It’s a shame The Lucy Show picked an awful sitcom to name themselves after, since the duo of Mark Bandola and Rob Vandeven had little in common with the strained comedy of an aging TV icon with a scotch-fueled voice and brassy henna rinse mugging with Sammy Davis Jr. This Lucy Show started out more in a Cure vein, creating darkly melodic pop on their debut album – that all changed when A&M Records dumped them.
Recovering with a new deal with RCA-distributed Big Time Records (Love & Rockets’ original label), The Lucy Show lightened their sound a bit on their second album, Mania. It paid off, since the group soon found itself the toast of college radio with a new sound that could almost be dubbed “gothic power pop.” Nowhere is this more evident than on the album’s single, “A Million Things,” (download) which got the band considerable airplay on MTV’s “120 Minutes” with video featuring Bandola’s…energetic lipsyching.
Unfortunately, just as things were looking bright for the Lucy Show, Big Time Records went belly-up and the band was once again left without a record deal. The duo released a final single on an indie label in 1988, but that didn’t do much good, so the Lucy Show finally got canceled.
I bought Mania back in 1986, solely on the strength of “A Million Things,” but I remember giving the album three or four spins before giving up on it when nothing else jumped out at me. Seeing as its been recently re-released and remastered with bonus tracks (it’s also now available on iTunes), I have to ask any Lucy Show fans out there – am I missing anything? Chime in if I am.
“A Million Things” did not chart.
Get Lucy Show music at Amazon
