Randy Pie "Luie"

Randy Pie
Sightseeing Tour
LP
(Polydor, 1974)

I was given a copy of Randy Pie's second album when I bought Kiss's Alive album at Stan's Records when I was 14. The store had a box of freebies, and the person who rang me up said I'd like it. Seeing as I live in the US, and it was a US pressing, it was eponymously titled, but, in their homeland of West Germany, it was called Highway Driver.

It sounded nothing like Kiss, but I did kinda like it.

Me being me, I eventually bought the other albums I could find locally, but I had to special order this one from the JEM Catalog* at my favorite local record store, Sooto Records (Sooto = something out of the ordinary). The West German pressing of this one was eponymously titled, but I ended up with the UK version, hence the title above of Sightseeing Tour. This was their debut and is ever-so-slightly more on the hard end than what followed. The later records are a bit more jazzy and discofied, but I still like 'em.

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OK, this is freaky:

When I found the Facebook page linked above, dedicated to the memory of SOOTO, one of the wall commenters was someone I used to know.

Now the really freaky part:

I bought this record while my sister and I were staying at his house in 1978! Our parents were friends, so we stayed at their house while our folks were getting our new house ready in another state. Small world, eh? I remember playing Love Theme from Kiss for him to prove Kiss were good musicians. He was not impressed. Then again, he was a little bit older than me and a big fan of Jimi Hendrix, who was rather talented.

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*Older readers in the US may recall that the JEM Catalog used to be pretty much the only way to get imported records back in the 1970s. I still have albums with big, orange JEM stickers that still will not come off.

>:-(