Where is the LOVE for the Reds and the A's?

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Couldn't find anything on the A's. Both were from Philadelphia. The A's had songs called "Teenage Jerkoff" and "Who's Gonna Save the World?" which I liked.

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The Reds began as one of the most powerful guitar and keyboard-based bands of the late New Wave, starting in Philadelphia in the late seventies. Several albums later, they became a duo, backed by Mike Thorne's rhythm and synthesizers and made further recordings for Sire. Their music was featured in an early episode of Miami Vice, and they continued scoring for movies such as Michael Mann's Manhunter. One of the most forceful combinations ever of rock & roll attitude and tough synthesizers, Cry Tomorrow is a reworked version of their outstandingly powerful original 1992 songs, and includes a radical version of the Stones' Gimme Shelter.

This Philadelphia band's first album on A&M, entitled "The Reds," is a ferocious attack, total and relentless. It's textures are dense with electronic chaos brought to the edge of madness, then resolved into piercing clarity. The album showed the band's most impressive achievement - a sound that blends Rick Shaffer's guitar and Bruce Cohen's keyboards into an interestingly textured drone, short guitar and keyboard figures, rising then disappearing back into the drone, while Shaffer's voice provides the punch and definition for the overall sound. The album was supported with live appearances with such diverse acts as The Police, Joe Jackson, The Psychedelic Furs, and Public Image.

"The Reds" was followed by an A&M released EP featuring The Doors song, "Break On Through," which suggests some of the band's roots. After leaving A&M, The Reds went forward with two independent albums, "Stronger Silence" and "Fatal Slide." These two records continued The Reds sound, receiving critical acclaim internationally, and were supported with extensive tours.

― George Smith, Monday, 7 March 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

I remember the A's. I remember seeing some video of theirs on some random cable access channel (not MTV) and my Mom happened to be in the room. "I bet the "A" stands for Anus!" She actually said that.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 7 March 2005 21:22 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, both way cool bands. I can vouch for all three Reds albums and both A's albums (or at least the two I own). The A's actually hit me as a Philly version of the very early Boomtown Rats, for some reason, but with some Dolls (or at least first-album solo David Johansen) tossed in; second album took them in a less frantic, more funky-but-chic soul-rock direction; didn't they wind up with a hit, with "Woman" in the title? The Reds got some AOR airplay in Detroit in 1979; sounded like a punk Iron Butterfly or Deep Purple or something to me when I first heard them. I used to own that green 10-inch (pre-"nu disc"-era major label 10-inch, how often did that happen? -- I kinda assumed it might be promo-only) with their Doors cover; wish I still did. (I DO have a CD of the *Band of the Hand* soundtrack from a few years later, though - isn't that something like half Reds tracks? I think so.)

― chuck, Monday, 7 March 2005 21:28 (twenty years ago)

Didn't the 2nd and 3rd Reds albums only come out in Canada, though, and aren't they now combined onto one CD? That's what I recall.

― chuck, Monday, 7 March 2005 21:31 (twenty years ago)

pre-"nu disc"-era major label 10-inch, how often did that happen? -- I kinda assumed it might be promo-only)

The Japanese still have them in print as CDs. There's been one sitting in Pasadena Tower for ages, Cheap Tricks ["Found All the Parts"?!] at an abominable price.

I've not seen anything vis. the A's on the west coast. I had two records back in PA which I think was the catalog. Saw them a handful of times since they played bars in the Valley and at the Jersey shore, too. They were probably still in action when you moved into the 'burbs.

I liked the A's. The first album had more energy but the second had some good pop songs, too. The singer had a very dweeb punk voice which fit the material.

― George Smith, Monday, 7 March 2005 21:33 (twenty years ago)

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/1972wsprogram1.jpg

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 7 March 2005 21:39 (twenty years ago)

The A's hit was "Woman's Got The Power." Later covered by Clarence Clemons (with or without the Red Bank Rockers, I do not recall).

― mike a, Monday, 7 March 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

The Reds first album was amazing.I found it on vinyl a couple years ago then moved it over to cd.I'd love to hear their other 2 albums.Great,great organ sound!!!!

― evan chronister (evan chronister), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 00:29 (twenty years ago)

I really seriously thought this was about the 1990 World Series. Haha thats great.

― Johnny Badlees (crispssssss), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 00:36 (twenty years ago)

my Mom happened to be in the room. "I bet the "A" stands for Anus!" She actually said that.

this explains so much, Alex (nb my mom said shit like that all the time too so I'm not being dismissive, it explains a lot about me too)

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 01:24 (twenty years ago)

jaymc otm

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Tuesday, 8 March 2005 01:34 (twenty years ago)

I've got the Reds LP, but I've only listened to it once or twice. The ol' record-player's on the fritz right now so who knows how long before I hear it again.

The first A's LP, however, is awesome. I think it may have the most near-deal-breaker moments of pure retardation (not the good kind) of any Great Record I own: the singer bugs me a lot, and the "fallin' in love is like fallin' down stairs..." bit that starts side 2 almost drives me to rip it off the turntable every time (a lot of those turn of the decade power pop albums are like that, though). But when its good, MAN. The A's play their asses off on this one; someone knew that the window that the Knack had opened was gonna shut pretty soon (hey, old people: had the "Knuke the Knack" buttons hit the scene yet?).

What I've heard from LP #2 hasn't impressed me, though I might give it a shot if I ever find it in the buck bin.

Another question for people who were buying records then (I was born in 1975): What's the deal with the Nu-Disk? Were the "Found All the Parts"-era Epic 10" EPs the first attempt to try out the 10" format (I mean after the 12" LP had established itself as THE format; I know they had 10"s back in the olde days)? Or what?

― Handsome Dan, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 05:06 (twenty years ago)

(hey, old people: had the "Knuke the Knack" buttons hit the scene yet?).

Iyamnotanoldperson. But, yes, Dan, "Knuke the Knack" buttons and T-shirts, I believe, were floating about when the A's stormed into thw Lehigh Valley in support of their first album. Saw them at The Lighthouse which featured women's mud wrestling in a garbage bag lined pit prior to their show. And I am agonizing to port the A's to CD but no longer have my LP's.

The Nu-Disk was a brief promotional item used to spurt only a couple new bands. Apparently the failed because they looked odd on turntables. "Found All the Parts" was probably the best seller of them. Anyone remember The Continentals?

― George Smith, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 10:34 (twenty years ago)

Vaguely. I still have the Nu Musik Nu Disc though, with "Straight Lines." It's better than their album (but not as good as Mi-Sex, not even close.) (As I recall there were only FOUR nu-disks per se', unless more came later. What was the fourth one? My memory, which is probably wrong, says some band named Propaganda or something like that. I should check and see what post-western-swing-or-whatever/pre-nu-disk 10-inches I have at home. I'm sure there must have been some on indie labels; I have one by an X-like Chicago-I-think band called Bohemia, though I forget when that is from. Best 10-inch in my collection is probably the Bloodstar "Hyperspace" one, or maybe not.)

― chuck, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 15:58 (twenty years ago)

Yep, *Volume: International Discography of the New Wave* lists a nu-disk called *Calling on Moscow* by a band called Propaganda; I was right. I have no idea who they are. Sez: "10" 33rpm comp promo-only ep in white die-cut jacket w/insert '79"; not sure what "comp" means. Were they really promo-only though? I totally remember seeing them in stores! Though maybe I just saw used critics' copies; who knows. *Volume* doesn't seem to list the Reds 10-inch (which was also 1979, I think, same year as their album) oddly enough. Continentals and New Musik (sorry, I spelled it wrong) nu-disks are listed as promo-only 1979 too; Cheap Trick apparently not new wave enough to be included in book (but if their nu-disk was a promo, how did so many people buy it?? strange.) Bohemia 10-inch *Automatic Mind* is listed as 1980; Pylon 10-inch which I wish to hell I still owned is 1981, as is the Method Actors 10-inch, which I think I almost bought then but didn't.

― chuck, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 16:26 (twenty years ago)

And to confuse matters, I just remembered, the Reds also appeared on a new wavey (Police, Joe Jackson, etc) A&M compilation *called* *Propaganda,* the label's followup to an earlier blue-wavey-water-colored vinyl compilation called *No Wave* (which had many of the same acts, plus Stranglers and Dickies, but no actual no wave on it.) I think I still have the *Propaganda* one at home. I remember really liking a hyperactively falsettoed fruity-tooty Sparks-abilly track called "I'm Alive" by some band called The Secret on *No Wave* at the time, but I know nothing else about them.

― chuck, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

And *No Wave* was not to be confused with Epic's similar *Permanent Wave* from around the same time (maybe a year later), which had the Kurssal Flyers, Vibrators, Only Ones, and After the Fire, I think.

― chuck, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 16:34 (twenty years ago)

You can still find the Nu-Disks in used bins. New Musik's is highly recommended: "Straight Lines" is one of the best synthpop songs of the era (haven't heard enough Mi-Sex to make the comparison).

― mike a, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 16:35 (twenty years ago)

Mi-Sex often veered toward guitar rock on their Aussie albums, but their biggest and best synth-pop hit was "Computer Games," not to be confused with an album they did called *Graffiti Crimes,* or with "Computer Game," which was Yellow Magic Orchestra's biggest hit (and all of which make "Straight Lines" sound completely stiff and funkless in comparison -- though, uh, maybe that's why they called it "Straight Lines"!)

― chuck, Wednesday, 9 March 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

So (now that I am at home and can check on such things) it turns out that I was right about the combined Stronger Silence/Fatal Slide Reds CD. It's on Helter Skelter Records, out of Rome, Italy! (So good luck finding one, but I'm pretty sure I found my copy for a few bucks in a used record store somewhere, several years back.)

My copy of the first A's album has these tracks marked as the best songs on it: "Teenage Jerk Off," "Grounded/Twist and Shout Interpolation," "C.I.A.," and "Five Minutes in a Hero's Life." (My copy of their second album *A Woman Has the Power* is not marked at all, though.)

― chuck, Monday, 14 March 2005 00:51 (twenty years ago)

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