New Wave for the New Week #88

As we head into the homestretch of 2010, I've already begun the process of compiling my list of the best records of the year.  I had to chuckle when I realized that one of the leading contenders for the top spot on my list of the finest records of 2010 was actually 30 years old!

Protex came together in Belfast in 1977 as part of the same Irish Punk scene that spawned Rudi, The X-Dreamysts. The Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers, among many others.  At first calling themselves Protex Blue (after the The Clash song), they went to the truncated version of the name early on.  In short order, they caught the attention of Polydor Records, and found themselves in the recording studio.

As was the case with many of the UK Punk bands of the time, Protex was essentially a singles band. Their first vinyl offering was 1978's "Don't Ring Me Up" b/w "Just Want (Your Attention)" & "Listening In." The band earned a spot supporting the then-touring Boomtown Rats on the strength of the single, and in January of 1979 found themselves in the States performing before an appreciative New York City crowd.

Their would go on to record three more singles, "I Can't Cope," "I Can Only Dream," and 1980's "A Place in Your Heart," which may have been the finest of the batch.  That year, they also recorded their first album, Strange Obsessions. It is here that the waters get murky: everyone agrees that both the band and the label were unhappy with  the first version of the album, and the official story says the project was shelved.  However, dyed-in-the-wool record collectors insist the album saw release in Holland, and as a result, Strange Obsessions has appeared on collectors' want-lists for years, becoming one of the "holy grails" of Punk/New Wave vinyl.

Protex disbanded in 1981, officially leaving behind a legacy of four outstanding singles, and unofficially driving record collectors batty.  This year, the folks at Sing-Sing Records licensed the album tracks and Strange Obsessions finally saw the light of day.  Containing all of the officially released tracks found on their four singles, the album also includes a few tracks that appeared on various compilation albums and other tracks that were recorded but never released.  The sound is sharp, spiky and shimmering.  The Clash is an obvious influence, but so is the '60s British Invasion sound.  Protex played a poppy brand of Punk Rock not far removed from The Undertones, The Buzzcocks and Generation X.  Not a bad track can be found on the album, which suffers only from a somewhat trebly mix - I cannot recommend the album highly enough! (You can purchase the vinyl directly from the label using the link above, or download the album digitally at Amazon.com.)

This week's clips include Protex performing "A Place in Your Heart" before a New York City crowd on St. Patrick's Day, 1980, and an audio-only clip of their debut, "Don't Ring Me Up." Enjoy!

New Wave for the New Week #87

The Zeros only released three singles during their brief first life as part of the early West Coast Punk scene, but what incredible singles they were!

Formed in Chula Vista, CA, in 1976, The Zeros were Javier Escovedo on vocals and guitar, Robert Lopez on guitar, Hector Penalosa on bass and Baba Chenelle on drums, all of whom were still in high school when the band's first single hit the racks in 1977. "Don't Push Me Around" b/w "Wimp" was issued by Bomp! records, and The Zeros began playing the LA circuit with bands like The Germs, The Weirdos and The Plugz. Peter Case of The Nerves (and later, The Plimsouls) was an early supporter of the band and helped to promote their music.

The Zeros' brand of Punk Rock fell toward the skinny-tie mod/power-pop end of the spectrum. Escovedo had a natural talent for writing catchy songs, and despite their youth (or, more likely, because of it) they played with an assured energy and enthusiasm usually found in road-weary veterans of the club scene.

With a slight change in line-up (Penalosa replaced with Guy Lopez, Robert Lopez leaving and reducing the band to a trio), The Zeros released a second single in 1978. "Beat Your Heart Out" has become a true classic of the genre, having been covered by numerous bands including The Muffs and, most recently, Gorevette.

A third single, "Getting Nowhere Fast," followed, but - as often happens when high school bands grow up - The Zeros soon went their separate ways. They hardly faded into obscurity, however. Those three singles became highly sought-after artifacts of the first wave of LA-based Punk, and a decade after The Zeros disbanded, Bomp! compiled all three plus a number of unreleased tracks into one handy CD, Don't Push Me Around. Giving the world a sense of what a Zeros album might have been like back then, the CD is a blast from start to finish and captures the band's energy very well.

Continued nostalgia brought The Zeroes back together in the early/mid 1990's. This reunited version of the band recorded two albums: Right Now (1992) and Knocking Me Dead (1994). Both are well worth picking up. The Zeroes continue to play live shows before appreciative audiences to this day.

This week's clip was one I stumbled upon recently - footage of the band on local TV in San Diego just after the first single was released. They lip-sync both songs and then Javier gives an aw-shucks interview revealing that the band got the gig because Robert Lopez's father happened to be the floor manager. Hey, however you can get your music heard, right? It's fairly rare footage, and not the greatest quality, but the songs are excellent and well worth sharing. Enjoy!

Almost Perfect...Again!

Back on March 30 of this year, as a part of my Countdown to Opening Day series of baseball lists, I discussed one of the rarest, most difficult feats of pitching prowess there is to accomplish in Major League Baseball: to have pitched, during the course of one's career, both a Perfect Game and at least one other No-Hitter.  It is so rare and difficult that it had only been done by six pitchers:  Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, Sandy Koufax, Randy Johnson and Mark Buehrle.

I did not expect that post to become obsolete so quickly, but there is now a need to add a seventh name to that list.  Last night, in the opening game of the National League Divisional Playoff Series, Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay threw a No-Hitter against the Cincinnati Reds, leading the Phils to a 4-0 victory and a 1 game to 0 lead in the best-of-five series.

On May 30, just two months after I posted that particular piece, Halladay took the mound against the Florida Marlins and retired 27 batters in a row to notch a Perfect Game.  Last night, he not only joined an extremely elite group of pitchers by accomplishing the incredible, he did it not simply within a career but within the same season - something no other pitcher on that short list had done!  He also became only the second pitcher in history to throw a No-Hitter in a post-season game (the other being Don Larsen, who threw a Perfect Game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series for the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers).

In fact, Halladay came within a hair's breadth of actually throwing a second Perfect Game last night! The only mar on the performance was a fifth-inning walk of Jay Bruce - other than that, Halladay was perfect.

There would have been only one more thing I wish could have been in order to make the game perfect: if only the great Harry Kalas were still with us to have called it.  TBS's announcers are as bland as dry toast, and when they had the chance to speak to Halladay immediately after the game, the interviewer's take on it was, "Well, that was an interesting way to start off a post-season."  Um, how about "historic"? "Astounding"? "Incredible"? Nope, to TBS, it was simply "interesting."  Kalas would have brought out all of the drama and emotion of the moment in a way this broadcast team could never even imagine.

But who am I to complain? I saw history last night, and the Phils are starting off their march back to the World Series with a bang!  Congrats, Roy...and let's go Phillies!

New Wave for the New Week #86

Put The Specials, R.E.M. and Oingo Boingo in a sonic blender, and the result you get might not be all that different from the sextet known as The Pressure Boys.

Energetically bursting out of Chapel Hill, NC, in the early 1980s, The Pressure Boys began life as a band of high school classmates who fumbled their way through covers of Madness and Specials songs at parties in and around Chapel Hill.  As their musicianship improved, they began widening their scope of musical influences.  Bringing aspects of bands like XTC and the aforementioned Oingo Boingo into the mix, The Pressure Boys soon created a unique sound that was slightly off-kilter, but nonetheless peppy and enjoyable.

They soon came to the attention of the noted southern-alternative-music production team of Mitch Easter and Don Dixon, who produced their first release, Jump! Jump! Jump!, in 1983.  The record's lead cut, "Tina Goes To The Supermarket," encapsulated everything that made the band so popular at home: the somewhat syncopated take on the basic ska beat, the frenetic pace, the audible fun the band was having.  That sonic recipe, given the Easter/Dixon stamp of approval, helped The Pressure Boys break out of the local Chapel Hill scene and land on college radio playlists everywhere.

The following year saw the release of the four-song Rangledoon ep, which included their most ambitious outing to date, "Where The Cowboys Went." Turning the ska down a notch and upping the southern charm, "Cowboys" was clearly a stab at college radio stardom.  Sounding a bit like Green On Red's goofier siblings, "Cowboys" is an excellent song that caught the ear of a major label: Epic Records included the cut on their 1985 compilation Epic Presents: The Unsigned, a collection of (as the title describes) bands that had not yet signed with a major label.

Unfortunately, Epic passed on signing the band, and it was back to the drawing board. 1987 saw the release of Krandlebanum Monumentus, the band's most polished vinyl release. Boasting a sparkling new re-recording of "Tina Goes To The Supermarket," and promoted by a video clip for "Around The World" that got the band introduced to the MTV's 120 Minutes crowd, the record is highly recommended. 

That would turn out to be the last anyone heard of The Pressure Boys until a retrospective CD, The Incomplete Recordings: 1981-1988, appeared in 2008 in conjunction with the band reuniting for a couple of live shows to benefit research for a cure for cystic fibrosis. Containing all of the band's essential material from "Where The Cowboys Went" to "Around The World" (including the re-recording of "Tina Goes To The Supermarket"), it's an excellent starting point for those new to the band.  The CD, like all of The Pressure Boys' releases, has fallen out of print, but can be had as an mp3 download from Amazon.com.

Here are two clips for this week's NW4NW entry: first up, the very DIY video for "Where The Cowboys Went;" following that is the band performing a live rendition of "Tina Goes To The Supermarket." Enjoy!

Fighting the Demons Again

"I sit up all night and think of evil things to do
And I've got something very special planned for you..."
-Stiv Bators, "Evil Boy" 

I'm about to take you to a very dark place.  I'm going to attempt to describe to you a facet of my personality that I don't care for very much; a version of me that I don't like showing to the world, but which, in certain given circumstances, flashes to the surface like a buoy being forcibly held under water and suddenly released. It's the part of me that drives people away, that sometimes scares people.  That sometimes scares me.

Nothing Is True

Monday night, I was thisclose to bringing this blog to an end, cutting my Twitter and Facebook ties, and retreating back into the hermit-like state I have fought for these past several years to escape from.  My obsessive, anxious demons sat on my shoulder all night like egging me on, double-dog-daring me to do it. "You don't owe anyone anything," the wheedling voice in my head told me, "and besides, none of them give a damn about you anyway..."

In a matter of moments that night, I went from the elation of watching my beloved Phillies clinch their fourth consecutive National League Eastern Division Championship to the depths of an OCD-fueled depression, over a broken link.  There are a number of outlets through which I advertise each new blog post, and whether it be Twitter or Facebook or wherever, I dutifully link to the newest post.  Mondays, of course, are NW4NW days, and I am grateful that so many folks have told me how they enjoy those posts and look forward to them. So yesterday, after publishing this week's installment, I posted links in all the usual places.

My workdays have been extra busy recently, so I did not have the opportunity throughout the day to check my stats to see how much traffic was coming in.  I usually repost the links in the afternoon to catch the crowd who isn't around to see them in the early morning, and this I did yesterday as well.  Then I settled in to watch the game, having not checked blog stats at all.  After the game, I checked the posted link, and saw that it reported 0 clicks.  "Hmm, that can't be right..." I thought, so I clicked the link myself - and was promptly met with a "Page Cannot Be Found" error. The link that I had been advertising all day was a bad link!

Embarrassed, I corrected the link and prepared an apology post, and that's when it struck me: No one had informed me the link was bad.  Even on the Fanpage and the blog's Twitter site, there was nothing.  Had no one even bothered to try to read my post? I pulled up my stats for the day, and there, mockingly, sat a great big zero. I did the math: 100 people follow the TWIWGTS Twitter site. 1400 follow my personal Twitter account. There are 200 on the Fanpage, and 500 on my personal Facebook page. Over 100 follow through Networked Blogs.  I've never claimed a humongous readership, but out of all those people, not one bothered to try to read my newly advertised blog post? What the fuck?

Here It Goes Again

Now, most normal, well-adjusted people would consider this what it was: an anomaly.  I can look back now, with some hindsight, and say to myself, "Well duh! If the link was broken and someone tried to click it, it wouldn't show up in your stats because they never even got to the site!"  And, I know from previous feedback that many of you who read regularly do access the site mainly through those links I put out there. 

(Psst - this would be a great time for me to recommend subscribing using the email form at the upper left of this page so that you never miss a post and never have to worry about bad links. Go, do it now, I'll wait...OK, great, let's continue.)

Sure, that all makes perfect sense now, but I've talked here before about my OCD and my constant anxious paranoia that everyone is secretly trying to set me up for embarrassment, and how cunning those beasts are as foes.  They grab onto any tiny shred of anything that could be twisted to validate their existence in my brain and go immediately to work.  This wasn't a simple, explainable anomaly that was really my fault to begin with for posting an incorrect link. No sir, this was an affront on me personally! An obvious attack, and clear evidence that those lying liars never read my blog! They don't think I'm a good writer! They don't care about the things I write about!

Then, the obsessive part builds upon that:  "Not even your friends who say they read your blog actually read it. They're lying to you! And if they lie about that, then they must be lying about everything! They're not really your friends! This is important to you and to them it's all a big joke!"  I found myself considering shutting the blog down completely. After all, why should I write if no one wants to read it?  And if these people aren't really my friends, why do I interact with them? I ought to just cut all ties - then they can't lie to me anymore.  Do you see how the insane spiral builds?  My mind starts making larger and larger leaps in logic until the thoughts become irrational, and inside I journey from offended to saddened to - if the spiral is left to continue unabated - anger.

And, if anyone happens to be around me or interact with me while this process is happening, they are met with that part of my personality I mentioned earlier - the part of me that I hate. As fate would have it, one person did interact with me right then, through Twitter.  Luckily, my obsessive thought-spiral hadn't spun out of control yet, and after a few somewhat coarse, chopped exchanges, I apologized for being "in a mood" and logged off.  Had she shown up a few minutes later, however, she would likely have encountered Evil Bryan.

My Evil Twin

Evil Bryan is a very dark version of myself, a personification of those OCD/anxiety demons. When I'm in that state, I revert to the behavior of cornered animal being attacked because inside that is how I feel.  In that state I have no concern whatsoever for other people's feelings, whoever they may be - I will simply lash out at them, trying - wanting - to make them feel as bad and hurt as I feel inside at that moment.  Most of the time, that attack or lashing out takes the form of words - loud, vile, cutting words.  On rare occasions, the lashing out has been physical, documented as early as the second grade version of me who threw chairs around a classroom in a rage against a teacher.  To say it is not a pretty sight is putting it mildly.

It is not pleasant to feel that out of control, and there has never been a time when, after the storm has passed, I haven't felt immensely remorseful and apologetic. Over the years, I have learned to recognize when that side of me is surfacing, and have learned to remove myself from other people. It has the same effect as starving a fire of oxygen: the flame tries to continue, but quickly sputters out.  If Evil Bryan is starved of people to lash out at, he sputters away to nothing relatively quickly.

And so it was Monday night. I logged off of Twitter and Facebook and went to bed, and Evil Bryan never showed up. I got up the next morning thinking the storm had passed and all was well, and went about my work day.  Pretty soon I noticed a shadow looming over me.  It was a shadow I hadn't seen in a long time.

I Just Can't Be Happy Today

As it turns out, what I thought was the end of the storm was really just the eye of the hurricane. Something more was coming, I could feel it - I know the feeling all to well, as anyone who has dealt with depression on any level does: it's not sadness, it's not anger, it's not anything that can be easily described.  It's sort of a feeling that something is very wrong, coupled with a complete lack of ability to put a finger on what that wrong thing is, multiplied by the frustration of knowing that you are powerless to fix it because you can't even define it.  It's an awful, awful feeling, and I usually respond to it by pushing everyone away and closing myself up in my own private cave - and so it has been this week.

I was excited because a group of us had planned to get together to create a local writers' group on Wednesday.  I've been trying to get past some rough writers' block recently, and I'm lucky to be in a city populated with excellent writers. Some interaction with them my have been just the thing to get the words flowing again. 

I didn't go.  I hid behind my standard "I don't drive so I can't get there" excuse - even though rides were available had I asked.  Truth was, I didn't want to be around anyone. I'm catching myself hermiting; I'm watching myself push people away; I'm feeling myself fight to fend off the demons. 

Every Day I Write The Book

I actually started writing this on Tuesday - and have been rewriting, editing, and adding to it all week.  If these demons have any redeeming value, it is that they have helped to break the dam holding back the words. Now the question begs - are the words making any sense? I don't know. I know it helps.  I have gone back and forth in my mind all week whether to even post this piece. Finally, I have decided that I should; I must.  I'm not crying out for help here; I'm not looking for anyone to give me the answers (not that anyone could - this is a thoroughly inner battle).  But when I posted the last introspective piece, there were some folks who emailed me or spoke to me and thanked me for writing it and sharing it, because they fully understood it and were somewhat relieved to know that at least one other person out there experienced what they did - they weren't alone and they weren't "crazy."  I, too, find solace in that idea that somewhere out there, at least one or two of you are reading this rambling jumble of words and thoughts and feelings and saying to yourself, "I know that. I've been there."  Even if I never hear from you, I know you're there, and I'm not alone.

So I suppose this post is, in addition to being a bit of "physician heal thyself," my way of saying to those of you who I have been pushing away, I'm sorry. And also saying to those of you who understand, thank you for being there.  As for the rest of you, I beg your indulgence when I need to post such things as this - don't worry, we'll be back to our regular programming in no time.

New Wave for the New Week #85

This week's NW4NW entry is unusual in that it is as much about the story behind and history of a specific song as it is about a particular artist.

We begin with a Belgian musician by the name of Roger Jouret.  In the mid-1970s, Jouret was the drummer, singer and main songwriter for the post-glam, proto-new wave band Hubble Bubble (perhaps best known for their cover of The Kinks' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else").  When that band's bass player was killed in automobile accident in 1977, the remaining members of the group went their separate ways.  Jouret launched a solo career, assuming a purposefully ironic Punk Rock pose and rechristening himself as Plastic Bertrand. Bertrand hooked up with producer Lou Deprijck, who had just recorded a demo of a song called "Ça Plane Pour Moi" (translated alternately as "All's Well With Me," "All's Cool With Me," and "That Flies With Me").  Sung in idiomatic French in a near monotone over a chugging melody, the single appeared in December of 1977 credited to Plastic Bertrand.

With his prepackaged image and easily hummable song, Bertrand began showing up all over European television, propelling the song to hit record status in France, Belgium and the UK.  But a nasty rumor had begun: Plastic Bertrand  was, in fact, so plastic as to not be the real voice on the record!  Jouret insisted that was him on the single for many years, until 2006 when a linguistic expert concluded that Bertrand could not possibly have been the singer. In fact, it is Lou Deprijck's original demo vocal that is heard; the backing track was recorded with a variety of anonymous studio musicians, so Jouret did not actually appear on the single at all! (And you thought such scandals began with Millli Vanilli!)

This was not the only controversy associated with "Ça Plane Pour Moi." In November of 1977, just a few weeks before the Plastic Bertrand single hit the shelves, another artist, Elton Motello, released a very similar single, "Jet Boy/Jet Girl."  In fact, Motello's record used the same studio-session backing track as "Ça Plane Pour Moi," but replaced Deprijck's French vocal with Motello's English.  Motello had written completely new lyrics, unrelated to "Ça Plane Pour Moi," for his song. He also looked to capitalize on the Punk/New Wave movement with his exceedingly graphic, designed-to-shock tale of a gay young man losing his older, bi-sexual lover to a woman.  While the lyrics may still seem a bit extreme in today's climate, in 1977 they were positively scandalous, and the record was banned from airplay in many places.

Because Motello's record had hit the shelves first, and since Motello had listed the title on the single's sleeve as "Jet Boy/Jet Girl (Ça Plane Pour Moi)," many people in non-French speaking countries assumed that one was a direct translation of the other.  This created a minor backlash against Plastic Bertrand's record as being obscene at worst, and an odd foreign-language cover at best.

Through all it's crazily twisted backstory, "Ça Plane Pour Moi" has remained a very popular song and a staple of classic New Wave compilation albums and club playlists where early Wave is featured. It has been covered by artists ranging from Sonic Youth to The Presidents Of The United States Of America to Kim Wilde; it's evil twin song, "Jet Boy/Jet Girl," has been covered by bands including The Damned and Chron Gen.

So here's the single that started all the trouble, Plastic Bertrand's "Ça Plane Pour Moi." Enjoy!


Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi

5 Great Punk Rock Videos That Actually Got Played on MTV

Although there is now an entire generation of kids who could never comprehend it, once upon a time MTV actually played music videos.  All day long, every day of the week, nothing but music videos.  For a solid three-year period from 1981 to early 1984, MTV was a visual jukebox - a radio station on TV.

During that period, the only Punk Rock you might see would be The Ramones or The Clash, both of whom were considered "safe" by mainstream standards.  Punk bands didn't make music videos - heck they barely had enough funds to self-release their records, and "selling out" by making product for Corporate Television went against the DIY ethos anyway, right?  Well, at least until Green Day realized there was a buck to be made...

But in those early years, Punk was not represented in the MTV world. At least, not very well. However, those of us who stayed up late at night as endless Triumph and Def Leppard clips flickered on our screens were, on rare occasion, rewarded with a once-in-a-lifetime viewing of a real, honest-to-gawd Punk Rock video.  Here are 5 of my favorites from that era that I still can't believe actually got airplay on MTV:

The Minutemen: "This Ain't No Picnic" (1984)
Brilliantly intercut with footage from one of then-sitting President Ronald Reagan's war movies, San Pedro's The Minutemen find themselves under attack as they blurt out one of the best of their sub-two-minute blasts.  Find this one on the stunning Double Nickels On The Dime, which, if you do not already own, you need to.


Black Flag: "TV Party" (1981)
Don't know which is funnier: seeing a very young Henry Rollins, listening to the band rattle off TV show titles of the era (remember Fridays? Quincy? That's Incredible?), or the whole generic-beer-and-beanbag chair aesthetic of the clip.  A classic nonetheless, and a song which Black Flag recorded several times, most notably on the Damaged album.


The Anti-Nowhere League: "Streets of London" (1982)
That's Nick Culmer, better known as Animal, spewing out slightly re-written lyrics to a UK '60s folk chestnut and wielding an axe as frontman for The Anti-Nowhere League.  The track can be found on the album We Are...The League alongside other sick-joke punk extremities as "I Hate...People," "Let's Break The Law," and the stunningly offensive "Woman."  At least, I think they were joking...


Kraut: "All Twisted" (1983)
New York hardcore band Kraut were the only Punk band that I discovered via MTV!  Came home from school one day, turned on the TV, and this gem came blaring out at me. Ran out and bought the album, the long out-of-print An Adjustment To Society, that weekend. Quickly learned that the boys had cleaned up the song for broadcast (the line "Can't you fucking see?" was changed to the obviously dubbed "Can't you people see?" in the clip).  Thankfully, the entirety of their recorded output can - and should! -  be had these days on one disc, Complete Studio Recordings


Angry Samoans: "Time Has Come Today" (1982)
To me, the most surprising clip on this list. Who'd ever expect LA's snarkiest cartoon-punk assholes to see airtime on MTV? That's former music critic "Metal" Mike Saunders on vocals as Angry Samoans snarl through their take on the old Chambers Brothers classic, found on their outstanding (and guaranteed to offend almost everyone) Back From Samoa LP.

New Wave for the New Week #84

Image by Diego's sideburns via FlickrIn Birmingham, England, in 1985, a group of fresh-out-of-high-school girls decided to form a band.  They could play their instruments well enough to get by, but they had a giddy, loopy enthusiasm and a crackling energy that propelled them much further than their amateurish musical talents could have taken them alone. And they had both the neatest gimmick and the most unwieldy band name in history.

When sisters Jo and Maggie Dunne began practicing with Tina O'Neill and Vickie "Vix" Perks, they quickly decided they needed something to set them apart from the crowd.  Sporting multi-colored mohawks, gaudy thrift-store outfits and neon make-up, they had a signature look; now they needed a sound.  They found it in the form of distortion pedals for their guitars, which prompted Maggie to announce to her cohorts, "We've got a fuzzbox, and we're gonna use it!"  Not only did that become the band's statement of purpose, they adopted it as their name as well.

Within a year, We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It had their first record out on the independent Vindaloo label, the double A-side "XX Sex"/"Rules And Regulations." Both songs were heavy on the distortion, burbling along with chanty cheerleader vocals and very simple arrangements; both were irresistibly catchy.  The single was soon expanded into a 5-song EP, with all five tracks on one side of a 12-inch record; the other side was unplayable, as the band etched self-drawn caricatures of themselves and messages to their fans into the vinyl.

The record sold well enough to get We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It  noticed by the Geffen label, who rushed them into the studio for their debut album.  Bostin' Steve Austin appeared in mid-1986 in the UK, with the lead single, "Love Is The Slug," receiving a ton of airplay.  Geffen decided to release the record in the US, but they had two changes in mind: first, the title of the album was changed to the band's name. And second, about that name...they'd never get played on the radio with a name like We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It, so the label had them truncate it to simply Fuzzbox.

That album is wonderful from start to finish.  The band's originals are uniformly enjoyable, hook-filled bits of punky-pop bubblegum. Their cover of Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit In The Sky" is jaw-dropping and not to be missed, and "Love Is The Slug" became a cult favorite and their most well-known song.  They seemed set for big things, but unfortunately the label wasn't done tinkering with the band.

A second album, Big Bang!, was unveiled in 1989, and left everyone scratching their heads. The girls had ditched their signature look in favor of a much more polished, "video-friendly" image. Worse, their was nary a fuzzbox to be heard anywhere on the record.  In fact, the girls did not play a single instrument on Big Bang! Geffen had essentially recast them as Bananarama version 2.0, sapping every last bit of personality from them.  A few of the songs weren't entirely bad: "Pink Sunshine" and "International Rescue" were pretty solid pop songs, but this wasn't what anyone who loved the first record wanted to hear. The only thing remotely reminiscent of the old Fuzzbox was their decision to cover Yoko Ono's "Walking On Thin Ice," and even that turned out to be a better idea in theory than in execution.  A single from what was a planned third album appeared later ("Your Loss My Gain"), but the backlash was too great to overcome, and Fuzzbox called it a day.

Vix went on to record a solo album while the other girls all dropped out of the music world completely.  The two albums fell out of print, but a few "best of" compilations of Fuzzbox songs have appeared over the years, the best being 2004's Look At The Hits On That!!, which collected the early singles and the best songs from the two albums along with a DVD containing all of the girls' promotional videos.

In early 2010, Fuzzbox got back together for a reunion. Only Tina did not join in; in her place they added a new drummer, Karen Milne, and bass player Sara Firebrand and launched a summer UK tour. They also recorded a new single, covering M's New Wave classic "Pop Muzik." Whether a new album is in the works remains to be seen.

This week's NW4NW entry is the clip for "Love Is The Slug," which still remains among my favorite songs and videos from the era. Enjoy!

New Wave for the New Week #82

It's Labor Day, kids.  Last night, temps around here dropped into the 50s (beautiful sleeping weather if you ask me).  The local rugrats are all either back in school or headed back this week.  It all means summer is just about over. Not complaining much about that this year - far too many days over 90º  and 90% humidity for my liking - but it's always sorta sad to see the summer end. So, before the cool breezes turn to jacket weather, how about one more bit of summery fun, in the form of this week's NW4NW?

And what better band to fit the bill than Malibu's own The Surf Punks? The band originally came together in 1976, with a pair of celebrity-related surf-n-sand enthusiasts at the core: Dennis Dragon (brother of Daryl Dragon, better known as "The Captain" of The Captain and Tennille) and Drew Steele (son of Gavin McLeod, better known as Captain Stubing of The Love Boat) began writing and recording in a little garage-based studio across the street from Zuma Beach.  John Heussenstamm and John Hunt rounded out the band, with the late Scott Goddard lending occasional vocals.

They were goofy, wickedly funny, and made great music. Their songs covered the topics they knew and loved best: surfing, tanning, drinking beer and chasing girls. Their incredibly awesome debut album, My Beach (1980), contains classics like "My Beach," "My Wave," "Beer Can Beach," "Teenage Girls," "Big Top," and "Punch Out at Malibu." Deep, intellectual stuff it's not.  But it is the perfect soundtrack to summertime on the beach.  With a sound falling somewhere between The Beach Boys and The B-52s with a strong seasoning of LA Punk Rock and Jeff Spicolli attitude, The Surf Punks were the musical equivalent of the rock-n-roll/T&A movies that used to be shown late nights on the USA Network in the early '80s. The whole thing seemed like it was going to be a one-and-done novelty act record.  Only problem was, someone forgot to to tell that to the band or their fans.

The Surf Punks actually found enough depth in the shallow waters they were surfing to release another collection of songs about surfing, beer and girls in bikinis.  Locals Only was released in 1982 and found a fan base eager for more of this stuff.  Not quite as consistently sharp or funny as the debut, it does have its moments - notably the title track.

After disappearing for a few years, The Surf Punks reappeared on record store shelves in 1988 with Oh No, Not Them Again! and, later in the year, Party Bomb.  They were still mining the same lyrical and musical veins, but the joke was finally wearing thin.  They were now basically a parody of themselves, which is a doubly bad thing when your band was built on the edges of self-parody in the first place.

Nonetheless, those first two albums  remain essential summer listening material.  So, as the summer of 2010 comes to close, we celebrate The Surf Punks in all their glory with two picks: first up, a clip of them performing "My Beach" taken from the movie Urgh! A Music War; after that, an audio-only clip for the second LP's title cut, "Locals Only." Enjoy!

Of Ugly Logos and Local Talk

Want to direct your attention to a couple of blog posts recently posted by my friends Daniel Klotz and Kelly Watson regarding Lancaster, PA's recently announced "rebranding," and specifically the lunacy surrounding our fair city's new logo.  Klotz provides a comprehensive timeline that should bring everyone up to date; Watson delved a bit deeper into the logo's *ahem* pedigree, and later gave the design firm that was contracted to create the logo a chance to be heard.

I don't have much to add to their words; among those three posts the story to date is covered efficiently.  I will say that, regardless of where it came from, the new logo is just plain ugly, more befitting the Lancaster that built the concrete monstrosity known as the Brunswick Mall than of a Lancaster that has been casting its hopes for present-day cultural significance among the arts crowd centered around Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and Gallery Row downtown.

As my hometown continues its futile straw grasping in search of some sort of salable identity with which to draw people back into downtown life, I continue to be astounded at, frankly, the stupidity of it all.  For instance, I have yet to have anyone satisfactorily explain to me what "A city authentic" actually means; I do know a city that would splat a cookie-cutter Marriot Hotel within the gutted facade of the beautiful, unique, 100+ year old Watt & Shand building may be a lot of things, but "authentic" isn't one of them.