October 8, 1984 (Revisiting the Past)

 Jefferson Starship played Municipal Auditorium on their Nuclear Furniture tour on October 8, 1984. 

Monday Music

It's another Monday so here's some tunes I've been digging over the last few days/weeks/whenever...time seems both maddeningly fast and slow these days. 

First up is The Front Bottoms "Fairbanks, Alaska." They remind me of the Mountain Goats, but with a more pop bent. I think it was about a decade and a half ago that I became obsessed with Alaska. I read many books on the state and even subscribed to Alaska magazine for a year. It still fascinates me and I hope to visit there one day. Right now, this great song can take me there.

The Front Bottoms

Better Oblivion Community Center is Phoebe Bridgers and Conner Oberst and I really dig their tune "Dylan Thomas" for various reasons. It has this great mid-Nineties indy music vibe reminding me a lot of Bettie Serveert and I love the line "strapped into a corset, climbed into your Corvette." Plus my father was a big Dylan Thomas fan....I suppose poets can have fans, right?

Better Oblivion Community Center

Jefferson Starship's "Stranger" is a rocking tune from their 1981 Modern Times album. 

Jefferson Starship

The Beths are a great band from New Zealand led by Elizabeth Stokes. The "Future Me Hates Me" video puts me in mind of a Wes Anderson movie. This dreamy pop kills me every time. I don't know if its the pure water in New Zealand, but so much great music comes from there.

The Beths

The self-titled Genesis album (often called "Shapes") from 1983 has been in high rotation the last week or so (a dirt cheap "target" West German cd pressing) and it blows my mind that the 4th single "Taking It All Too Hard" didn't really receive much of a push. Sure; you make a video that will offend loads of people years later (see "Illegal Alien" for reference), but this wonderful tune didn't merit one. I'm generally not that keen on fan made videos but this one featuring scenes from the movie Career Opportunities is quite good.

Genesis - Taking It All Too Hard

One of my favorite YouTube channels is the NewRetroWave one. If you like 80's style synth music check it out. Here's a nice short instrumental from Gab Manette which dropped a week or so ago. Plus, if you put a photo of 80's era Molly Ringwald as the thumbnail for your video I will probably watch it. 

I'm sure I've posted this before (maybe just on my FB page...maybe not), but this is my blog so my rules. I'm not for shoplifting, but the moment at 4:02 in this video when she plays the purloined record is pure Wizard of Oz inspired magic. This is what music does for me. It turns the darkest day into technicolor.

New Order "Temptation"

Sunday Showcase Review lots of December covers from various years to end the series plus a few other items

So this is it. The end of my Sunday Showcase reviews. It's been lots of fun looking through them and I hope you've enjoyed reading my posts. I'm going to keep blogging away, but the coming year will be a little more free form. I decided to end the series with a look through many years worth of December cover pages. The Sunday Showcase section began in 1963 and if you stick around to the end or scroll down you'll find the very first cover. Keeping with the spirit of my previous reviews there's no real method or attempt to share stuff from every year, but instead it's covers that I liked for some reason or other. 

December 26, 1965

Juliet Prowse

December 25, 1966

Uncle Joe is moving kinda slow

December 29, 1968

Sock it to me baby

December 26, 1971

10 Minutes Ago

David Hoy was an interesting cat. 

  

Phil Hoy on his brother David Hoy

  

The Dave Hoy interview story

December 17, 1972

Lynn Anderson on the Tennessee Ernie Ford Christmas special 1972

December 15, 1974

December 26, 1976

1977 Rose Bowl Parade super 8 footage

December 18, 1977

Wilma Rudolph rules!

December 31, 1978

`

Happy Birthday, Charlie Brown special

December 30, 1979

I miss Dick Clark

December 28, 1980

Live from the Los Angeles basin

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on Fridays

American Girl performed on Fridays

Jefferson Starship on Fridays

Elvis Costello made his country album in Nashville so the city was one of only three in which he performed for his Almost Blue tour in 1982. I would have been much more interested in seeing AC/DC on January 18, 1982 at Municipal Auditorium.

For Those About To Rock live December 1981

December 26, 1982

Typical great week of rock and roll at Cantrell's 

As far as I can find out this movie didn't get finished. I don't think that's Linda Perry of 4-Non Blondes fame. I do know that Jones Pet Shop in Hillsboro Village was later a coffee shop Bongo Java. 

December 25, 1983

I would be remiss if I didn't include at least one Top Ten songs list so here's the one from the December 25, 1983 issue. Quiet Riot had peaked and was on the way out. The Stones hit the list with "Undercover of the Night" which was a strange one with its accompanying violent video. The Top Ten is dominated by mega stars of the early 80's. 

Cum On Feel The Noize

Love the Holiday Inn sign at the beginning

"that bites it even more"

December 30, 1984

Crazy Like a Fox

December 29, 1985

Charlie Brown done in by War & Peace

Bonus

The first Sunday Showcase March 24, 1963

The last Sunday Showcase February 25, 2001

Monday Music

Here's another installment of Monday Music. I've selected some strangeness and some classics today. You have to view the web version of this site to see the videos.

First up we have this video by Jermaine Jackson which used lots of baby oil. It was directed by Bob Giraldi who also directed brother Michael's "Beat It" plus lots of other awesome music videos and movies. 

Next up we have the Jefferson Starship's "No Way Out" from their Nuclear Furniture album. This video is bonkers. I almost feel like it has coded messages meant for the future, but we just didn't understand in 1984. A quick summary is Jefferson Starship singer Mickey Thomas was cheating on his lady (who I'm pretty sure is his real life wife at the time Sara) so she takes him to some weird confessional run by the ever cool Father Guido Sarducci. Grace Slick shows him in and the madness begins with the green chair seen on the Nuclear Furniture album cover figuring into the video. Grace Slick has a spider web drawn on her face which I think was a warning to us that the World Wide Web was coming and, much like Mickey gets found out, none of our private lives were to remain private in the future. Then there is the really odd scene with drummer Donny Baldwin and an Asian lady in which he does bicep curls on the bed. I know I always leave my dumbbells on the night stand. He would later assault Mickey Thomas in real life and hurt him so bad he needed facial reconstructive surgery. Also: if you look really close when Mickey is out on the town you will see multiple people flipping the bird behind him. Cultureshark wrote about this video way back in 2013 so feel free to click on the link and see what he had to say about it. 

I lament that I never heard of Jan Terri until just the last few weeks. I have been watching her YouTube videos like crazy since I finally discovered her. Better late to a party than never go at all. I learned that she was an underground Chicago icon and that she opened for Marilyn Manson back in the day. "Journey To Mars" is my current favorite. Jan Terri is on Facebook so be sure to say hello to her. 

Patty Smyth was dismayed at how "The Warrior" video turned out, but I think its stellar with an off Broadway Cats meets the Thundercats vibe. I have to admit the song drove me crazy when it was released and I would make fun of the "shooting at the walls of heartache, bang bang" line, but I gave in years ago to this Holly Knight and Nick Gilder written tune's catchiness. Plus, Patty Smyth, is adorable. I wish she would have taken Eddie Van Halen's offer to join Van Halen back in the day. 

"Liar's Beware" from the Blank Generation movie starring Patty Smyth's first husband Richard Hell is our next featured video. Robert Quine, Ivan Julian, and Marky Ramone (Mark Bell at the time) comprise the Voidoids and if you ever wondered why I never cared much for the Strokes, it's because I had heard the originators of this sound 20 years before.

Susanna Hoffs mother Tamar Simon Hoffs directed the "Going Down to Liverpool" music video. It just so happened that Leonard Nimoy was a friend of the Hoffs family. So he gets to play the unamused chauffeur in the odd video. I think All Over the Place is one of the best albums of the Eighties. 

Fee Waybill reminds me of Bruce Springsteen in his much later "Dancing in the Dark" video in this "TV is King" performance. I wonder if "TV is King" should be updated to the internet is king. 

I wish I had the girl with the bouncy hair

Closing this set out with a tune from Rush's Moving Pictures that seems to resonate ever more deeply with me as I get older. 

VITAL SIGNS

Unstable condition
A symptom of life
In mental and environmental change 

Atmospheric disturbance
The feverish flux
Of human interface
And interchange 

The impulse is pure
Sometimes our circuits get shorted
By external interference

Signals get crossed
And the balance distorted 
By internal incoherence 

A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a mood lifter
Everybody need reverse polarity 

Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to deviate
From the norm 

An ounce of perception
A pound of obscure
Process information
At half-speed 

Pause
Rewind, replay
Warm memory chip
Random sample
Hold the one you need 

Leave out the fiction
The fact is
This friction
Will only be worn by persistence 

Leave out conditions
Courageous convictions
Will drag the dream into existence 

A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a soft filter
Everybody need reverse polarity 

Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to elevate
From the norm

Everybody got mixed feelings
Everybody got mixed feelings
Everybody got to deviate from the norm
Everybody got to deviate from the norm
Everybody got to elevate from the norm
Everybody got to elevate from the norm
Everybody got to elevate from the norm
Everybody got to elevate from the norm
Everybody got to escalate from the norm
Everybody got to elevate
Everybody got to elevate from the norm
Everybody got to deviate from the norm

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Neil Elwood Peart / Gary Lee Weinrib / Alex Zivojinovich

Vital Signs lyrics © Ole Media Manageme

Everybody got to deviate from the norm

Sunday Showcase Review September 23, 1984

It's time for another look back at a Sunday Showcase and this one is from September 23, 1984. The Tennessee State Fair's last day was on and you could ride everything as often as you like for $5 between 12 noon and 6 PM. This turned out to be a music heavy....well almost all upcoming concerts and Top Ten related so I hope you don't mind.

Elton John would be coming to MTSU's Murphy Center on October 7. His popularity had waned since his Seventies heyday, but he was still a major superstar as his concert at Wembley on June 30, 1984 shows.

Elton John live at Wembley 1984

The MTSU Special Events Committee was busy in 1984 as they also have the Oak Ridge Boys and Rod Stewart lined up to appear in concert. 

Oak Ridge Boys on The Tonight Show 1984

Rod Stewart live in San Diego 1984

I was pumped up for Twisted Sister's October 13th appearance at Municipal Auditorium. I rode up to it with some Riverdale friends and had a great time with Dokken and Y & T opening the show.

Dokken on American Bandstand 1984

Y & T live at the Rock Palace 1984

Twisted Sister live 1984

The always fantastic Ray Charles was coming to play Andrew Jackson Hall at TPAC.

Ray Charles live 1984

Jefferson Starship without Paul Kantner or Marty Balin doesn't seem right and the band would mutate into just Starship by 1985. 

Jefferson Starship live 1984

I had really hoped I could find some footage of Riverside Raceway Park on the web, but I came up empty. There is a Facebook page devoted to the track. I had an uncle who used to drag GTO's there in the early Seventies. If my memory hasn't completely failed I remember it was visible from I-40 because I recall being excited to see it when we would drive past on our annual trip to Memphis and Mississippi. 

It was your last chance in 1984 to enjoy the State Fair. It's a shame there wasn't one this year.

Fair Park

The Top Ten is loaded with memorable hits. Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do It" was a massive hit and I think everybody in Tennessee took pride in her success since she was born in Brownsville and grew up in Nutbush. Prince has 2 places in the countdown as the Purple Rain movie and album was one of the biggest rock and roll stories of the year. Finally, it still amazes me that Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop" was such a huge hit with it's self love topic that was so funnily captured in the video.

The little stutter step always gets me

Cartoon Cyndi points to Self Service....get it?

Prince reigned

In 1984