I remember seeing The The's video for "This Is the Day" back in the mid-80's and was perplexed that it was not part of the official YouTube channel. Matt Johnson didn't like the way it turned out, but 40 years later he's made peace with it. I'm thrilled about that as I find the video's green screen backgrounds quite charming. "This is the day your life will surely change."
The The "This Is the Day"
I wanted to use a live video from the Moving Pictures tour of "By-Tor and the Snow Dog," but the jerk who posted it to YouTube won't let it be embedded so here's the studio track instead. The Smashing Pumpkins would use (Billy Corgan himself says they ripped off) the marching band style licks of the Professor (heard approximately at 3:54 of the song) for "Cherub Rock" so listen to that one right after.
RUSH "By-Tor and the Snow Dog"
Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock
Names and addresses are easy to forget. Peter Hook's bass playing his the highlight for me. The video very clearly highlights Bernard Sumner instead.
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
Lawrence Welk, Donald Duck, and Andrea McArdle dressed as Dorothy walk into a bar...
...and you get the cover of this week's Sunday Showcase review. I had a big crush on Andrea McArdle when I was few years younger after seeing her on the Tony Awards or something. I don't understand why a television movie from 1978 is getting such a push in 1981, but seeing her wearing ruby slippers is cool. I did watch Rainbow when it aired the first time as I also adored Judy Garland when I was a child.
Andrea McArdle sings Stormy Weather
April Wine were coming to play the Tennessee Theater on June 16. They are not mentioned in the ad, but Franke and the Knockouts were the opening act. "Just Between You And Me" was a bit smash for April Wine at this time and "Sweetheart" was a top ten hit for Franke and the Knockouts too in the spring of 1981. I like April Wine's hard rock material and I love that they (like their fellow Canadians Rush) shot a music video at the now gone Le Studio.
April Wine "I Like To Rock" shot at Le Studio
"Just Between You And Me" live in 1982
Franke and the Knockouts on American Bandstand
Tunesmith Jesse Winchester would play the Tennessee Theater a few days after April Wine. He was out promoting his Talk Memphis album so I'll include "Say What" which made it into the Top 40 in June of 1981.
"Say What"
Last week's Sunday Showcase review ended with ZZ Top's 1976 World Wide Texas Tour and here they are back again in 1981 along with Loverboy. I think they left the wild animals in Texas this time. ZZ Top were touring after releasing the Devo inspired album El Loco. You think I'm joking, but the use of synthesizers on the record, in particular on "Groovy Little Hippie Pad" was inspired by Gibbons seeing a soundcheck by Devo. I couldn't find any good 1981 live footage, but I did find a good version of "Groovy Little Hippie Pad" from 1982 and you really can hear the Devo coming through which is fascinating. Loverboy would be headliners the next time they played Nashville.
"Groovy Little Hippie Pad" live in 1982
There was a big new attraction at Opryland opening. The Grizzly River Rampage with its rough and tumble white water rafting was all set with Grizzly Adams himself, Dan Haggerty, coming to town for the occasion. I've probably written this before and I'll write it again, but I have never set foot inside Opry Malls and never will. I despise those money hungry jerks at Gaylord that leveled one of the happiest places on the planet. I rode the Grizzly River Rampage often over the years and loved getting wet if the weather was really hot and humid. I would have loved to have gotten season passes for my family of 5, but it wasn't to be.
Rock 106 was the best hard rock FM station in Nashville until the station was sold and the format was changed to easy listening junk. There was a legacy left however with the Homegrown compilation album. I've got it in my collection.
8th grade had just ended for me or perhaps it was still going for a week or so as I remember watching the Thurman Francis Junior High tumbling team do a routine set to the Stars on 45 "Medley" during the last week of school. "Morning Train" had been a favorite of my girlfriend Lisa that spring. I bought the Styx album after finding $40 on the ground. I also bought Pony tennis shoes and went to a carnival on that windfall. Kim Carnes's "Bette Davis Eyes" was a monster that year.
I've heard it all before
Sheena
I'm a jet fueled genius
her hair is Harlow gold
Even though it wasn't in the Sunday Showcase here is some bonus Rush from Le Studio.
So, last Friday I came home after 5PM and the house was empty. I had been offline for most of the afternoon. I've been trying to get away from social media and to some extent have only been using it to post links to this blog, but the dopamine rush is undeniable so I clicked my Safari web browser and went to Facebook (at least I don't have the app on my phone) to see if anybody had liked the blog link I had place earlier and to see if anything interesting was happening. The first post I saw was about Neil Peart dying.
I said several bad words and then immediately went to the room where all of my records are and randomly pulled Permanent Waves from the stack. It could have been 2112, Signals, Moving Pictures, or others, but Permanent Waves it was to be. I dropped the needle of "The Spirit of Radio" and cranked the dial. I play my music loud, but rarely do I really push it. This time I let the speakers scream. I wanted the music to be all I heard and all I felt as the soundwaves physically hit my body.
Then something unexpected happened. I began to cry. Death is inevitable and I usually don't cry at a music star's passing. They are, in most cases, mere strangers to me. Yet, I immediately understood my tears. Neil wasn't a stranger. His words are what first drew me to Rush. The drumming and musicianship of the band was stellar, but the lyrics were a comfort and inspiration to me growing up. You see that kid in the "Subdivisions" music video? Put curly hair on him and it could have been me going to the arcade alone.
It's not that I didn't have any friends while I was in high school. I had a few, but even among them I could feel like an outcast. Music was my respite from it all. When I felt like I had completely goofed something up it was still there. I'd spend my meager money on remaindered bargain bin records and tapes and music magazines like Creem, Hit Parader, and Circus. The first Rush albums I bought were on tape: Caress of Steel and Fly By NIght. I listened to them often since they were part of that smalll selection of albums I had when I just a high school sophomore. I think I had a copy of Moving Pictures and then later Signals from my friend Markus. I taped Grace Under Pressure from the KDF Sunday Night Six Pack which would begin at midnight with the disc jockey playing 6 albums front to back. I think I still have that tape.
Permanent Waves was transporting me back to those days which Rush had helped make life a little easier. It wasn't just a great drummer and lyricist who had passed on too soon. Neil was more than that. He was a friend. And he never had to pretend I was a long lost friend either.
