In 1983 (The Best Year For Music Ever!) Heaven 17 must have been inspired by the worldwide smash success of Human League Mark II’s Dare LP. Since splitting with the League and singer Phil Oakey, Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware had recruited Oakey soundalike Glenn Gregory to form Heaven 17, scoring some hits in the UK, but nothing near Dare’s level. Listening to their second album, The Luxury Gap, you can sense the trio upping their game to compete. The songwriting takes a giant stride forward, as songs like “Let Me Go” are more focused on hooks than synth wizardry and dancefloor domination.

“Let Me Go” was only a minor hit in the UK, but it was the closest Heaven 17 came to a breakthrough in the States, charting in the 70s, but garnering significant airplay on KROQ and other cutting edge New Wave radio stations of the time. When it came time for a follow-up, you’d think the logical choice would be “Come Live With Me,” a Top 5 smash in the UK. “Come Live With Me” (download) was a ballad in the classic canon of pop songs about Skeevy Old Guys With Underage Girls — judging by this tune, along with Winger’s “17″ and Bill Summers & Summers Heat’s “17,” that seems to be the magic age all these songs decide it’s “okay” to lust after a teenage girl:

I was thirty-seven
You were seventeen
You were half my age
The youth I’d never seen

A 20-year spread — yowza. Vocalist Glenn Gregory sort of vindicates himself with a bit of self-realization and a nice twist of phrase later in the song:

Dinner parties followed
And all my age implies
My friends began to talk
I began to realise
If half the things they say
Are quarter true of me
Then how can I eclipse the youth
You gave to set me free

(more…)

The story of Kent, Ohio’s Human Switchboard would make a great screenplay — a trio of Velvet Underground devotees start a band, get signed, release one critically acclaimed, but low-selling LP … after splitting, the founder/lead singer works his way up through the record industry to become president of a major label … only to be charged and sent to jail for hiring a detective to tap his girlfriend’s telephone.

Okay, maybe a slightly diverting Lifetime movie.

Human Switchboard formed in the mid-’70s and released a single mixed by Pere Ubu’s David Thomas that caught the attention of IRS Records, whose Faulty Products division put out the band’s debut album, Who’s Landing In My Hangar? Driven by the Lou Reed-isms of vocalist/guitarist Robert Pfeifer and the farfisa of singer Myrna Marcarian, Hangar is a modernized New Wave salute to the Velvets without falling into the trap of being solely derivative. In fact, songs like “(Say No To) Saturday’s Girl” (download) laid the groundwork for bands like 10,000 Maniacs — it’s tough to hear this without suspecting Natalie Merchant once owned a copy as well.

Pfeifer’s angular guitar work and tense, twitchy vocals give songs like the title track “Who’s Landing In My Hangar” (download) a slightly Elvis Costello feel and a punk aggression the Velvets never quite approached, while the expansive art rock of “Refrigerator Door” (download) recall that band’s spacier moments (complete with a section sung in Slavic tongue!).

Here’s the band performing “Who’s Landing In My Hangar” at NYC’s Peppermint Lounge in 1981 (note to the people who jump onstage to dance: we’re not here to see you, thanks): (more…)

There’s something somewhat satisfying and shadenfreude-y watching Malcolm McLaren, one of the bigger thieves and musical grifters of pop music, get ripped off himself. After all, this is the man who allegedly siphoned off every possible penny from the Sex Pistols, stole the Ants from Adam to create Bow Wow Wow, and booted Boy George from that group in the process.

As a recording artist (what did he actually do in the studio besides take a piece of the publishing? You tell me), McLaren notched a worldwide dance hit lifting early hip-hop with 1983’s classic “Buffalo Gals,” then turned his sticky little fingers to opera in 1984 with a synthed-up version of “Madame Butterfly.” So when it came time to record another album five years later, why not hop genres again to … waltz and ballroom?

Waltz Darling featured a collaboration between McLaren and Bootsy Collins’ Bootzilla Orchestra called “Deep In Vogue,” (download) an ode to the ballroom scene started by young, gay black and Latinos in New York City featured in the documentary Paris Is Burning. Dedicating the song to all the “Houses” of ballroom and vogueing, the track featured vocals from vogueing legend Willi Ninja. (more…)

It’s the age-old story in pop music — when the hits start drying up, it’s time to grab the current “hot” producer and jump on the latest trend, hoping to ride it to the top of the charts. You know what I’m talking about, Madonna. After all, it worked at the dawn of the ’80s, when Streisand rode the Bee Gees’ heat to score a few huge hits from her collaboration with Barry Gibb on the Guilty album. But Streisand hadn’t had a Top 40 hit in four years when 1985 rolled around, yet she wasn’t quite ready to become relegated to standards and schmaltz yet (that would come with her next release, The Broadway Album). Babs wanted a hit, so the call went out and producer Richard Perry answered it.

Perry was white-hot at the time, coming off his production of the Pointer Sisters’ mega-platinum smash, Breakout, which just seemed to spawn hit after hit after hit (an astounding six singles were drawn from that album). Perry brought a song called “Emotion” (download) to Babs’s attention, and it was chosen to not only be the album’s namesake, but its first single. While not really new wave, per se, it was definitely awash in the synths and drum machines of the day, sounding much like a Pointer Sisters outtake. That could also have to do with the fact that the Sisters provide backing vocals on the tune.

Streisand’s longtime label, Columbia, must have had high hopes for “Emotion,” since they pulled out all the promotional stops. A sumptuously lavish video featuring guest stars Roger Daltrey (?) and Mikhail Baryshnikov (?!?) had thousands of dollars thrown at it, including securing heavy rotation as an MTV exclusive. The result was a camp-tacular spectacle. Make sure you at least get to the 2:30 mark to witness … PUNK-ROCK STREISAND! (more…)

Led by brothers Brian and Kevin O’Neal, the BusBoys burst from suburban Los Angeles in the early ’80s with their uncategorizable blend of Rock, New Wave and old-fashioned rhythm and blues. This eclectic yet appealing mash of styles made it tough for radio programmers: Were they Rock? But they’re African-American! Were they Soul? But they play weird, New Wave-y rock songs! It seemed the only way to make a BusBoys believer out of people was to see their fantastic live show. And what a show it was.

The group wrote barnbusters with wit and style, taking back rock while ironically lamenting that it had become a white man’s game. Take the provocative “”KKK” (download) for example, where the protagonist laments that people think he has to be white to play Rock ‘n Roll:

I am bigger than a n*gger
Wanna be an all American man
Wanna join the Ku Klux Klan
Play in a rock ‘n’ roll band.

I remember the first time I saw the BusBoys. It was on ABC’s Fridays in 1981. Fridays was ABC’s copy of Saturday Night Live that sometimes (read “often”) was funnier than SNL at the time, plus Fridays regularly featured much hipper musical guests like Devo, The Clash and The Jim Carroll Band. One Friday night, the BusBoys came on and completely destroyed my 12-year old mind. Luckily, I taped it way back when; from a wobbly, deteriorating VHS tape, here’s nine minutes of unadulterated rock ‘n roll insanity:

Sadly, apart from some strong buzz on the West Coast due to their spectacular live show and some scant radio play, their debut album, Minimum Wage Rock & Roll, wasn’t the big breakthrough the band and their critical supporters hoped for. On their second LP, American Worker, the band recorded a song called “Heart & Soul” that failed to stir up much interest until a year later, when Huey Lewis & the News recorded it and rode it to super-stardom. Such is the rock ‘n roll life. The band finally scored a couple of minor hits later, when their number one fan Eddie Murphy got them on SNL (finally) and featured the group on his Delirious concert video. From there, the BusBoys scored minor hits with “Cleanin’ Up The Town” from the Ghostbusters soundtrack and “The Boys Are Back” from 48 Hours, but sadly never did break through to the platinum big leagues.

The band continues to tour and release songs on its website. Here are the other songs the band performed on that fateful Friday, but you really should grab Minimum Wage Rock & Roll in its entirety off iTunes - it’s fantastic (especially the should-have-been New Wave smash “Did You See Me”) and available now for the first time in years.

“Minimum Wage” (download)

“Johnny Soul’d Out” (download)

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The recent announcement of a Yazoo (”Yaz” to us in the States) reunion tour set me to thinking … will Alison Moyet be performing any of her solo singles during the show, or will it be limited to Yaz’s limited, two-album discography?

While Moyet’s Yaz teammate Vince Clarke went on to greater fame with Erasure, Alison had her share of solo success, albeit far more limited in the U.S. The only taste of the Top 40 she had here was when her debut solo single, “Invisible,” squeaked in at #31, actually an impressive accomplishment since Yaz never reached higher than #67 for any of their singles.

When it came time to pick a second single off Alf, “Love Resurrection” (download) was the choice, and a fine one. “Love Resurrection” was another in a hot streak of classic singles co-written by producers Tony Swain and Steve Jolley, who made their name writing and producing for Bananarama and Spandau Ballet. Problem was what to do with Moyet in the video — in the original clips, she was covered in basically a burka, wandering around a desert. Her American label reshot the clip when it was released as a single here, putting Moyet in a live context. And a burka.

I realize Alison wasn’t exactly a petite video vixen, but they could have dressed her better than grabbing some of Bea Arthur’s “Maude” leftovers and shoving some 1985 shoulder pads in them. This awful video ended up making her look like Mrs. Roper twirling around the Regal Beagle after one too many mimosas. As a result, “Love Resurrection” landed with a resounding flop in the States, despite hitting the Top Ten overseas, an unfair fate for a quite decent song. It’ll be interesting to see if Alison and Vince touch on any of her solo material during the tour, since I can easily hear a synthed-up “Vince” version of this tune.

“Love Resurrection” peaked at #82 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #47 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play Chart in 1985.

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One of the stranger novelty songs from the ’80s has to be the Bollock Brothers’ “Harley David (Son Of A Bitch)” (download) — I say “stranger” because my friends and I had no idea it was supposed to be a novelty song. We thought it was just another dirty industrial ditty from our friends at Wax Trax Records.

“Harley David” is actually a cover song, originally written by French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, huge in Europe but basically a non-entity here. You may know him as the drunken skeevy perv who, while sharing a talk show panel on French TV with Whitney Houston in the ’80s, pointed at her and slurred, “I want to fuck her” (read that in a really sleazy drunk French accent for full effect).

Released in the States on Wax Trax partner label Play It Again Sam Records, the Bollock Brothers’ version of “Harley” caught the fancy of alternative and underground dance clubs in 1987, becoming a famous chant-along song in the tradition of Billy Idol’s version of “Mony, Mony” (”Hey! Hey, what? Get laid, get fucked!”). I’d never seen it until scouring on YouTube, but there was even a super budget video:

You have to wonder if the Bollock Brothers expected this song to get any airplay anywhere with its “bitch,” “shit” and “tits” and all. Then again, this was coming from a group who previously remade the entire Never Mind The Bollocks album track for track, only with synths a la New Order.

Son of a bitch.

“Harley David” did not chart.

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A studio creation of constantly rotating blonds, brunettes and redheads, the Flirts were the brainchild of Bobby O., a songwriter/producer with a notorious reputation for “borrowing” other people’s riffs and hooks and “rewriting” them as his own. One of his more infamous swipes was reworking New Order’s “Blue Monday” into Divine’s “Love Reaction.” Play them back to back someday and be amazed that Mr. Orlando never got sued.

One of Bobby’s more successful projects, the Flirts are probably best remembered for their early MTV video hit, “Jukebox,” (download) which got played nearly every hour on the hour back in the day. An insanely catchy New Wave piece of fluff, the video was classic, full of off the shoulder sweaters, moussed-up coiffures and bewildered stares from pedestrians as the Flirts strutted down the street for the camera.

Another single from the same album, 10¢ A Dance, “Passion” (download), was more indicative of the Flirts’ sound than the atypically New Wave “Jukebox.” “Passion” also became a huge dance club hit, almost as ubiquitous in clubs as, say, “Blue Monday.” (more…)

Sprung from the same neo-psychedelic scene as their most obvious influence, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Mighty Lemon Drops traded in the same moody jangle-pop, but emphasizing hooks more and more as the Bunnymen sank further and further into Ian McCulloch’s Jim Morrison fetish. The Drops’ debut, Happy Head, is the band at their Bunny-est, as the single, “My Biggest Thrill” (download), sounds like a Heaven Up Here outtake. Interestingly, it was enough to get the band signed to Sire Records in the States, the same label as — you guessed it — Echo and the etcetera etceteras.

The Lemon Drops expanded further into their own distinct little corner of psychedelia with a stopgap EP named for their next college rock hit, “Out Of Hand” (download). While the alternating chiming and fuzzed out guitars still had the stink of Bunnymen axeman Will Sergeant all over them, the beats and slightly more bubblegum melodies started to form a unique Lemon Drops sound. Having a terrifically trippy video helmed by Derek Jarman didn’t hurt, either: (more…)

The e-mail went out to all us Popdosers a couple weeks ago: “Who’s interested in participating in Al Jarreau Week?” My initial reaction was that I couldn’t possibly be less interested, until someone, I think maybe Robert, pointed out that Al had once covered a song written by Green Gartside and David Gamson, aka Scritti Politti. That was enough for me to be in.

Warner Brothers must have had Scritti fever from 1985 to 1986, since the band hit the Top 40 with “Perfect Way” and the label partnered them with Chaka Khan for her single “Love of a Lifetime.” Warners was also home for Jarreau, so one can only assume the label suggested he record “L is for Lover” (download), a very Scritti ditty produced by Nile Rodgers that featured a witty, map-skipping wordplay chorus, courtesy of Green:

Maybe she’s looking
for you in London
L is for lover
Maybe she’s looking
for you in Boston
O is for an offer
Maybe she’s looking
for you in Houston
V you got to venture
Maybe she’s looking
for you in Kingston
E maybe forever

Rodgers did such a good job recreating the total Scritti sound that you can imagine Green’s vocals laid right over — I find it hard to believe it’s not just the original demo with Al singing over it, but Nile and various non-Scritti session musicians get sole credit on the sleeve, so we can chalk it up to staying faithful to the original, I suppose. “L is for Lover,” while a prime candidate for crossover success, failed to light up any charts, except for a middling performance on the R&B chart. Since the last Scritti R&B collaboration with Chaka suffered much the same fate, Warners apparently quit pushing the band on other artists on the roster, leaving us to enjoy one new Scritti Politti album in each decade since.

BONUS: Here’s a rare Scritti Politti b-side, “World Come Back To Life” (download), a song inexplicably left off 1988’s Provision — “inexplicably,” since it’s better than 95% of the tracks that made the album. You’ve never heard a better kiss-off song this week, at least.

“L is for Lover” peaked at #42 on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart in 1986.

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