The Hills Have Eyes (And They're Sensitive To Obscene Finger Gestures)

The other night, the cable offerings were rather uninspiring, but, as it was after dark, I stopped on the remake of The Hills Have Eyes.

The flick wasted little time getting to the carnage, opening with a group of scientists clad in protective gear being torn apart by some savage creature. It was gruesome but hardly shocking.

What has stuck in my head is a scene that came later, after the vacationing family had broken down taking a shortcut through the same remote stretch of desert.

It wasn’t the family dog getting gutted or the patriarch being beaten to a pulp then set aflame. No, it was a scene in which one daughter in the family gave the finger to her sister.

The defiant digit was blurred out.

Pondering the interesting choices in censorship aside, the movie made me miss the horror flicks on which I had grown up in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

I’m not referring to the movies of that time but rather the late-night television fare in a world without cable on our local independent station (usually the only one still on air after midnight).

These were mostly B-movies from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and early ‘70s and often in black and white. Sometimes they were surprisingly eerie, rising above their budgetary limitations, but, often, they were laughably shoddy or dated – bobble-headed alien invaders, puppet creatures and hippie vampires.

It was the latter which held the most entertainment value for me and several friends from the neighborhood when we’d hang out on Saturday nights in the early ‘80s. Not yet old enough for cars, girls, or guns, we’d be sprawled out on bean bag chairs in the dark basement of our friend Willie.

(as it was his basement, he had right of first refusal on the ancient couch)

Saturday night was the night for Nightmare Theater, hosted by the ghoul/zombie Sammy Terry (pictured above), who would add his commentary during commercial breaks or banter with a fake spider named George who “spoke” in squeaks.

For a couple years, ours was a ritual gathering most summer nights on Saturdays – Chris would be wired on Mountain Dew, Kurt would be obsessing over the dollar he’d loaned to Chris for the drink. Sometimes there would be a half dozen of us hanging out in that panel-walled womb.

We’d howl in amusement with every bad pun Sammy would deliver and yell, “George!” in unison the first time that rubber spider would descend into the scene.

By ’83, we had access to cars and had begun the pursuit of girls. There weren’t as many viewings of Sammy, but it was always fun to catch the show on occasion.

Years later, crashing out and watching Nightmare Theater was an incentive to make the trek home from college.

I hadn’t seen the show for twenty years until discovering a trove of clips here.

In 1982, the last year my friends and I regularly tuned into Nightmare Theater, I was still coming to the realization that I quite liked music – to an almost obsessive degree. It was still mostly Top 40, but I was venturing to some album rock, too. Some of the songs I remember from that spring…

Hall & Oates – Did It In A Minute
from Private Eyes

Hall & Oates were such a constant presence on radio and MTV in the ’80s, there are songs of theirs which I really wouldn’t miss if I never heard them again (I Can’t Go For That and Out Of Touch come to mind).

Then, there some of their lesser hits from that time – songs like How Does It Feel To Be Back, Wait For Me, Family Man – which are pleasant surprises when they pop up. The breezy Did It In A Minute is in the under appreciated category.

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – Crimson And Clover
from I Love Rock N’ Roll

Joan Jett’s I Love Rock N’ Roll was a monster in early 1982 and I imagine she could have belched the alphabet and had a follow-up hit. Instead, she opted for a cover of Tommy James’ Crimson And Clover.

Of course, my schoolmates and I had no idea who Tommy James was. It was one of our “hip” teachers who played the original for us in homeroom one afternoon.

We much preferred Joan.

Van Halen – (Oh) Pretty Woman
from Diver Down

Diver Down might have been Van Halen’s fifth album, but as the first four were released when I had little interest in music, it was my first exposure to Eddie and Diamond Dave.

Their take on the Roy Orbison classic isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t even offer it up as the best cover song on Diver Down (and there are several). Instead, I’d go with their version of Dancing In The Street.

John Cougar – Hurts So Good
from American Fool

American Fool was the album that would make Johnny Hoosier (as my friend Bosco called him) a household name. Growing up in Indiana, Hurts So Good was on every radio station from the moment it was released and the rest of the country soon joined us.

I was fairly ambivalent about Hurts So Good at the time. I had no idea that its success would, by the time Johnny Hoosier had become John Mellencamp, literally change the course of my life in ways I could have never imagined as a kid in junior high.

The DJ Wanted To See Us Naked (And I Had No Idea Where It Would Go From There)

Of late, my thoughts have been pre-occupied with nautical nonsense – giant squids and repeated viewings of Jaws – and, as I have no sea shanties to post, I thought that I’d take some shore leave. Fortunately, JB over at the wonderful The Hits Keep Comin’ has made me nostalgic for a time when radio meant something in my life – actually, it meant everything.

Music wasn’t a part of the landscape of our home when I was growing up. The radio was tuned in to the local country station but mostly for the weather. Although my parents were teens during the birth of rock and roll, like so many people music was hardly a need in their lives once they reached adulthood.

I do recall a few albums being played as a kid – stuff like Roy Orbison, Ray Price, and The Statler Brothers – as well as the odd, current hit single. I had little interest and, now, I wonder how I spent my time before I fell in love with music.

However, my time – almost all of my time – would soon be filled with music as the result of two things that were conversation staples among my classmates in junior high as the result of the popularity of Q102 out of Cincinnati.

The first thing that had my classmates abuzz was the on-air antics of Q102 DJ Mark Sebastian. Sebastian was irreverent and, to us, completely outrageous, signing off his shifts with the declaration, “And remember that I, Mark Sebastian, want to see you completely naked.” In 1981, in Southeastern Indiana, that was inconceivably shocking.

The other topic of many conversations centered on the previous evening’s Top Ten at 10, during which the ten most popular songs of the day would be counted down. Tuning in nightly, something clicked in my pre-teen consciousness, some connection was made and these songs, some for only a brief time, meant something to me. Music suddenly mattered and nothing in my life would ever be the same.

So, here are a few of the songs that were all the rage in those early months of 1981…

Styx – The Best Of Times
Styx – as well as Journey, REO Speedwagon and Kansas – was a staple on radio in the Midwest and Paradise Theater was the album among many of my friends. Not only were they my first concert two years later, but Paradise Theater was one of the first cassettes I ever purchased. Along with The Best Of Times, Too Much Time On My Hands and Rockin’ The Paradise were fixtures in Q102’s Top Ten.

Blondie – Rapture
While some of my early favorites hold little appeal to me now aside from nostalgia, Blondie’s stature has only grown as my tastes have matured. Musical chameleons fronted by Debbie Harry, whose non-musical charms had us equally as captivated, Rapture was the introduction to hip-hop for many kids of my generation.

Hall & Oates – Kiss On My List
The tall, blond one and the short, dark-haired one known as Hall & Oates were an unstoppable radio juggernaut in the early ‘80s. As a teenager during that time, it seemed hard to imagine a world without a Hall & Oates song every twenty minutes.

John Cougar – Ain’t Even Done With The Night
Before he was John Mellencamp, saving American farms, and incessantly reminding television viewers that “this is our country,” he was simply John Cougar (or, as my friend Bosco would refer to him, Johnny Hoosier). He’s arguably done better music since those early years, but this is, perhaps, the one song of his which I still never tire of hearing.