OVER THE TOP. COMPLETELY.

Modesty be damned and banished! We're shooting the moon on this one. We're gonna start with a little keyboard vamp. Bring in the band and now let's get comfortable in a tight, swinging jazz rock groove. Enter nifty guitar solo. And electric piano solo. Band keep vamping. Now, horns!, hit it and take us to the verse. Bring it down, all quiet. Spotlight on vocalist, stage-center, sounding like he was recruited from the house band at Caesar's Palace. Bring the waka-waka guitars, strings, horns, AND oohh-aahhhs from a female choir. Now it's the band's turn again, a little harder this time than the first time around. The jamming begins, horns leading the charge. Strings swirl, guitars twirl, horns wail into a mild cacophany and silence. Lone spotlight again on stage-center as Mr. Vegas comes out again and takes us back to the three-ring circus of horns on one side, strings on the other, waka guitars bicycling around, and the female choir flying back and forth on their trapeze. All goes quiet and the juggler enters in the shape of a short, tight drum solo that sets up the finale by first inviting the bass to get the ball rolling. Everyone else joins in the fun. Electric piano. Backing vocals. Horns. MOOG! only now has the party truly started. And we fade out as the Big Top tea party spins into the distance.

Quick, concluding note. Around four years earlier, Lucifer's Friend had recorded one of the top-10 tracks of early metal: "Ride In The Sky." Led Zeppelin may or may not have ripped-off the horn's war charge for Plant's howl in "Immigrant Song." I just found a very cool "live" clip of that track on YouTube. Check it out.

LUCIFER'S FRIEND -- Spanish Galleon (Banquet, 1974)
Yes, it's over the top but so unabashedly so, so unironically, so sincerely. I don't know if music like this is made any more. Is this kind of thing is even possible without quotation marks?