I quite enjoy most eighties Rock Monsters (but Poodle Bands - Nah!), and for a while in the middle of the metal-mad-eighties, was a strictly happy amateur gigging guitarist (there's more on that here and here)..
But towards the tail end of that decade, Rock (read:M.E.T.A.L) went to College, and bands like Kings X, Masters of Reality and Tad were rockers just as comfy browsing in a bookshop as boozing in bar, and swerved away from Meringue Mullets of Metal
Top of the form were The Pursuit Of Happiness who triple distilled Aimee Mann, Andy Partridge and Axel Rose into intelli-metal tunes, with more hooks than a velcro factory - and what's not to like about that...
The Pursuit of Happiness - I'm an Adult Now
The Pursuit of Happiness - Hard To Laugh
There's another TPOH track here if you fancy one more...
I’ve been doing a spot of loft bothering lately. Digging through boxfuls of vintage goodies and golden oldies – annuals, sticker books, scrapbooks - but more importantly a mighty stash of music mags Smash Hits, Flexipop and assorted oddities like Zig Zag (with a fab feature on Soft Cell’s pervy ol’ Sex Dwarf video) and Noise. It’s an almost sequential run that starts around ’79 and fizzles out around ’84 ish…
The issue below contains a cracker of a nugget – a guide to the Sheffield scene written by Martyn Ware of The Human League, at the time of publication the League have recently signed to Virgin, ABC are still known as Vice Versa and Def Leppard have just been picked up by Phonogram.
I'll scan it in at some point, but until then, any ideas about the incomplete crossword ? No hurry I’m only 29 years past the deadline to win that fab cassette recorder…
Part two of my list of bits and bobs that seemed to have dropped off of the eighties radar Yes the Nine O'Clock News Not the Nine O'Clock News was must see TV at the time. It's the comedic link between Python and the Young Ones, so why is it so consistently overlooked and underplayed - why don't we ever see any repeats? It's easily forgotten that scenes, sketches and songs were discussed and dissected in Senior Schools and Common Rooms all over the UK following the previous evening's show and that the records books and tapes all sold by the shedload (including Rowan Atkinson's 'Live in Belfast' album)- I saw a DVD of NTNOCN recently and could remember almost every line (including the exact intonation) and piece of incidental music having not seen any episodes for at least twenty years.
Eighties - Greyties Those rotten grey sort of shapeless combat troos worn by Howard Jones or anyone over thirty with squashy white trainers and a pastel polo or checked shirt (a moustache was optional) - see also the opening titles of 'Who Dares Wins', Channel Four's criminally forgotten reply to the NTNOCN.
Dressing Up Can Be Fun Boxing - JoBoxers, weren't the only Popstars that sparred with boxing clothing and imagery as a stylish icon - Spandau Ballet, Wham and even Bowie had a pop.
Jazz Club - Blue Rondo, Modern Romance, Animal Nightlife, Sade, Carmel all riffed on the theme of Jazz moods.
Kings Of The Wild Frontier - Davey Crocket tassle jackets and check shirts were must wears for one month in early 1983 - see also Theatre of Hate, Aztec Camera.
Splatter Horror, Splatter and Slasher films became cultural currency in the early eighties, with teens and twenty somethings trying to out trump each other's video nasty badges of honour. Titles like 'Basket Case', 'Evil Dead', 'Last House On The Left', 'My Bloody Valentine', 'Cannibal Holocaust', 'Nightmares in a Damaged Brain' were all documented in full blooded detail in Fangoria - see also 'Thriller' and....
Whenever Cinema, TV and Radio recreate or rewind to the eighties it’s usually always set dressed with the same instamatic imagery and compounded clichés. So for balance here’s a handful of everyday items that seem to have dropped right off of the eighties radar (well from the pre Live Aid era anyway, before it all went soft, soppy and 'Johnny Hates Jazz').
Armageddon Time Being prepared for the overhanging dangle of nuclear death and destruction - everyone I knew, well everyone my age really, almost expected to be atomised in an atomic blast by 1987. - see also Threads, Mad Max, 'Two Tribes''World Destruction'
Skeen-‘eads Skinheads were everywhere and ever ready to bash, boot, beat up anyone who wasn't another braces and bleached jeans wearing skin.
Eighties - Gayties It was just so gay - Marc Almond, Bronski Beat, Boy George, Marilyn, Dead Or Alive, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Morrisey,Divine, HI-NRG(which later became the signature sound of Stock Aitken and Waterman) the clone look ‘tache, and films like ‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’ and ‘My Beautiful Launderette’. Middle Aged Teenagers Girls in their teens going for the mature sophisticated smoker and A-Line look of Angie from Eastenders (who was only thirty six when 'stenders was first broadcast), while teenage boys would regularly dress in Golf Club casual clobber - see also the expectation to be married and mortgaged by twenty four at the very latest.
Lawks and lummee!! What in the name of Harry H Houdini is a popping here then? Lungbusting, levitation, ramping up the camp and meringue bouffants all round - that's what.
The amount of 'Elnett' used (David going for the 'flyaway' type) to keep those silky superstructures in place must surely have shot the first holes in the ozone layer. David Copperfield and Bonny Tyler - Holding Out For a Hero
Almost as brain quaking as Uri Geller's appearance in Daredevil, or Batman riffing on the The Beatles 'Paul is dead' rumor.
I'd love to see some joker overdub this clip with...
Cliff Adams - The Night Rider (better known as the "all because the lady loves" Milk Tray music)
Actually all you need to do is turn the Youtube sound down, press play on both clips at the same time and you're there - works a treat.
Karen Blacks three part anthology film 'Trilogy of Terror' is only memorable because of the third and final episode - with THAT possessed tribal fetish! It’s a once seen never forgotten scene. As a ten year old I’d arrived back home late at night from somewhere cosy with the parents and we ended up catching the complete last chapter on the telly. It was nightmares and lights on for a week after that.
'Trilogy' doesn't get repeated that often, and when I finally tracked it down on DVD (thanks to an unofficial copy via Ebay), it was just as ferocious as I remembered and probably more effective for being a TV movie with the sleepy beige ambience of almost every TV show made during the seventies - until that raggy raging doll gets reanimated and starts snapping and stabbing.
The Cramps - The Way I Walk live at Napa Mental Hospital
The Cramps continue the theme of early 80s rocking wraiths. This clip dates from the Bryan Gregory period - the skeletal 'skunk striped' guitarist who collected soil from various cemetery's. This is the Lords of Psychobilly doing their voodoo on video live at the Napa State Mental Hospital. I've seen the whole of this gig and it's thirty minutes of non stop neck tightening tension.
Returning us to the scene of the crime and the first clip it's;
Well, I had been planning to use the trailer for Tales From The Crypt which has just been released as a double DVD with Vault Of Terror. TFTC is an Amicus Productions compendium of the macabre, featuring Joan Collins and the psycho in a Santa suit, the Monkeys Paw rework and motorcycle skeletons but some ol' youtube spoilsport’s pulled it. So in a last minute bit of stealthy switchcraft it’s Childen of the Stones. I wasn't much of a childrens ITV watcher growing up in the 70s, but two shows from the dark side seriously spooked me for years, and are still whispered about by anyone who stumbled across them. Escape Into Night - two children in a desolate ‘dream’ house surrounded by moving stones. And Childen of the Stones - father and son archaeology in the worst of west country villages. As well as being a genuinely great piece of tea time drama, back then I thought the intro music was the most was terrifying scream theme ever composed and would see how long I could last with lights out (even the HTV ident music has an uncomfortable lumpy bubble bounce about it). I recently hired COTS and thought the theme tune couldn't really have been that creepy could it? Turn down the lights, turn up the sound and try it for 'sighs'.
The Damned - Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The Damned seemed to be eternally doomed to be tarred with the Goth brush or as jokers in the Punk pack, both of which are a total disservice to the legacy of The damned. This clip may not disprove either of these theories but is still worth firing up. Dr Jekyll is ‘Punk’ in paisley shirts and pre dates the 80’s psychedelic revival by at least three years. The studio version even has a trumpet an’ everything on it. Taken from the 1980 Black Album, a double disc set with a seventeen minute masterpiece where Punk goes Prog called ‘Curtain Call’
Another top tune from the Black Album and a BBC session stormer( this is possibly even better than the album version).
I only saw Nosferatu for the first time a few months ago and was completely blown away by it. Klaus Kinksi gives a bone chilling performance as the shadowy hands folded Count. You can almost feel the temperature drop when he slithers into shot. It’s packed with character, colour and texture but Herzog leaves enough room for the icy tension and dark dynamics to breathe. As close as you'll get to Bram Stokers genuinely creepy Dracula novel (although criminally - the terrifying Bloofer Lady has been left out of the film )
Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead
The sound track to almost every night out in the early 80's as Positive Punk slowly evolved into Goth. Bauhaus built a frankenstein song using spare parts from Bowie, Cult Films, and dark dub reggae on this anthem for the undead.
