Fastway/Fastway

FASTWAY! Wowzers this is a cooker of a debut! Fast Eddie,he of Motorhead fame bolts from Lemmy in 1982-83,forms a band with Pete Way,he ex of UFO,grabs a young rock singer Dave King enlists a solid Rock Drummer (Jerry Shirley)and proceeds to write a batch of good Ol school hard rock tunes that is until…..

Pete Way takes a bunch of cash from Ozzy joins Ozzys solo band and splits(Petes tenure with Ozzy is short lived) from Fastway! Great name by the way! Ha! So Fast Eddie plays along with guitar the  bass on this album as well and what a great album…..

Fastway had a real shot at things as they toured with Iron Maiden and  Coney Hatch back in 83 for this album and in case your wondering this is a no cheese zone…..

Love Me The Hard Rock….

EASY LIVIN- is a great leadoff track! If Your looking for Fast Eddie Motorhead this ain’t the place this is straight forward rock! Easy Livin gets the party started and Dave King sounds like a young Robert Plant here and the mix of this album is classic no frills rock n roll! Jerry Shirley plays some real cool rock drums and man oh man were Outta the gate here quick! Crank the vid to hear what I’m yammering on about! Kudos by the way who put the vid together for Easy Livin! In the vid they show shots of the front and back album covers and pics of the vinyl version!

FEEL ME,TOUCH ME- Jerry drives the bus with his drums and this another rocker! Cool singing,cool percussion with the use of tambourine and Fast Eddie plays his solo againest Kings Harmonica and that’s always bonus points here at Arena Rock! Big bombastic sound this album is from 1982 but it has a mid 70s sound to it! Man the drums are mixed real good here!

ALL I NEED IS YOUR LOVE-drums once again drive this tune! King sings the song and doesn’t sing in any falsetto mumbo jumbo. He knows his deal and man Shirley is a monster on this album! Not overplaying but adding some real cool zippity cool fills! Man no one can make albums sound like this anymore! Catchy tune….

ANOTHER DAY-King sings softly along with Fast Eddie on acoustic and after a minute thats enough it’s goes into rock mode real quick! Shirley spears the folky opening with his sticks and were off! Big power riff during the chorus! Boom with electric guitars are a rocking!

HEFT- Eddie stsrts off with a real cool riff and drums join in and this is heavy with a groove and King pulls off a real good Bobby Plant yell and a My My thrown in! The drum mix is so fucking good on this album did not already say that!?

WE BECOME ONE- this song starts off in one gear and shifts Into another gear during the chorus! This band is locked and loaded and looking to kick yours and mine asses! By golly they do! Great solo by Fast Eddie!

GIVE IT ALL YOU GOT- Shirley stsrts off with quick fills and this is a real quick blast of rock! Quick guitar,cool vocals! SimpleSimon rock!

SAY WHAT YOU WILL-love the groove and tempo of this tune! The bass reminds me of Cliff Williams of ACDC on Gimmie A Bullet from Powerage! You know that throbbing bass ..bump bump bump…Eddie and the boys just keep the booze n rock rolling!

YOU GOT ME RUNNIN-Eddie starts the show and the band rocks it into gear. Dave King sings it good on this song and many others. Listening to these tracks all these years later is kinda sad as they could  never duplicate this albums awesomeness!(more on that later)

GIVE IT SOME ACTION-cool guitars and holy sheeeit Theres cowbell here on the verses and the chorus keeps the party going. Shirley and Eddie play it out Til the end….

IN CONCLUSION- Fastway the debut from these guys is a great rock record! It’s a no frills all out party album! Fast Eddie ditches the speed metal of Motorhead grabs a young dude on lead vocals(Dave King) and a throwback powerhouse drummer(Jerry Shirley) and Fastway stormed out of the gates with this sure fire winner!

Unfortunately to my ears though all was lost as Fastway put out a polished turd for there followup(All Fired Up) and than did that goofy soundtrack album(Trick Or Treat) both of these I did not purchase as some poor unfortunate fellows I went to highschool did!

This abum ..is the real deal! Too bad all was lost after it!

If you stumble across this….grab it!

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