Heyday

Heyday may refer to:

Heyday (The Church album)

Heyday is the fourth album by the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church, released in November 1985. The album marked the first occasion when group compositions dominated one of the band's releases. Steve Kilbey has said: "The demo situation was getting to us - me writing the songs on my eight-track and bringing them along to the band. It sounded too stiff. We'd reached this new energy level on stage which by far superseded anything we'd ever recorded, so we knew the only way to get sounding like that (on record) was for the whole band to write together."

Robert Dean Lurie notes that "As the band began cutting the album at Studios 301, it became apparent that there had been a dramatic change in Steve's voice.Perhaps it was the extended break from performing, or abstaining from drugs, or the hours of yoga; in any case, Steve's singing was now much more relaxed and warm, and he possessed a wider, more dynamic range. For years, critics had pointed to Steve's sometimes dour voice as the Church's weak point. Suddenly, during these new recording sessions, his distinctive vocals became one of the band's greatest strengths -- its signature, in fact. In addition to singing all the leads, Steve also tracked multiple harmony parts for each song, sometimes singing an entire octave higher than his normal register."

Heyday (novel)

Heyday, by Kurt Andersen, is an historical novel. It was published in early 2007 by Random House. In 2008, it won the Langum Prize, awarded annually to the best work of American historical fiction.

Summary

The protagonist, Ben Knowles, is from a London manufacturing family. In 1848 he experiences the disorders in Paris and then resolves to move to the United States, the 'New World,' "craving vulgarity and strangeness" (page 6). In New York he encounters Timothy Skaggs, a journalist, novelist and pioneering photographer, Duff Lucking, a fire-fighter and Mexican–American War veteran, and Duff's sister Polly, an actress and prostitute. The novel charts the characters as they journey west and participate in the California Gold Rush.

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