One of my favorite things about vinyl is the size. A 12-inch vinyl record cover gives an artist 144 square inches to visually represent their music, and they use the space to shock, to offend, to attract, to tantalize, to create mood.
So when you\’re crate-digging and you land upon an artist who appears shirtless, in running shorts and tube socks, dreamily rendered in a montage of hot machismo — there he is with a microphone! There he is sort of air…surfing or something? There is his face, mouth sensuously open, long hair falling into his eyes! There he is with twin guns, pointing them at me while he wears protective earmuffs? — you buy it.
You don\’t even ask questions about it. You just buy it.
This is how I became the owner of Steve Walsh\’s \”Schemer Dreamer\” album at Guestroom Records in Oklahoma City for the price of two American dollars. It\’s a purchase I\’ll never regret.
The Man
It was only when I started researching this album that I found out that Steve Walsh was not some hyperlust one-hit-wonder that made this over-the-top album and then faded into obscurity. Oh, no. Steve Walsh was the lead singer of Kansas — yes, THAT Kansas — the seminal \’70s prog-rock band.
He\’s the soaring voice you hear on \”Carry on, Wayward Son,\” \”Point of No Return\” and the gorgeous \”Dust in the Wind.\” He\’s the hyperactive keyboard player who jumps and kicks and does handstands while his fingers dance lightning-fast arpeggios on the ivories. And, to be fair, there is a certain amount of truth in advertising on his \”Schemer Dreamer\” record cover — the running shorts and tube socks were basically his uniform during his Kansas years, too.
He released this album the same year that Kansas released \”Audio-Visions.\” Unfortunately, both albums flopped and gave Walsh the nudge he needed to try new things. He left Kansas a year later to form a band called Streets, but after a top ten hit on two otherwise disappointing albums, the band called it quits in 1985. In the early \’90s, he re-joined Kansas and toured with them into the \’00s until he finally left the band for good in 2014.
He didn\’t abandon his solo work, though. In 2000, he released the experimental, freakish and kind of horrible \”Glossolalia\” with an equally awful cover. Surprisingly, the album has a die-hard group of devotees who call it one of the most underrated albums of all time. To each his own, I guess.In 2001, Walsh released \”Shadowman,\” which was a sort of return to his straight-ahead rock roots, and actually released music as recently as this year — the bluesy, instrumental \”Brooklyn Time,\” which isn\’t a half-bad listen.
The Music
So, with a cover celebrating hot, swarthy manhood, what depths of love and loss, insecurity and vulnerability will be explored on the album within?
Just kidding. It\’s pretty much a self-congratulatory dude record. However, where similar records of the time would revere the blue-collar working man, Walsh seems to show disdain. He sets the tone for the record in the title track, in which the \”schemer-dreamer\” isn\’t the guy who works his way to the top. The \”schemer\” and the \”dreamer\” are two people who underestimated the awesomeness of Walsh, and now he\’s the one who\’s laughing.
Even more bizarre is a third character in the song, an underaged prostitute, who Walsh takes to task for asking him to pay her. \”Well, if you hear me out there, screamer girl/ You could\’ve had, but that\’s all right for you/ Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…\”
In \”Get Too Far,\” Walsh goes after union guys fighting for rights, his \”old lady\” who wants to leave him, leaders of the nation who send people to war, and inflation. In \”You Think You\’ve Got It Made,\” he goes after the trappings of success. It\’s confusing.
In between the political rants, Walsh belts out a couple of moody ballads: \”So Many Nights,\” a standard rock ballad that shows off his vocal range and features some weird background vocals; and \”Just How It Feels,\” a song about the lessons his grandparents taught him.
The only song approaching the prog influences of Kansas is the last song, \”Wait Until Tomorrow,\” in which the narrator just can\’t wait to get out of the stifling small town where he lives and pursue his dreams.
The standout track on the record, though, is \”Every Step of the Way,\” a driving rocker about pursuing your dreams, and the only song approaching a hit when it was released.
While the lyrics can be downright silly, the music is something else. Walsh recruited the guitar heroics of Kansas bandmates Rich Williams and Kerry Livgren, as well as Dixie Dregs legend Steve Morse, who Walsh would work with on several projects later on. Their contributions keep the album from descending into hilarity, especially with lines like, \”Now I don\’t got nobody/ Do my washing, do my cooking/ Well, I\’m a hard-working man/ I ain\’t got time to be good-looking.\”
The Verdict
\”Schemer Dreamer\” is an \’80s rock record that sounds like it\’s really trying to sound like an \’80s rock record. It\’s almost like Walsh had a list of subject matter requisite for an album like this and just kind of strung it all together in each song.
There are cheesy lines aplenty — some of which made me laugh out loud the first time I heard them — which easily could have made this record a sad joke. However, the great musicians and Walsh\’s singular rock voice elevate the record from silly to just plain fun.
\”Schemer Dreamer\” won\’t be on my frequent rotation list any time soon, but it\’s definitely an album I\’ll show my guests or bring to listening parties. Few album covers leap off the shelf or dare you to pick them up the way this one does.