Where is the love for WESTWORLD?

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Were these little twerps (or whatever they were) as great as the "Banana Bam-Boomer-Ang"/"Banana Bamboo"/"Nasty and Cheap"/"Silver Mac" 12-inch I found for 50 cents on St Marks Place a few days ago suggests? Damn does it rock -- total post-Quatro Diddleyglamgum in a post-Bananarama/Betty Boo context. And if remember their debut album (which I positively reviewed in LA Weekly at the time, then for some stupid reason eventually got rid of), this 12-inch doesn't even include their best song, which was "Sonic Boom Boy," right? How big was this band in England? Did they have actual hits? Were they hated by Bluroasis fans? Were they considered fakes by Wham! fans? Were they called an embarrassment? Were they considered the natural late capitalist heirs to the Pet Shop Boys and X-Ray Spex? Are they fondly remembered? Did they put out more great albums after the debut? I am suddenly wondering why everybody hasn't always been obsessed by them!

― xhuxk, Thursday, 21 April 2005 20:50 (twenty years ago)

Also, like, did they have a cartoon show or something? Did they do actual concerts? Were they, in fact, genuine human beings? Or what??

― xhuxk, Thursday, 21 April 2005 20:52 (twenty years ago)

I remember them being considered as a pretty embarrassing, manufactured group. They were forgotten by the time Blur and Oasis came along so I doubt if any of their fans would waste any energy hating them. Sonic Boom Boy was, i think, their only hit(and not a very big one), though I remember that Banana Bamboo song being played.

"Were they considered the natural late capitalist heirs to the Pet Shop Boys and X-Ray Spex?". Er.....negatory, good buddy.

― everything, Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

Were they, in fact, genuine human beings?

http://fargo.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~caj240/cyborgs/yobots/westworld.jpg

― darin (darin), Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:09 (twenty years ago)

http://www.a-cd.de/images/articles/2004-09-30_222502_theatre_of_hate_westworld.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:13 (twenty years ago)

I've mentioned Sonic Boom Boy twice on ILM in favourable circumstances. (/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?thread.php?msgid=4682851 and POX: Largely Forgotten Singles from the 80's). It's a great pop song.

I had forgotten about the existence of Banana Bamboo. Did it have an almost-identical tune? It does in my head, and that is now lowering the esteem in which I hold Sonic Boom Boy.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:16 (twenty years ago)

Well, I haven't heard "Sonic Boom Boy" in years, but yeah, "Bananarama Bamboo" or whatever does probably sound kind of similar, yet LIKE NOBODY ELSE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Except, like I said, Suzi Quatro, maybe, sort of, though not exactly. Who is pretty good person to make all your songs sound like, right?

― xhuxk, Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

Who remembers King Trigger? They had a minor hit with "RIVER" and I think they sounded pretty similar. Haven't heard Westworld in yonks though.

― everything, Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:28 (twenty years ago)

I have that King Trigger single, number 57 with a bullet.

River, river in a jungle in my dugout canoe. Fine stuff, Chuck would like it I'm sure.

Westworld had one song in a John Hughes movie which was fantastic, sadly only available from yard sales and charity shops.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:33 (twenty years ago)

Wow, so was there a sorta glam-pop revival in England at the turn of the '90s? Don't British music papers always come up with silly names for movements like that? (I definitely know Westworld were not grebo or baggy or shamble or handshake, though don't ask me to explain why.)

― xhuxk, Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:34 (twenty years ago)

King Trigger date back to the mid-80's I think (got the single but I can't be bothered digging it out to check). If you had to define them, I think Westworld were post-Sputnik or Arsequake-lite.

― everything, Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:39 (twenty years ago)

I've totally got the "sonic boom, ah-boom boy - huh!" bit going round in my head now.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

xpost
No, glam pop's always bubbling in the background, sometimes manifesting itself from time to time, most recently acts as different as Goldfrapp and the Kaiser Chiefs.

The King Trigger single was '82 and is closer in style to Adam and the Ant's, which has an obvioud debt to glam.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:47 (twenty years ago)

Arsequake???? (Wait, did you just make that up?)

Post-Sputnik I totally get, though; yeah, that kinda makes sense.

How old was their average audience member - about 9 or 10, maybe?

― xhuxk, Thursday, 21 April 2005 21:57 (twenty years ago)

I believe in the States we referred to Arsequake as "Colon Blow."

Wasn't there actually a Sputnik guy IN Westworld, or connected with them somehow, come to think of it? Or am I confusing them with some other post-Sputniks?

― xhuxk, Thursday, 21 April 2005 22:03 (twenty years ago)

I shared a hovel for a few months with Derwood out of Westworld circa 1985, who was still bemoaning the fact that he'd written the riff of 'Dancing With Myself' before quitting Generation X. He asked me to mime the drums for an early promo video but I couldn't chnage my shift at the squalid Seven Eleven on the Harrow Road. Excellent bloke. He used to borrow ny guitar and had the world's worst tattoo of a Fender Strat on his arm, which was salmon pink (authentic) but had a curved neck (not authentic). I think him and Elizabeth (the singer of Westworld) moved to Tucson, as you do,
The guitarist from King Trigger was my boss when I worked in a North London offie. He moved to France and (unintentionally) left behind a bag of Boss pedals, which did a lot more touring with me than they ever did with him. I saw them back in the day, on a bill with the Farmers Boys and the Chameleons. Their percussionist Trudy (of the 'dusky thighs' according to many sad hackboys, for she was the Maya/MIA of her day) had sadly left by then. Get that bill eh? Only ever beaten by Loop/Happy Mondays/MBV for £2.50 in a Camden boozer.

― snotty moore, Thursday, 21 April 2005 22:43 (twenty years ago)

Nice insider info, Snotty. Any gossip on Hayzee Fantayzee?

Arsequake = Simon Reynolds coined term for loud, dancable shouty bands circa 1988. Age of Chance, World Domination Enterprises, Foetus, etc.

― everything, Thursday, 21 April 2005 22:56 (twenty years ago)

post westworld material released as moondogg - lots of frentic d-n-b infused drums and those sputnik styled t-rex'd guitar licks

.. not too bad for a quid if you see the album about.

i have a double 10" pack of banana whatever, which also includes a mix of sonic boom boy,

and the tape i had of the album was ACE .. there was also a second album which i recall being played a lot - but as ever its got lost in the passing of time.

it wasn't anything serious, and certainly wont sound cool in 2005, but they were a lot of bo diddley infused fun ..

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 22 April 2005 06:56 (twenty years ago)

god bless the internet !

http://www.algonet.se/~multig/westworld/index2.html

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 22 April 2005 07:04 (twenty years ago)

Westworld for me were like a more inane version of Transvision Vamp.

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 22 April 2005 07:10 (twenty years ago)

yup.

totally agree.

but hey it would love the band to do their thing on 'hit me baby one more time' .. i'd bloody vote for em !

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 22 April 2005 07:22 (twenty years ago)

http://stat.discogs.com/R/t/8990-1083697062.jpg

― tylero (tylero), Friday, 22 April 2005 07:45 (twenty years ago)

> more inane version of Transvision Vamp<

Sounds right, but "more inane" here means *better*, right? (I do like Transvision Vamp, but I think Westworld were catchier and goofier and more fun -- much better rhythm section, too, come to think of it.)

― xhuxk, Friday, 22 April 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

Westworld were better. Much more fun, plus Transvision Vamp's only big song was a cover, which is kind of lame.

― everything, Friday, 22 April 2005 16:34 (twenty years ago)

much better rhythm section, too, come to think of it

Well TV bassist Dave Parsons formed Bush after the split, a band not known for it's swing.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Friday, 22 April 2005 16:37 (twenty years ago)

Ha Tyler... I too was hoping this was going to be a whole thread dedicated to the Chiapet track. :)

― Scott Warner (thream), Saturday, 23 April 2005 14:05 (twenty years ago)

> ... so was there a sorta glam-pop revival in England at the turn of the '90s?

You seem to have the wrong idea about when Westworld were active, xhuxk. The deathless Sonic Boom Boy, their only bona fide hit, entered the U.K. charts in mid-1986.
I can remember reading an interview with them at that time in Smash Hits, and what I particularly recall about it is that Derwood expressed delight at having recently acquired one of Bo Diddley's custom-built rectangular guitars (he can be seen playing it in the song's video), and that the burly rhythm guitarist reminisced that first time he had laid eyes on vocalist Elizabeth, "she looked absolutely radiant", a comment which seemed to me to smack of a melancholy, unrequited affection. Funny the things that stick in one's mind, hein?

― Palomino (Palomino), Saturday, 23 April 2005 16:49 (twenty years ago)

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