Category: 1980-1984

“Casual (Live)” (1982) – The Marina Swingers

“Casual (Live)” (1982) – The Marina Swingers * Written by the Marina Swingers * Produced by Phil Culp * CD: Sunken Treasures
 
Their era spawned a number of new wave comedy groups, like Blotto in New York and the Judy’s in Houston, but the Marina Swingers gave their shtick a consistent SoCal yuppie angle. They appeared a number of times on LA’s New Wave Theatre, which found a national cable audience as part of the USA network’s Night Flight. A 1999 compilation called Sunken Treasures gathers up all their recordings, including songs that had only existed as live TV segments, such as “Casual” (“going all the way to Casualfornia/ in my Volkswagen bus”).

From keyboard player Esteban Elka’s liner notes: “We weren’t sure if we wanted to be an artsy-intellectual new-wave act, a bloodthirsty dance-band, a multi-media comedy round-up, a surf/swing/big-band/punk ensemble or just an experiment in soul-splitting personality exploration (therapy that doesn’t work). So we did all of the above, often at the same time….We got to open for some zesty acts… Not one of them put in a good word for us with their management…We don’t expect you to just listen to this CD. We think you’ll wish you had been there. We want you to be sorry that you weren’t. Where were you when we needed you? Come to think of it, where are we now?… One of us had a stroke, one of us has leukemia, one of us had a brain tumor, two of us used drugs way too hard, one of us is wearing a crooked toupee, but two us are bald. One of us still gigs, most of us still record and we all walk, talk, pass wind and lie, except maybe the dead guy. Someday, you will be dead too. Special thanks to: A lot of you tried but it’s results that count. We didn’t make it, so the bulk of you shouldn’t expect a major pat on the fanny…”
 

“Golden Shower of Hits (Jerks on 45)” (1983) – Circle Jerks

“Golden Shower of Hits (Jerks on 45)” (1983) – Circle Jerks * Written by Tandy Almer, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Bill Danoff, Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Howard Greenfield, Bobby Braddock, Curly Putnam * 45: “Golden Shower of Hits (Jerks on 45)” / “Rats of Reality” * LP: Golden Shower of Hits * Producer: Jerry Goldstein * Label: LAX Records

The “punk version” shtick seems to only work when levels of sincerity and subtlety manifest themselves, as they do here, courtesy of a Los Angeles band who never knew the meaning of either of those concepts. Behind all the toilet and pee is a series of 5 late-sixties and early-seventies radio hits from the roster’s formative years all strung together into a concise love-found-then-lost narrative. When you’re laughing all the way through, you’re laughing to fight off nascent anxiety. (The five songs: The Association’s “Along Comes Mary,” The Carpenters’ “Close to You,” the Starland Vocal Band’s “Afternoon Delight,” Paul Anka’s “Having My Baby,” and Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”)

“Shall We Dance” (1981) – Bram Tchaikovsky

“Shall We Dance” (1981) – Bram Tchaikovsky* Written by Bram Tchaikovsky * LP: Funland * 45: “Shall We Dance” / “Miracle Cure” * Producers: Nick Garvey and Bram Tchaikovsky * Label: Arista

Bram Tchaikovsky, from Lincolnshire, UK, was the stage name for Peter Bramall, formerly of the Motors. Because promotional images tended to show him standing as one of the blokes among his touring band, “Bram Tchaikovsky” was usually referred to as a group. (Joel Whitburn’s chart books still list the name this way, in the B section.) When Bram Tchaikovsky toured with Alice Cooper in 1980, then, the bill featured two groups that suffered from solo artist vs. band name confusion. (Alice had fixed the problem earlier by legally changing his name.) It was US touring that likely gave Tchaikovsky the stateside chart edge he didn’t enjoy back home. His 1979 “Girl of My Dreams” cracked the Top 40, while “Shall We Dance” — in spite of its potential for even broader early-eighties appeal, with its stuttering guitar, minimalist bursts of fluorescent keyboard, and promise of bliss via the dance floor — bubbled under at #109. Tchaikovsky, sadly, would resign from the music biz after this.

“Mustapha Dance” (1982) – The Clash

“Mustapha Dance” (1982) – The Clash * Written by the Clash * 12″ single: “Rock the Casbah” / “Mustapha Dance” * Produced by Mick Jones * Label: Epic

The odd musical singularity of the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” seems to be one of those happy accidents. As drummer Topper Headon tells it, he had been tinkering around with a keyboard riff in the studio that ended up percolating throughout the hit recording. This was not the traditional Clash songwriting process, but the band had nonetheless ridden with it, after which Joe Strummer topped off Topper’s track with his own Middle Eastern word sauce. Their decision to give the mostly-instrumental dance version its own title invites the listener to approach it as a different entity and to take note of otherwise obscured wonders like Paul Simonon’s jounced-up bass line. A version by Paul Azzuba of a song called “Ya Mustapha” had perhaps gotten into Strummer’s lexicon when it reached #23 in early sixties Britain. Both sides of the “Rock the Casbah” 12-inch single credit Clash guitarist Mick Jones as the producer, while the Combat Rock LP says “mixed by Glyn Johns, made by the Clash.”

“Melt the Guns” (1982) – XTC

“Melt the Guns” (1982) – XTC * Written by Andy Partridge * LP: English Settlement * Produced by XTC

The ten-song US version of XTC’s English Settlement might be their most well-chiseled and satisfying LP, even if such an approach violates the UK songcraft examplars’ tendency toward bounty. Those who know the album will find the chittery “Melt the Guns” drifting through their minds in our present gun lust era. Its clever jauntiness, though, gets in its own message’s way, with its powerful “let’s hope they shoot themselves instead of others” line muffled away in the bridge. Here’s to reinterpretive possibilities.

“Clones (We’re All)” (1980) – Alice Cooper

“Clones (We’re All)” (1980) – Alice Cooper * Written by David Carron * 45: “Clones (We’re All)” / “Model Citizen” * LP: Flush the Fashion * Produced by Roy Thomas Baker * Label: Warner Bros.

Alice Cooper’s Flush the Fashion LP revealed the seventies shock rocker losing his balance in a disorienting new decade. The single “Clones (We’re All),” though, which reminded no one of vintage Alice, sounded terrific at roller rinks alongside the likes of M’s “Pop Muzik,” Gary Numan’s “Cars,” and Blondie’s “Rapture,” and likely holds a place in the hearts of all preteens who experienced it that way. Although the song’s repeating space age synth riff and evil automaton lyrics pushed it up to number 40 on Billboard, Cooper wouldn’t make the US charts again until a 1989 career revival. The writer of “Clones (We’re All)” was a Massachusetts songwriter named David Carron, who was living in Los Angeles and was friends with Alice Cooper guitarist Davey Johnstone.

“Kiss Off” (1983) – The Violent Femmes

“Kiss Off” (1983) – Violent Femmes * Written by Gordon Gano * Produced by Mark Van Hecke * LP: Violent Femmes * Label: Slash
 
Violent Femmes came on like the American Buzzcocks, with lead singer Gordon Gano sneering like, looking like, and writing like Pete Shelley. Sexual frustration powered every sound and word, and in the case of the Femmes’ first album, the music rang with potent emotional truth because of their mimalistic instrumentation—acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, and snare drum. Their sound signified desperate self-expression through limited means, and what adolescent can’t relate to that? Gano’s hormonal lyrics, of course, were crucial, giving concise articulation to the underdeveloped frontal lobe generation, hardly impressed over things going down on their “permanent record,” yet any one of them who’s listened to Violent Femmes just a few times can recite portions of it from memory. On the universal theme exercise “Kiss Off,” Gano does the “go away! come back!” routine that emotional people do, but then, during the pill-count climax, he uncovers a deeper issue: “nine, nine, nine for a lost god.” That’s Gano the Baptist preacher’s son speaking, nodding toward Mark 15:34, where Christ, at the 9th hour, says “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Maybe as a result of this breakthrough, the group’s next album would wax more overtly Bible-ish, and by 1987 Gano would be on the road with a new gospel band called the Mercy Seat.