Lost in the ’70s: Jeff Lynne, “Doin’ That Crazy Thing”
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 by John C. Hughes
Remember when the Hustle swept through discos everywhere? People were taking Hustle classes, the nightly news reported on the fad, there were instructional records and books. Hey, remember when everyone did the bump to, say, “Lady Bump?” How about in 1977, when everyone was doing the latest dance, the “Crazy Thing,” to Jeff Lynne’s “Doin’ That Crazy Thing?”
No? Oh, sorry.
Creating a new dance craze was definitely on someone’s mind when Jeff Lynne took a short break from leading the Electric Light Orchestra to release this forgotten single. “Doin’ That Crazy Thing” (download) was released with the mugshot picture sleeve overseas, but here in the States the 12″ version can with a sleeve complete with step-by-step instructions on how to do the “Crazy Thing,” the new moves that were destined to sweep the nation. Except, like, they didn’t. The copy I found was sadly saddled with a generic Jet Records sleeve, damn it.
“Doin’ That Crazy Thing” was a strange detour for Lynne, a downtempo, straight-ahead disco tune slipped out under his own name rather than ELO’s, even though the group would flirt with and nearly fully embrace disco a short two years later. You don’t hear about the one-off solo single, it’s never been released on CD (to my knowlege) and along with its almost identical B-side, “Goin’ Down To Rio,” (download) it’s been written off in Lynne/ELO history. (more…)




Boy, we’d buy anything in the ’70s, wouldn’t we? Laverne & Shirley, the most successful spin-off from Happy Days, was riding high in 1976, overtaking its parent show to capture the number-one slot in the Nielsen ratings. It was time to cash in.
So, who worries about the music their kids listen to?
Can you believe Joan Armatrading has been making music for nearly 40 years? Yeah, me neither. Did you know her first album came out all the way back in 1972? I knew of her mid-’70s output, but until recently, I had never heard of her debut album, 1972’s Whatever’s for Us.
Yeah, I know
When I was 11 years old and living in rural Grafton, Ohio, there weren’t too many other kids my age in our neighborhood, especially any with my twin obsessions, Micronauts action figures and music. So when I met Ricky, one grade behind me, and discovered that not only did he have both the Baron Karza AND Force Commander figures (those were the expensive ones!), he also had quite the record collection for a 10-year old, I knew I’d found a friend.
Happy Gay Pride!
With the exception of Bowie and a couple of can’t-be-denied hits from the Sweet and T. Rex, American radio just had no time for glam rock. While the U.K. was bursting at the seams with glam hits from Hello, Mott the Hoople, Racey and Sailor, the States were mired in Seals & Crofts, Blue Swede and Helen Reddy hell. Perhaps the payola wasn’t high enough, perhaps radio programmers were terrified of men in eyeliner (unless it was done with a horror feel, a la Alice Cooper), but for whatever reason, many huge U.K. bands and hits never got a shot here. One of those was “Dyna-Mite”
The ’70s were the golden age of the double A-side single, a curious little thing where a record company would release a single and promote both sides to radio, all in an effort to get listeners to trade up to the full album since, hey, two good songs on this 45, so why not? But for every “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions,” where both sides got equal acclaim, there were dozens more where one side was just a liiiittle better and got much more airplay. That’s the case with today’s entry, Ringo Starr’s double A-side single, “No No Song/Snookeroo.”
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