Enjoying "Crazy Nights" on a dusty morning

It was a dusty start to MEMORIAL DAY METALFEST 2009, ROUTE 1's annual celebration of long hair, bad mustaches and incongruously placed self-indulgent guitar solos.
I woke up at a CAMPGROUND coated by several layers of dust and campfire ash and just knew I needed some TYGERS OF PAN TANG to get me through the morning.
The Whitley Bay band were one of the shining lights of the NEW WAVE OF BRITISH HEAVY METAL (NWOBHM). Unfortunately, the album I chose for my morning at the campground, "CRAZY NIGHTS," is often savaged by critics and the band didn't like it much, either.
Band founder ROBB WEIR has said the record label forced the Tygers to record the album too early -- before the band had fully prepared -- in a bid to follow the success of the acclaimed "Spellbound" album.
The production does sound weak on "Crazy Nights" -- the drumming sounds like it is being done on cardboard boxes -- but I consider this album to be quite underrated. Any album with JOHN SYKES on guitar cannot be all bad.
One of Britain's best guitarists, Sykes later played with Thin Lizzy and played on the 1987 Whitesnake self-titled album (a best-seller that included the hit singles "Still of the Night," "Is This Love" and "Here I Go Again").
Vocalist JON DEVERILL was also in fine form on "Crazy Nights" (although the lyrics could use some work).
Deverill is one of my favorite heavy metal stories.
Following his metalhead days, this graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, became a celebrated stage actor. Under the stage name Jon de Ville, he has recently appeared in a U.K. national tour of "Blood Brothers" in 2007 and "The Sound of Music" in London in 2008.
"Crazy Nights" is due reconsideration. I think music fans will find it's an enjoyable listen after all.
Well, have a happy remainder of MEMORIAL DAY METALFEST 2009, and don't bang your head too hard.