brain can. Surfing about a bit, I recalled “And The Band Played On (Down Among The Dead Men)” and “Hey St. Peter.” What I don’t recall at all was feeling back then the band had as much depth as I sense now listening to them all these years later. Curious.

    Thanks for the thought-provoking post, Randy!

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    • You’re most welcome Steve. I glad it piqued your curiosity! I do recall that the band was not really given credit as innovative or as you say having some legit talent. Good observations!

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  8. I recognized the name Flash N the Pan right away but couldn’t remember why. It wasn’t because of any of the songs you highlighted here. So nerdy me did my own little investigation and now I know why: “Midnight Man”. Released in 1984, it looks like their biggest hit based on Wikipedia. It did best in Germany where it climbed to no. 7 in the charts.

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      • The only Frank Zappa song I knew for the longest time is “Bobby Brown”, which I guess is the closest he ever wrote that resembles a pop song. While I recognize Zappa was a decent guitarist, I haven’t warmed to most of his music, which oftentimes feels over the top to me.

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      • Yes I believe that was his big “hit” as it were. Not the biggest fan myself but he was very talented and innovative. He had more chart success outside of the US and in particular Europe and Scandinavia .

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      • There are definitely Frank Zappa fans in Germany. My longtime music buddy and former bandmate Gerd digs him.

        Since Zappa has released so many different albums, I guess the trick is to find the “right one”. A couple of years ago, I made another attempt to listen to Zappa and recall some stuff I thought was okay. Sometimes, his sense of humor makes me laugh, other times I find it’s way over the top.

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      • Yes that’s Zappa in a nutshell. For song titles he’s one of the most covered recording artists of all time. I’ll be updating the numbers soon but he’s always been in the top 10.

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      • Gotta jump in & say, remember ‘Valley Girl’ his one & only foray into mainstream hit radio. Zappa was immensely talented as a musician but also perhaps put too much into efforts to shock, not to making great, memorable music. Still, that said he left us with some pretty good songs which didn’t sound like much else on radio – ‘Montana’, ‘Bobby Brown’, ‘Joe’s Garage’ etc

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