THE GRAND ILLUSION

"The Grand Illusion" has special meaning for me personally. It's not that this is something that musically remarkable but it's more on memory I grew with this album. Simply speaking, this album was released at the time when my colleague and I were having radio station (illegal - oops!) at small city Madiun, East Java, Indonesia. Our vision was only one: to socialize rock music for the city where I was born. So there was no commercial values with the radio - as all monies were collected from our pockets and we bought the material - including the 807 lamp (what is this? Dunno - but according to the engineer we hired it's a major component to build the radio transmission unit). Well, we built the city with rock'n'roll !!!!

This album was one of the albums that we regularly aired for the city. Our favorite whenever I played the disc jockey as well as broadcaster part was "Castle Walls" (track 7). Simple: the track has a very good intro where bass guitar plays its role combined with the melodic keyboard. The vocals are also excellent. What a memorable track! We made it "radio hit" at the time so finally listener requested the song to be aired. Of course by definition this album also bears radio hit commonly known by many music buffs" "Come Sailaway" - which for me personally is not something I like - it's too poppy. The album title track "The Grand Illusion" and "Fooling Yourself" are also something that most people enjoy very much. It's a good album to have. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW