I Think I'd Have Been More Excited If I'd Known How Much Fun (for the most part) The '80s Would Be

I was twelve the first time that I stayed up to witness the arrival of the new year. It was the night the ’70s ended. It was hardly a hoopla-laden affair to me. In fact, everyone else in the house had gone to bed.

I had stayed up watching Purdue play Tennessee in the Bluebonnet Bowl.

(I had to research who had played and that Purdue won 26-22)

At some point, I had switched over to Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and, for whatever reason, got drawn in to the march toward 1980. It wasn’t the music. I was still about a year from music truly mattering to me.

The only performer who I remember was Barry Manilow singing some song called It’s Just Another New Year’s Eve. Even with my relative amibivilance toward music, Manilow was so everywhere for such a stretch in the ’70s, I knew some of his songs.

I think when 1980 finally hit, I shrugged and shuffled off to bed. It still felt pretty much like 1979 to me.

Here’s a trio of songs by acts that, according to Mr. Pop Culture, performed on that Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve in 1979 (even if I don’t remember seeing them)…

Blondie – Heart Of Glass
from Parallel Lines

So, I wasn’t listening to music in 1979, but I did know Blondie’s Heart Of Glass. On the rare occasions when there was music in my life, Heart Of Glass seemed to be playing.

I loved it – the trancey, shimmering disco beat and the sexy indifference of Debbie Harry’s vocal. There had to be millions of twelve-year old boys who took notice of Debbie Harry in 1979.

I didn’t know it then, but Blondie would become one of my favorite bands of the time and one that I still adore. The group incorporated a lot of musical styles into their sound, sometimes disasterously, but often the failures were at least interesting.

Chic – Le Freak
from Black History in Music

I did a bit of research and Chic’s most recent hit as the ’70s closed was the engaging Good Times. whose bass part would prove to be quite influential (Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust being just one example).

I could have sworn I had a copy, but, if I do it’s missing.

I do have Le Freak, from the year before. Like Heart Of Glass, Le Freak was one of the handful of songs I probably knew by name. Of course, the “freak out!” was what hooked me and my friends in junior high.

Village People – Go West (12″ version)
from The Best Of The Village People

Village People were everywhere for a year or so. It seemed like they popped up a lot on television which made me familiar with Y.M.C.A., Macho Man, and In The Navy.

Yeah, Y.M.C.A. is good fun, but it’s worn out its welcome with me.

I think I first heard Go West as a Pet Shop Boys cover. Then, it was used in a commercial for butter – farmers on tractors singing it – while I was living in London. It’s catchy as hell and dramatic to the hilt.

Stay Up Late

The night was like an alien world as a kid. And, staying up late was one of the first conquests of childhood.

I have no doubt that the first time I reached midnight was probably watching television with my father. It was, more than likely, something on the CBS Late Movie in the early ’70s. The show’s nightly fare often consisted of sci-fi or suspense stuff – one of the more terrifying being a flick called Gargoyles, set in a remote stretch of highway in the Southwest.

(I’d be curious how it has held up after thirtysome years, but it seems to be available nowhere)

There was something comfortable about hearing the familiar intro music and seeing the opening graphics, then, the announcer dramatically announcing, “Tonight, on the CBS Late Movie…” A short trailer would follow which would either heighten the anticipation or puncture it.

Of course, with only half a dozen channels from which to choose and all but one or two concluding the broadcast day with a somber sign-off sometime around one in the morning, you either muddled through or went to bed.

(or, you fell asleep on the couch under a pile of blankets while attempting to muddle through)

There was something wonderful about the solitude and peace at that time of the night. I’d peer out the window behind me and there was little but inky blackness and, perhaps a light or two from one of the few neighboring homes in our rural area.

As everyone else in the house was usually asleep, I owned the world.

(not bad for some kid that wasn’t old enough to drive)

There was nothing left to accomplish aside from raiding the fridge during the next commercial break.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions – B Movie
from Get Happy!

Elvis Costello is one of those artists for whom I feel a sense of failure that I have never embraced as much as I feel I should. The critics love him. Friends from almost every period of my life, whose taste I respect, love him. Paloma loves him.

I’ve always been a bit more ambivilant. And, despite that ambivilance, I realize that I own a large chunk of his catalog.

Maybe I need to make more of an effort to meet Elvis halfway.

Pulp – TV Movie
from This Is Hardcore

I owned a trio of Pulp’s records from the mid-’90s when they reached their highest profile in their native UK. Here in the States, the group garnered little attention (which is too bad).

Jarvis Cocker always reminded me of a latter day Ray Davies. This is Hardcore was a darker, more somber affair than the band’s previous Different Class. TV Movie, lamenting a failed relationship, is somber, but it is also lovely and moving.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band – TV Movie
from Tracks

Of all the artists whose heyday has overlapped with my years as a music fan, few amassed as much unreleased music as Bruce Springsteen (Prince would be in that conversation, too). Some of that music popped up as b-sides or as hits for other acts (Pink Cadillac fell into both categories).

Springsteen finally raided the archives on the box set Tracks. TV Movie was an outtake from Born In The USA and though that set isn’t lacking by its exclusion, the song is a fun, self-effacing romp.

Elton John – I’ve Seen That Movie Too
from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

In retrospect, Elton John produced a staggering amount of amazing music in the ’70s and his classic album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road has a little bit of everything that made him a superstar for the ages.

It’s not difficult to picture Elton playing the resigned I’ve Seen That Movie Too in some piano bar at an hour when the crowd has dwindled and I would have been crashed out on the couch during yet another showing of Night Of The Lepus on the CBS Late Movie.

Maybe There'll Be Soylent Bacon

Well, the future’s here and somehow we’re expected to handle it without the guidance of Charlton Heston. This is disconcerting.

I realized from watching The Planet Of The Apes as a child that no one was more at ease in dealing with the future than Heston. It wasn’t just maladjusted monkeys. An after-school viewing The Omega Man in the mid-‘70s made it clear that the man was equally as capable of keeping a horde of psychotic, Luddite cultists at bay.

And, with The Omega Man, it’s almost as though the filmmaker had peered thirty-five years into the future and been inspired by a glimpse of a town-hall meeting on health care.

(of course, that flick ended badly for Heston – it would seem that you can only keep a horde of psychotic, Luddite cultists at bay for so long)

Each time I read of the folks who believe that passing a health care program would be like smothering old folks with a pillow, I can’t help but think of another Heston movie – Soylent Green.

I think I was eight or nine, sometime in the late ‘70s, when CBS showed Soylent Green on the Tuesday Night Movie (or whatever night it happened to be). It had one of those “mature audiences” announcements beforehand.

Of course, I watched it.

And it freaked me out.

Soylent Green was set in the future – from an early ’70s perspective – with most of the human population unemployed and sleeping in the crumbling stairways of roach motels.

The small handful of uber wealthy live in high-rise apartment buildings playing video games and eating steaks and strawberries. The poor have never seen a steak, a strawberry, or a Pop-Tart as pollution and global warming has ravaged the environment.

So, the future is playing out pretty much according to that script.

(why couldn’t it have been talking monkeys running the planet?)

And, if the rantings of the misinformed and Sarah Palin are to be believed regarding old people and the health care debate, you’d think Soylent Green – the foodstuff – might be in stores by Thanksgiving.

A Girl Called Eddy – People Used To Dream About The Future
from A Girl Called Eddy

I received a promo of this album; the debut for an American ex-pat in London named Erin Moran who goes by the less Happy Days-centric A Girl Called Eddy. Her 2004 debut was one of those deals where I checked it out, thought enough of it to move it into another pile of discs, and it promptly got lost in the shuffle.

Hearing this song was a fortunate rediscovery. I’m not sure how the rest of the album sounds, but People Who Used To Dream… is gorgeous. If you’re a fan of Burt Bacharach, it’s an excellent use of five-and-a-half minutes.

Leonard Cohen – The Future
from The Future

There are outtakes of stuff I’ve never posted where Leonard Cohen has popped up. And I keep thinking I need to write about him. I mean, the man has lived a full-grown life.

If I were Canadian, I’d want Mr. Cohen to be prime minister.

Timbuk3 – The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
from Greetings from Timbuk3

This song’s simply more fun than killin’ drifters.

Matthew Sweet – Future Shock
from In Reverse

Paloma does not find The Heston to be as endearing as I do. Fortunately, I have studied his work and should we have to address talking monkeys, a horde of psychotic, Luddite cultists, or Soylent Green in the future, I will be prepared with a dramatic, over-the-top solution.

Paloma is extremely fond of the work of Matthew Sweet and, after hearing Future Shock, it’s not difficult to understand why.

Ichiro Meets Buckethead

Although my interest in baseball has waned considerably over the past two decades, one player who has intrigued me is Seattle outfielder Ichiro Suzuki.

First of all, he’s from Japan, and the Japanese contributed mightily to my childhood. Hell, in the ‘80s, we were told of how they would soon be our overlords and annex the US, replacing all workers with robotos.

(and everything would be adorned with those cool rising sun logos)

There have also been articles detailing that, in addition to being a spectacular hitter, a speed merchant, and possessing a cannon for an arm, Ichiro is rather eccentric (and not unlike Mr. Roboto).

How eccentric is debatable as his interviews are conducted through an interpreter although he is, apparently, fluent enough in English to annually give a pre-game speech to his All-Star teammates that supposedly contains every profanity known to man.

His eccentric ways were recounted last week in an odd encounter with Ichiro which fellow All-Star Jason Bay blogged about.

Paloma was patiently listening to my astounding tales of Ichiro when I expressed that I would watch a reality show featuring him.

She suggested, in a stroke of genius, he be paired with Buckethead. The mere thought of it had me ready to pop popcorn anticipating a show which doesn’t exist, yet, if there’s any cosmic justice, should.

Buckethead, for the uninitiated, is a tall, lanky guitar wizard who performs wearing a mask and Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head. Briefly a member of Guns ‘N Roses, he gives rare interviews using a puppet, claims to have been raised in a chicken coop, and has worked with an array of acts including Bootsy Collins, Iggy Pop, and John Zorn.

Ozzy Osbourne tried to recruit for his band, but he was troubled by Buckethead’s refusal to remove his mask.

The union of Ichiro and Buckethead would seem to hold incalculable comedic value.

I don’t want the “reality” that is currently being offered to me by housewives in New Jersey, MTV, or Denise Richards.

No, the reality of a Japanese baseball superstar and a bucket-wearing guitar maestro – living as roommates, arguing over who left dirty dishes in the sink through an interpreter and a puppet – is a reality which I could enthusiastically embrace.

Buckethead – The Homing Beacon

I haven’t heard a lot of Buckethead’s music, although it is quite obvious from what I have heard – and to paraphrase Ozzy’s assessment – as a guitarist, he’s a motherf**ker.

The Homing Beacon is a song he’s written in tribute to Michael Jackson and available on his website, Bucketheadland.

The song is sad and sweet and hardly as frenetic as his music which I had heard.

Cibo Matto – Know Your Chicken
from Viva! La Woman

The Japanese duo Cibo Matto was brought to prominence in the ‘90s by their association with the Beastie Boys and if the Beastie Boys were two Japanese women rather than three American men, and if they sang mostly about food, then they would be Cibo Matto.

Actually, Cibo Matto might be well cast as the neighbors to Ichiro and Buckethead.

White Zombie – El Phantasmo And The Chicken Run Blast-O-Rama
from Astro Creep: 2000

Apparently, Buckethead, like Rob Zombie, is a fan of slasher movies and his masked persona was inspired by Michael Myers from the Halloween movies.

Unlike Michael Myers, I’ve read that musicians such as Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea describe Buckethead as a shy, sweet person.

Perhaps Rob Zombie could be cast as the landlord – kind of a tattooed, dreadlocked Mr. Roper.

And Then There Was Maude

So Bea Arthur has moved on. She was 86 and she had a good run – as good as a human could hope (I would think).

I wasn’t even yet in grade school when she showed up as the title character in the television show Maude. As JB astutely notes, the show did have one of the funkiest themes of all time. Even at four or five, I knew there was something about it.

The show was incredibly topical, or so I’ve read. The subjects that the show addressed – abortion, racism, alcoholism – were not on my radar. I remember watching the show as a kid, but I had little idea what most of it was about.

I’m sure that I was amused by Maude’s brassy persona and sarcasm.

And I do most definitely remember Adrienne Barbeau.

Like Donny Hathaway’s theme and Maude herself, there was something that I found compelling about Adrienne Barbeau (even if I didn’t quite understand it).

So, bon voyage, Bea. You seemed like swell dame.

Some of the songs that were hits when Maude debuted in September, 1971…

Paul McCartney – Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
I don’t recall hearing this song in 1971. If I did hear it, it didn’t register.

It is a wonderfully jaunty little tune. I mean, would it be considered a shanty?

What makes a song a shanty – a certain musical style or lots of nautical references? And with the Somalian pirates making headlines (or are they losing their audience?), could shanties be the grunge of this decade?

John Denver – Take Me Home, Country Roads
I do remember John Denver on the radio and he was one of the first acts to catch my ear. Of course, those television specials were some of the first music performances I probably viewed. At the age of five, this long-haired fellow in the floppy hat, traipsing around the Rockies with bear cubs and denim-clad hippie chicks was, in my mind, The Man.

I still love Take Me Home, Country Roads. Every time it pops up on shuffle Paloma and I wonder if Emmylou Harris sings on the song (and, each time I make a mental note to research that and, each time, I forget).

The Carpenters – Superstar
Like John Denver, The Carpenters hits in the early ’70s are some of the first songs I vividly remember hearing on the radio. If I had to make a short list of favorites by the duo, Superstar would most definitely be on there.

As someone who listens to a lot of music, I probably should receive demerits for not knowing songwriter Leon Russell’s version (actually, I confess to not really being familiar with Russell at all (although I’m sure I’ve read about him at Whiteray’s blog).

All of that aside, Superstar is pretty glorious.

The Doors – Riders On The Storm
Even though Jim Morrison had been dead for well over a decade, The Doors were one of the bands among most of the students in my high school. The band’s hold was taken to an extreme by two sisters who were rather adamant that they were illegitimate hatchlings of The Lizard King.

Apparently, it was the last song that The Doors recorded as a band, from sessions in December of 1970. Three months later, Morrison would move to Paris.

Riders On The Storm would have to be considered one of The Doors’ signature songs and it is one cinematic trip.