Nektar-"Thru The Ears" (1978)

 

Artist: Nektar

Title: "thru The Ears"

Label: Import Records

Format: 2LP

Cat #: IMP 9001

Year of Release: 1978

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1978 Promo

Listed Condition: VG+/VG

Sell Date: 2/10/22

Sell Price: $12.99

Discogs Last Sold: 5/24/21 $7.99

Low:  $7.49

Median: $10.49

Average: $10.49

High: $12.99

Current low price: $18.98

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 1

Have/Want: 13/5

Where Sold: South Glens Falls, NY

Time it took to sell: 7 years

Where and When Bought: Nuggets Boston early aughts used $4.99 sticker on it

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A-

Sad To See It Go: No

Nice compilation of 70's British prog stalwarts Nektar.  My buddy Kenny got me into themaround the time we did Rubric and I picked this up on a trip to Boston in the early aughts.  I believe there was a half off sale and the $4.99 price tag was reduced to $2.50..  Prog fans wanted CD remasters in the aughts, not vinyl.  So did I, but I was in pile and deal mode taking advantage of the sale with an $80 stack.

A funny cooencidence, when Kenny & I went to see Nektar around 2004, a keyboardist, Tom Hughes, from a band we issued in the US several years prior and had brought to the US with their fellow Woronzow cohorts we were working with for here.  We had no idea Tom had joined Nektar and were shocked.   The last question we'd ever thought we'd ask at a Nektar gig was "isn't that Tom from the Bishops?"  Kenny and I have caught Nektar a time or few after that, but Tom's time with them was short lived.

This compilation, "Thru The Ears,"  has tracks from their peak commercial years.  A big fat red sticker on my promo copy states "includes live and studio material previously unreleased in America!"  1973's Remember The Future, a top 20 US album for United Artists when prog rock was commercial, is represented here with the first half.  It took until 2013 for Purple Pyramid to put out Sounds Like This in the US, the previous album from the same year.  Some of those songs: "Do You Believe In Magic,"  "Wings" and a live NYC version of  their mainstay "Good Day" from 1974 make their American debut here.

That 1974 concert from the Academy of Music and broadcast to NYC on WNEW encompass all of side three with "That's Life" from that years Down To Earth and "Desolation Valley." from 1972's A Tab In The Ocean.  Tab's closing track "King Of Twilight" is also within.  The  1971 debut Journey To The Center of the Eye contributes "The Dream Nebula" which on that album it's two parts closed side one and opened side two.  Here it is combined in the middle of side one.  Down To Earth, the next biggest US album peaking at #32 contributes "Fidgety Queen" and "Astral Man."  1975's Recycled contributes the closing "It's All Over."  

The last charting album from 1977, Magic Is A Child with Brooke Shields at age 12 on the cover, is not represented here.  Roye Albrighton on guitar and vocals wasn't on that one for the only time, and Polydor issued it in the US, so that might be the reason the JEM distributed indie Import Records left it alone.  Albrighton played with Nektar until he passed in 2016.

The original bass player Derek "Mo" More and drummer Ron Howden continue the band to this day.  They were supposed to be at Iridium in a couple weeks but that got canceled due to COVID complications with the club reopening.  Looks like the tour itself got bumped to the end of March with NYC and major cities in general left out.

So much information to sift through in the prog world!