More Than Merely A Man Of Science

(reposted from Tuesday sans music)

I once convinced a co-worker that cooking show host Alton Brown was actually musician Thomas Dolby, having adopted an American accent and working under a pseudonym.

I didn’t really, but tell me that Alton couldn’t be Dolby twenty years after She Blinded Me With Science.

And as Dolby pretty much didn’t exist for most music listeners other than that song of science, it isn’t so farfetched to think that he might have reinvented himself as Alton Brown. I mean, Alton is known for offering the scientific details behind things like brining the Thanksgiving turkey.

(I felt as though I had discovered fire the first time I brined the annual bird – it might have been one of the greatest moments in my life)

But, as far as I know, Thomas Dolby is not Alton Brown (or vice versa).

And it’s unfortunate that Dolby is known to few for an intriguing and diverse career. I’d forgotten that he performed on Foreigner’s song Urgent and Waiting For A Girl Like You (and isn’t it the keyboards – his keyboards – that make the latter?)

He also appeared on Def Leppard’s breakthrough Pyromania.

I knew more of Dolby’s music than most because of my friend Chris. Yeah, he dug The Golden Age Of Wireless, but it was that album’s follow-up, The Flat Earth, which he played constantly during the summer of 1984.

I remember that the video for Dolby’s cover of Dan Hicks’ I Scare Myself got played a bit (maybe on Friday Night Videos), but The Flat Earth was pretty much ignored.

That was quite unfortunate. It’s a lost classic.

For the next decade, Dolby would issue an occasional, underappreciated album. He also produced a trio of brilliant albums for another criminally ignored act, Prefab Sprout.

But Dolby hasn’t released new material since ‘92’s Astronauts & Heretics. He is rumored to be readying a new album for this year.

And I do so hope that his management books him a spot on Alton Brown’s show as a musical guest or pairs them in a buddy-cop flick.

Some recommended songs and personal favorites by Mr. Dolby…

One Of Our Submarines
from The Golden Age Of Wireless

I actually seem to recall hearing One Of Our Submarines on 97X, the one alternative rock station to which I had access, back in the day. The keyboard passage in it always reminded me of the theme to the television show The Six Million Dollar Man.

The Flat Earth
from The Flat Earth

Yes, Dolby has a well-deserved reputation as a techno boffin, but, despite the gadgetry, he somehow imbues his songs with more humanity than most more acoustic-based acts. The title song from The Flat Earth is strange and lovely – “The earth can be any shape that you want it to be.”

Screen Kiss
from The Flat Earth

The bittersweet, wistful Screen Kiss scrapes the sunny superficiality from the surface of Hollywood dreams and the myth of Southern California and finds a lot of crushed hopes and heartache.

Budapest By Blimp
from Aliens Ate My Buick

Dolby’s 1988 album Aliens Ate My Buick was a mixed bag. Working with folks like George Clinton, much of it is brittle funk that doesn’t always succeed in living up to its ambitions. On Budapest By Blimp, the funk is handled with a lighter touch (although the mid-section of the song has some searing guitar) and the song is one of the album’s highlights.

It really wouldn’t surprise me if Dolby had actually made the journey of the title track. He just seems like that kind of guy.

Eastern Bloc
from Astronauts & Heretics

Eastern Block with a nifty Bo Diddley beat is a musical sequel to the song Europa And The Pirate Twins from The Golden Age Of Wireless. That song told of a childhood friendship with a young girl who would grow up to be a supermodel. Apparently, Dolby has such an experience and, years later as an adult, the girl blew him off when their paths crossed in an airport.

Instead, he married actress Katherine Beller.

I Love You Goodbye
from Astronauts & Heretics

Aside from The Flat Earth – this might be my favorite Dolby song. Another song for people who think they know Thomas Dolby because they’ve seen the video a thousand times on VH1.

A cajun-inflected tale of corrupt local sherriffs and stolen cars on the road from New Orleans to the Everglades…I Love You Goodbye is evocative and mysterious.

If I'd Known He Was My Neighbor, I'd Have Brought Him Some Haggis

For a band that had such minimal commercial success here in the States, Big Country made their one shot a memorable one. In A Big Country is a well-worn touchstone in the world of ’80’s pop culture.

When the Scottish band arrived in the autumn of ’83, there was a lot of enthusiastic press. Big Country fit comfortably aside baby bands like U2, Simple Minds, Waterboys, The Alarm…groups making anthemic (sometimes sweeping) music fused with idealist lyrics which often sought to match (or exceed) the melodies for drama.

At the time, the outcome that U2 would someday achieve global success seemed to be a foregone conclusion. However, I would have offered a rebuttal had I been told that, following their almost self-titled hit, Big Country was headed for cultdom in America.

(I sometimes wonder if there’s a parallel universe where Big Country is doing stadium tours and U2 is known only for one song –say Where The Streets Have No Name.)

I’m not comparing Big Country’s body of work to U2, but their first two albums – ‘83’s The Crossing and Steeltown from the following year – are definitely worth owning.

But after setting a template with their debut album and refining it to near perfection with the follow-up, the band seemed to ebb a bit and tread water from album number three, 1986’ The Seer, and onward.

Big Country would put out albums to be largely ignored in the States for another decade (actually some wouldn’t be released), but it seems that much of the rest of the world had love for them.

I had a chance to see them live in a club that was a converted warehouse in a part of town where there is that transition from neighborhood where you are reasonably safe most of the time to neighborhood which has a slight risk of danger at most of the time.

Several years later, I would also have the chance to meet lead singer/guitarist Stuart Adamson. He lived in my neighborhood and was an acquaintance of a friend.

This friend, who worked for a record label, called me one afternoon, telling me how he was headed over to drop some CDs off for Stuart. Knowing that I was a fan, I was invited along.

Ten minutes later, we’re standing in Stuart Adamson’s front lawn; no more than a ten blocks from where I lived, hanging out with the man on an overcast, spring day.

We weren’t there long. Stuart’s young son was scampering around the front yard. Stuart seemed like a guy at ease with the world, at one point offering the hyperkinetic tyke the fatherly advice that jail was a place best avoided.

That’s about all I remember. I really needed subtitles. The brogue which I had grown up hearing on record was much more pronounced in person.

Sadly, in a year or so, he would be found dead in a hotel room in Hawaii, having lost his struggle with alcoholism.

Some of my more favorite Big Country songs from those first albums…

Big Country – The Storm
I posted The Storm several weeks ago, prompted by a viewing of a show on one-hit wonders. However, I can’t do a post on Big Country without including the song. It might be the band’s finest moment.

Big Country – Fields Of Fire
Sometimes lost in the attention given to the effects-laden guitars of Adamson and Bruce Watson, was that the band had a formidable rhythm section. Bassist Tony Butler has played with The Pretenders, Roger Daltrey, and Pete Townshend

Drummer Mark Brzezicki has an equally impressive array of credits. He also had one of the largest wingspans of any human I’ve ever seen (or so it seemed). Seeing him play live was mesmerizing – like watching the Hindu goddess Kali behind a drum kit.

Fields Of Fire was the follow-up single to In A Big Country that most people missed.

Big Country – Wonderland
Sandwiched between Big Country’s debut and follow-up was a four-track EP which arrived in the spring of 1984. The highlight was the bracing Wonderland, which was actually a (very) minor hit in the US and got a fair amount of airplay on the alternative radio station I was listening to at the time.

Big Country – Steeltown
The title track of their second album, Steeltown has a thunderous cadence reminiscent of In A Big Country. It’s bone-rattling.

Lyrically, it chronicles the struggles of the working class. On Steeltown, the themes were grittier and the band had an authenticity concerning such matters. In that respect, I’d describe Big Country as Scotland’s answer to Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band.

Big Country – Flame Of The West
Like In A Big Country, a sense of wanderlust pulsates throughout Flame Of The West. The first song on Steeltown, it kicked the album off in high gear, galloping along at a breakneck pace.

Big Country – Come Back To Me
Also from Steeltown, Come Back To Me closed the first side and showcases a different side of Big Country. Its tale revolves around a widow and a fatherless child with Adamson singing from the point of view of the former (hearing him deliver the line “I have your child inside me” is a bit jarring and always makes me imagine him as a seahorse).

Seahorses and male pregnancy aside, it’s a lovely, poignant song.

Is Lindsey Buckingham Considered More Appropriate For Tea Time?

Recently, the television provoked me into doing some research on one-hit wonders. As I live in the States, perusing the ‘80s portion of The UK One Hit Wonders Site was an interesting read.

I noticed that Thomas Dolby and Tom Tom Club each only had one hit in the UK (as is the case here in the US). However, in the UK, those lone hits were Hyperactive and Wordy Rappinghood, respectively – neither being the songs that were hits here (that would be She Blinded Me With Science and Genius Of Love).

But, perhaps the thing that puzzled me most was Stevie Nicks.

According to this site, Stevie Nicks is a one-hit wonder in the UK.

Such a thing seemed unfathomable. There were few female artists in the early ‘80s who had more music on the radio here in the States. Nicks’ first two solo albums, Bella Donna and The Wild Heart were massive.

One of the rock stations I listened to at the time would even play the hell out of something like Violet And Blue, a song from the Against All Odds soundtrack, simply because it was by Nicks.

In the UK, her only hit was in 1989 with Rooms On Fire (it’s not a bad song, but it came well after her solo career had peaked in the US).

Why had the UK proven to be impervious to the charms of Ms. Nicks?

Was it all the twirling?

Was it the shawls and lace?

Was it that she sang a song glorifying a Welsh witch?

It’s not like Fleetwood Mac was a footnote act and for many fans – especially those who wouldn’t know Peter Green if he was taking potshots at them with an air rifle – she was the soul of the band.

Apparently, few of those fans reside in the UK.

Stevie Nicks – After The Glitter Fades
Bella Donna was inescapable when it came out in ’81 with songs like Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, Leather And Lace, and Edge Of Seventeen constantly on the radio.

I preferred the lesser-known After The Glitter Fades which was more low-key and intimate than Bella Donna’s other hits.

Stevie Nicks – If Anyone Falls
Leading off with the song Stand Back, Nicks’ follow-up to Bella Donna, The Wild Heart, picked up where the former left off in 1983. Despite my relative indifference to Bella Donna, I purchased a copy of The Wild Heart and, start to finish, I still think it’s her best solo album (of course, I’ve only heard a handful of songs from her more recent releases).

If Anyone Falls, though, would likely be my favorite track by Nicks as a solo artist (with Fleetwood Mac it would undoubtedly be Sara).

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers with Stevie Nicks – Needles And Pins
Nicks’ first solo hit, Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, found her accompanied by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. The Wild Heart included a similar union with the song I Will Run To You.

However, I prefer their cover of a hit by The Searchers (co-written by Sonny Bono) which appeared on Petty’s album Pack Up The Plantation: Live!

Stevie Nicks – Rooms On Fire
Rock A Little, Nicks’ third solo effort, was the last studio album of hers which I owned (I did snag a promo copy of her Enchanted box set from a label rep). I thought it really suffered from the slick, glossy production which was the norm in the mid-‘80s.

There would be a four-year gap until Nicks’ next solo release in 1989 with The Other Side Of The Mirror (apparently it was inspired by Alice In Wonderland) which gave Stevie her only UK hit with Rooms On Fire.

Beyond The One Hit Of The One-Hit Wonders Of The '80s

During the past week, on several different evenings, I channel-surfed into one of those countdown shows on VH1 – this one covering the greatest one-hit wonders of the ‘80s.

It sucked me into its vortex like a black hole scarfing down a small galaxy.

(I am not a physicist so I do not stand behind the accuracy of that simile)

It was a lot of familiar ground – Thomas Dolby, Toni Basil, The Buggles – but there were also songs by acts that actually had other, lesser hits or at least other songs that I heard on the radio.

There were also songs by groups that might not have been well-known to most of the public, but who were favorites of me and my friends – the aforementioned Dolby, Devo and ‘Til Tuesday (to name a few).

So, here are some lesser-known songs by acts identified far more by a singular hit…

Devo – Girl U Want
In high school, a friend who was passionate about Devo made me familiar with the band beyond Whip It and Working In A Coal Mine. There might still be graffiti in our hometown relating to Devo.

Girl U Want is simply groovy – groovy being the first word that comes to mind when I think of the song. Then, I think of the movie Tank Girl as it appeared in that flick’s animated, opening credits.

Big Country – The Storm
Is there anyone who still believes that there were actual bagpipes in Big Country’s song In A Big Country?

I owned the first four or five Big Country albums, buying them as they were released. Steeltown, their second record, would be the one to own, but their debut, with the hit, is a strong album, too.

The Storm was a favorite from the first time I heard it on that debut.

‘Til Tuesday – Coming Up Close
Like most guys watching MTV in 1985, my friends and I were left slack-jawed and smitten by Aimee Mann in ‘Til Tuesday’s video for Voices Carry.

Image aside, ‘Til Tuesday made three very good records, shedding members over the course of those albums. By the time the band reached its end after Everything’s Different Now, Aimee Mann had guided their sound from chilly New Wave to a more organic, guitar-jangling alternative rock.

That sound had been hinted at on the group’s second album, especially on the stellar Coming Up Close.

Aldo Nova – Monkey On Your Back
I’ve read music writers who have noted Aldo Nova’s song Fantasy as one of the first pop metal hits, paving the way for radio stations to play acts like Def Leppard.

His second album, Subject, was a more interesting record (at least it was to me in 1983) – the songs were stronger and there were some strange, brief instrumentals between some of them.

Lyrics were not one of Nova’s strength, but Monkey On Your Back seemed edgy to me at fifteen; not so much now, but it’s a cool trip back in time.

Ah Hey Oh Ma Ma Ma…

I’ve mentioned how lately I have discovered that I possess a previously unknown interest in the music of Bob Seger. And in the last few days, I’ve rediscovered a band which I had loved and forgotten (despite owning all three of their albums).

That band would be The Dream Academy; few bands are more aptly named. Paisley as could be, pictures of the classically-schooled trio on the album sleeve for Remembrance Days make me think of the early ‘70s television series The Mod Squad (barely walking in tadpole pajamas, I vaguely remember being somewhat transfixed by Peggy Lipton).

And if the name The Dream Academy is unfamiliar…if you were listening to radio in the autumn of 1985, you likely know their song Life In A Northern Town (see here for a very cool performance by them on Saturday Night Live).

That song was pretty much all that most listeners ever heard from The Dream Academy which is unfortunate. I’ve always considered them to be a sadly overlooked act of the ‘80s and felt that, under different circumstances, they could have been much bigger (what those circumstances might be, I don’t know).

The group split after releasing their third album, A Different Kind Of Weather, in 1991 and for years their catalog was unavailable aside from pricey Japanese imports (of course, all Japanese imports tend to be pricey). I believe there is a compilation that has been issued domestically.

Curious about what lead singer Nick Laird-Clowes had been up to during the past decade and a half, I did a bit of research. He has been doing music, but another detail caused me to take notice. Supposedly, he had fallen into serious drug addiction and, to become sober, he had sequestered himself in a monastery in the Himalayas.

Whether it is true or not, I have no idea. I do know that given their music and their style, if one band would have a member that would seek respite from drug addiction with Tibetan monks, it would certainly have been The Dream Academy.

It was just their vibe.

The Dream Academy – Life In A Northern Town
I remember hearing this song on 97X amidst Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, and The Suburbs. It was so striking, I immediately took notice. By the time they chanted the first ah-hey-oh, ma-ma-ma….I was hooked. The song heavily references the late Nick Drake and, twenty years later, I never tire of it.

The Dream Academy – The Edge Of Forever
Aside from Life In A Northern Town, The Dream Academy has a measure of immortality for this song as it plays during the kiss between Ferris and Sloan at the end of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The do upbeat rather well.

The Dream Academy – This World
This World is a song as dark as it is pretty (it is very pretty). Lost innocence is a recurring theme in much of The Dream Academy’s lyrics and the music captures it well.

The Dream Academy – Here
As the members were classically trained musicians, there are a lot of flutes and things accenting much of their music. Here is simple and lush, building to a crescendo.

The Dream Academy – Love
There are some folks who might consider covering John Lennon to be sacrilege, but his music has made for some inspired covers over the years (Marianne Faithfull’s take on Working Class Hero springs to mind). The Dream Academy do a well more than admirable version of Love, making it a joyous, trip-hop tinged, chant-filled romp.

Meet The Korgis

During the past twenty-five years, I’ve probably owned more than six thousand CDs and, at last count, Paloma and I have accumulated nearly eight hundred albums in a mere two months or so.

Throw in a handful of jobs somewhat related to the music industry and I’ve had the chance to hear or at least familiarize myself with a lot of bands. It’s rare (or it used to be rare) for me not to have even heard or read of a name. And somehow The Korgis evaded me.

Anyone who does know the name likely does so from the autumn of 1980 when they had their only US hit with the song Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime. I missed it at the time – I was about a year from becoming interested in music – and I don’t recall ever hearing the song on the radio in the past twenty-eight years.

The first time I ever heard the song at all was in the summer of 1988 when The Dream Academy covered it on their second album. I knew that they hadn’t written it, but I wasn’t aware that it had been a hit song for another band.

Beck sang a version of Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime on the soundtrack to the movie Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and, at some point, I ended up with a copy of The Korgis’ original.

So, I was excited to grab their album Dumb Waiters on vinyl and it’s been a delightful discovery. So much so that I was pleasantly surprised to find The Korgis’ debut album not long after. They’re one of those bands that – similar to more recent acts like Crowded House or the underappreciated Jellyfish – don’t reinvent classic pop but certainly, through their own eccentricities, make it sound new.

From a bit of perusing the Internet and the scant details on the band, it seems like a lot of people might have missed out on The Korgis as well.

The Korgis – Young ‘n’ Russian
Maybe there’s a reason The Korgis found so little success in the States. Could their debut single’s cover and (obviously) its title led folks in the heartland to believe that they were Communists? I mean, it was 1979 and the Soviet Union was the Evil Empire (although I don’t think Reagan gave them that pet name until several years later). My friend The Drunken Frenchman often, over drinks, yearned for such simpler times.

Anyhow, I hear a bit of The Cars in this one and The Cars’ debut had come out the year before that of The Korgis.

The Korgis – I Just Can’t Help It
Now here is The Korgis I’ve come to love – lush, dreamy, and some of the most saccharine-sweet sentiments this side of The Carpenters. And somehow, they manage to fit tracks like this one, effortlessly, with ones like Mount Everest Sings the Blues, a jaunty number whose lyrics detail the grievances of Mount Everest sung from the mountain’s perspective.

The Korgis – If I Had You

If I Had You immediately made me think of John Lennon’s #9 Dream. And, again, their lyrics are as gauzy as the music. The cover for the single is rather intriguing.

According to the Wikipedia entry, the song hit #12 in the UK, so somebody must have been listening.

The Korgis – Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime

My introduction to The Korgis and likely yours, too, Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime is a lovely song, wispy and fragile. There’s something both whimsical and melancholic about the artwork for the 45.