Dog & Butterfly

John (February 21, 2003)

The band graduates from the "American Heartland" bubblegum libidinous rock sounds as in Dreamboat Annie, also from the intense Medieval/Gypsy rock style sounds as in "Little Queen", to a timeless Oriental/Primeval rock motifs as in this album.
Taiwan always keeps copies of this album available, (for me to replace). One noteworth bit of trivia is the girls did some time at Taipei American School at a time when American Folksinging was very popular amongst Taiwanese as a way both to be big at something cool as well as learning English fluently in order to sing the lyrics. For example, singers like Lobo still endure in Taiwan when they've long faded away elsewhere.(pre MTV)
Dog and Butterfly was recorded at a time when the original band was really hitting their stride in the Concert circuit. Though the two previous years were probably equally exhausting with the California jam etc., I would say 1979 was the best time to ever catch Heart concerts because they were doing stuff from three previous great albums, plus some of the cover tunes they were not letting go of, like "Without you", which they sung at a concert I saw, (and one fan handed Ann a rose).
The concert lineup that I saw was a lot of this, a lot of Dog and Butterfly, and a lot of Dreamboat Annie stuff. I was fortunate to see them in Bloomington, Indiana right after they released it, and their concerts the previous year I caught on the radio( November 1978), and was really impressed. They were being prodigal with their talents and doing like three encores. Nothing like that at my show, but what I remember was they were really tight and so young and goodlooking. It was in the deep snows of February, and all of us really needed a lift, and there they were to do it. I think the fans in nearby Indy got to see them on Valentine's day!