During The Roach Days, a guy named Chuck who used to play drums for us, introduced us to some good music. Billy Thorpe’s Children Of The Sun was among them. There was an allure to Children Of The Sun it might have been the story. It could have been the music. It might even have been that it was damn near impossible to find.
The story at the time was that Billy Thorpe had created this space opera called Children Of The Sun, the record company pressed a fairly small run then suddenly went out of business. The rights to the album were legally tied up for a long time. I haven’t done any research to verify any of this, just telling it like I heard it.
I eventually found a copy at the Wooden Nickel Collector’s Store which specialized in previously owned and hard to find stuff. It was used but it good condition. For a long time, I was the person in our crowd that had the elusive Children Of The Sun album. I cannot help but think of how the internet has solved so many of these problems.
For a long time, I was really enthralled by the song Children Of The Sun. It had that space alien element in the lyrics. It had spacey effects mixed in with the music. The music didn’t seem overly complex and there were any really screaming guitar parts but something about it connected to me.
The rest of the album was OK but it never got the attention of the title track. In the 1990’s I found Children Of The Sun…Revisited. It was a reworked version that had replaced half of the songs. Basically they dropped side one of the original vinyl and added 4 new ones to the end.
The songs aren’t bad to listen to but they just don’t seem to grab you like Children Of The Sun although East Of Eden’s Gate stands out to me.
Children Of The Sun
We’re Leaving
Solar Anthem
East Of Eden’s Gate