First of all, I must give some props to the King of Grief, who decided to turn Bottom Feeders into a radio broadcast for a few hours last Tuesday. You can check him out every Tuesday over at KPFT. Great set list, even if he did play Meco’s “Ewok Celebration.”

Secondly, it’s really bugging me that in Garry Sharpe-Young’s A-Z of ’80s Rock book there are hundreds of groups that never released an album in the ’80s. Seems that to get in this book all you had to be was the ass wiper for Pretty Boy Floyd for a week and that was enough to make you an ’80s artist, despite the fact that you only released one demo in 2003; I had to weed out the non-’80s to get to the stuff the book is really supposed to be about. On the same note, I also purchased A-Z of Doom & Gothic Metal and there was a little box in the corner of the front cover that said “CD of 14 power metal tracks included.” I love me some power metal, but I can’t possibly understand why I’d buy a book on doom metal and get a power-metal CD with it. How about 14 tracks of doom and goth? Do I have to buy the power-metal book to get the doom CD?

And finally, I can now say I have something in common with Jermaine Jackson: Back in 1996 I caught a foul ball at a Philadelphia Phillies game. On Sunday night, Jermaine Jackson caught a ball at a Los Angeles Dodgers game. I guess “Blanket” is going to get a new toy from Uncle Jermaine.

And now, get ready for a little Wango Tango. Wango Wango. Tango Tango. Here’s the second and final week of the letter N, as we check out more songs from the bottom three-fifths of the Billboard Hot 100 during the 1980s.

Juice Newton
“Dirty Looks” — 1983, #90 (download)
“A Little Love” — 1984, #44 (download)
“Can’t Wait All Night” — 1984, #66 (download)

After talking about Anne Murray two weeks ago it was mentioned that I either liked blondes or MILFs growing up. We have three ladies in a row here to figure this out, because, frankly, I’m not sure myself.

I don’t recall ever being hot for a sip of the Juice. One place she looked like a hippie and the next some 24-year-old vixen (like on her 1984 Greatest Hits album). I do recall, however, listening to a ton of her music. Or I guess I should say listening to a few songs quite often, because really, after she hit #7 in 1982 with “Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me,” I couldn’t remotely give you even one bar of any other song. But geez, “Queen of Hearts” was a staple of many of my childhood days. Listening to it again right now, I kind of dig “Can’t Wait All Night” though it’s certainly different than her normal country-pop tunes — maybe too different, as it became her last hit on the Hot 100. She still had seven more Top 10 hits on the country charts, though, right through the end of the decade.

(more…)