I Have Never Heard These 80's Bands Going Into My Dollar Bin

double - s/t (a&m - 1986)

paul kelly and the messengers - gossip (a&m - 1987)

the christians - s/t (island - 1988)

so - horseshoe in the glove (emi-manhattan - 1988)

fiona - beyond the pale (atlantic - 1986)

gerry woo - listen to my heart beat (polydor - 1988)

deacon blue - when the world knows your name (columbia - 1989)

thinkman - the formula (island - 1986)

figures on a beach - s/t (sire - 1985)

i envy you never having heard deacon blue

just the tip of the iceberg. going thru boxes of crap today. sorting/cleaning/etc. tons of 80's stuff that was dollar bin stuff almost since it was released. doubt anyone would buy any of it, but you never know...

You've never heard "The Captain of Her Heart" by Double?

I remember Fiona getting played on MTV, but I couldn't in a million years tell you what she sounded like.

I liked Accidentally 4th Street by Figures On A Beach but I don't know if that was on the s/t album.

australians love paul kelly iirc

more:

the wild swans - bringing home the ashes (sire - 1988)

Kinda liked this Double song at the time, had completely forgotten about it for a quarter-century!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX-Ru1XkNZc

was almost gonna throw a dollar sticker on this album by stanley frank on a&m from 1980 until i noticed there is a song on it entitled "nylon meat dreams". gotta check that out.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hUbjyM_iV5A/SbecjFWh2LI/AAAAAAAAA6o/lyQpD38YDHk/s400/STANLEY+FRANK+Play+It+Till+It+Hurts.JPG

That Wild Swans album used to go for silly money on CD, vinyl is worthless though.
Fiona is Fiona Flanagan right? She co-starred in the amazing film "Hearts Of Fire" with Bob Dylan, Pat Benetar lite on the musical front iirc.

Early eighties Wild Swans stuff gets rated by the Echo/Wah! contingent among us. (Hi there!) Later stuff was...all right.

Haven't heard the album but Forgotten Town by The Christians is a really good song. They were a new soul act from Liverpool with socially conscious lyrics. Henry Priestman was also in It's Immaterial.

And yeah, "Captain of Her Heart" -- Danish elegant snooze pop or something. Nice piano line.

Oh right, Henry Priestman (of the Christians) was also previously in the Yachts.

aren't Double from Switzerland?

...which explains the tune's sleepy-time vibe.

okay, stanley kinda sucks. rockabilly-ish pop rock. some nice punk rock end of the world sentiments in the songs - and one horrifying reggae number - but this is tinny bar band stuff that is kinda hard to listen to.

Could be Swiss, yeah.

more:

the truth - weapons of love (irs - 1987)

o-positive - toyboat toyboat toyboat (epic - oops, 1990)

the northern pikes - secrets of the alibi (virgin - 1988)

cactus world news live - spin concert series (mca - 1986)

figures on a beach - s/t (sire - 1985)

I saw them once, opening for Robyn Hitchcock in 1987. They weren't bad, kinda gloomy, like a slower and quieter Soul Asylum. I remember the singer being quoted in a big 1985 Year In Rock book on the topic of The Most Important Thing That Happened To You This Year: "Getting my bike stolen. Fucking changed my life."

a slower and quieter Soul Asylum

are you sure you mean the band who did this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWTkDWHwFQQ

cactus world news live - spin concert series (mca - 1986)

They were U2 proteges, I think. Had one not-bad song ("Worlds Apart") that got medium airplay on MTV, but the rest of their album (Urban Beaches) sucked. They were basically a less-painfully-shitty Alarm.

My god, "Accidentally 4th Street" sounds like Peter Murphy fronting a Harold Faltermeyer-Company B collaboration.

are you sure you mean the band who did this song:

Don't have sound right now, but I was just going off vague recollections of a show I saw 24 years ago.

does anyone listen to translator? who did listen to translator? i think i have every translator album. can't remember what the hell they sound like.

more:

iq - nomzamo (mercury - 1987)

illustrated man - s/t 6 song EP (capitol - 1984)

millions like us - s/t (virgin - 1987)

mondo rock - boom baby boom (columbia - 1987)

I did time liking FoaB in the late 80s. Even then I knew they were cornball, but liked 'em anyway.

"The Captain of Her Heart" is one of my favorite songs from the period that I always forget about and then hear and fall in love with again.

haha half of these are bands that had one song that was in very light rotation on the modern rock radio station i listened to in junior high/high school. this thread is like opening a box that has been moved from apartment closet to apartment closet and never opened since it was initially packed.

i remember translator, i think?

gonna check out this album by OXO. featuring the hit single "whirly girl".

oh jeez right THAT double song. they still play that in supermarkets everywhere. like the johnny hates jazz song.

I bought about half of what's been mentioned here from cut-out bins ca. 1987/88, totally unheard, just because the cover or label was perceived to be quality.

I remember that Millions Like Us album turning out to be total garbage.

OXO is cool, but completely silly.

*millions like us* looked like this by the way:

http://www.recordsale.org/cdpix/m/millions_like_us-same.jpg

http://www.vinylsearcher.com/largeImages/14428032.jpg

yeah i can't hang with OXO right now ans they are definitely going in the dollar bin, but i can imagine liking some of their stuff.

You got any Frōzen Ghōst up in that pile?

iq - nomzamo (mercury - 1987)

Genesis-aware neo-proggers who changed their singer, signed to a major and came up with this steaming pile of shite. Sounded like Peter Gabriel 4 without the songs, sound or innovation. I think the title track was about Nelson Mandela? May have involved British prog dudes chanting African rebel songs, I forget.

This is the other "big" FoaB song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgHrswvzbLw&feature=related

how about Transvision Vamp? I think I got Translator confused with them.

Any Robin George?

the truth - weapons of love (irs - 1987)

i only know about these dudes because of 'the hidden', they did the theme song over the end credits and the title track on the above album was used during a record store murder scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk_rfvIeesQ

i AM digging this album now though. and i'd never heard it/them till today. from 1981. power pop.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZNPLfbw0gtg/RkG2cmRjH8I/AAAAAAAAABc/4xUg9GwaQo8/s320/Great-Buildings-Front.jpg

New to me, too. Great cover art.

i tried to find the song from 'the hidden' but searching for variations on 'hidden truth' on youtube brings up a bunch of paranoid conspiracy/anti-zionist vids.

"You got any Frōzen Ghōst up in that pile?"

some guy came in my store YESTERDAY and asked me if i had anything by them! this is why you can never count an album out. and i'm pretty sure they will be in one of these boxes.

Haha!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuNok2bNERc

mondo rock - from australia, used to be daddy cool, who were cool, daddy, but the life was gone from the band by the time boom baby boom came out.

Mondo Rock? Australian 80's, pretty good in their heyday...Ross Wilson has been around for donkeys years
Boom Baby Boom is pretty much last days iirc, don't know anything off that one, but this was their big single
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gujdbZ1csng

Paul Kelly - dude is like a national treasure in Australia
Gossip one of my fave albums of his...homesickness 101
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXgTCg4HAOI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a50u6lcLsMY

Breathe were briefly fairly big in the US!

Breathe were briefly fairly big in the US!

Obviously! Why else would I have heard them when I was 11/12?

I remember this song more for the ketchup commercial with Matt LeBlanc than for Jon Astley himself, though I accidentally discovered it was by him when I bought two of his albums in the cut-out bin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7YxSmxEbM0

Scott -- That Spagna album is really good, especially the side openers "Call Me" and "Easy Lady." Pretty sure I reviewed the single in Creem at the time; will try to dig that out. Italodisco when Italodisco was much cooler than it is now, veering into disco-metal territory sometimes.

Figures On The Beach, as somebody probably already said, are New Romantic wannabee Angophile synth-pop haircut fops from Detroit. As such, I obviously really wanted to like their debut LP when I bought it from somebody else's dollar bin a couple years ago. But no such luck. But yeah, it's neat that they covered BTO.

Wrote this about Fiona's earlier Heart Like A Gun, which Metal Mike sent me a copy of, last year:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

And here is a link to my old Spin review of her later (1992) Squeeze (along with a One 2 One album):

http://books.google.com/books?id=Jlr1EqbQvLgC&pg=PT86&dq=Chuck+Eddy+Fiona&hl=en&ei=b5OoTaOpEqSN0QHLwMT5CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Chuck%20Eddy%20Fiona&f=false

omg I loved that Jon Astley song!

xp Actually, looks like both of those Fiona LPs were later than the one you have.

Okay, so now I really want to read the rest of this thread, but I have to get back to editing Billboard pieces. (They own me today.)

Astley is the brother of Karen Astley, the (now ex-) wife of Pete Townshend. Jon co-produced Who Are You, and oversaw the mid-90s Who catalog remixing/remastering, with wildly varying results.

Still can't get over that his name is Guy Mann-Dude.

It is hilarious.

I thought the Breathe lyric was "so raise your hands to heaven and pray/that we'll be back together someday"?

wow so is jon astley virginia astley's brother too!!??

I wonder how many people remember Guy Mann-Dude that didn't work in radio in the 80s/90s where his record sleeves and posters were put up in music directors' offices and staff bathrooms for lols?

xps I thought I'd remembered Jon Astley having some '70s production rep, but the details had escaped me.

I thought "Hands to Heaven" was the ne plus ultra of romantic English puffcloud longing when I was thirteen.

"Hands to Heaven" still a great single imo.

You're probably right, Dan, I haven't heard it in what, almost 25 years?

xps I thought I'd remembered Jon Astley having some '70s production rep, but the details had escaped me.

― That's why they call me (Johnny Fever), Friday, April 15, 2011 2:58 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

I think he kind of lucked into the Who Are You gig; Glyn Johns started out as producer, but the band were taking too long (drinking too much), and Johns had to bail and move on to other commitments.

It is weird that "Hands to Heaven" is one of the 80s hits that fell by the wayside and didn't benefit from nostalgic use like other songs might have. Maybe people don't like it as much as I do, but it was MASSIVE at the time.

by contrast I hear "How Can I Fall" on AC radio all the time.

I am pretty sure that "Hands To Heaven" still gets played from time to time on nostalgic adult contemporary stations; it's kind of a direct kindred spirit to "Shattered Dreams" in my mind.

xp And Scott, if you didn't already, you should listen to that Double album too! Pronounced "DOO-blay" btw. They are like the Gazebo of Switzerland. Or a more pop version of Yello. Or something. (I mention those other two because my Kraftwerk fan father in law likes all three groups. He even burned a Double CD for me, and I like it! Would totally pay $1 for that album.)

okay you guys have convinced me to listen to double.

What I've written on this board in the past couple years about Mondo Rock:

An mid '80s LP I didn't like much --

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2010

A CD reissue of earlier stuff I liked a lot --

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2009

And OXO, if you didn't already know, were the new wave project of Ish Ledesma, who did disco funk with Foxy in the '70s and then Latin freestyle with Company B in the late '80s. I only know "Whirly Girl," which is not as good as Foxy or Company B. But if I visited your store, an OXO LP still wouldn't stay in your dollar bin long.

i have a big shelf of 2 and 3 dollar records that i do really well with. better than my dollar stuff. you'd probably find lots of stuff there you'd like, chuck. and you get the friends and family discount of course.

more:

world sitizenz - s/t (manhattan - 1985)

loz netto - s/t (atlantic - 1986) (produced by jon astley obviously)

the silencers - romanic (precision - 1981)

should probably spin the silencers album just in case its decent. also have an album by Alda Reserve from 1979 on sire that i need to try.

now playing this though. aphex twin ripped michael off apparently:

http://991.com/newGallery/Michael-Des-Barres-Im-Only-Human-528848.jpg

new wave michael des barres pretty damn cool if you ask me. and his fake reggae song is way better than that other guy's fake reggae song that i mentioned upthread.

plus, he's got nigel harrison and mike chapman in his corner on this album.

I wonder how many people remember Guy Mann-Dude that didn't work in radio in the 80s/90s where his record sleeves and posters were put up in music directors' offices and staff bathrooms for lols?

i remember guy mann-dude! (i did "work" in "radio" in the lolcollege '90s, unpaid, but there weren't any guy mann-dude posters at the station.)

Hey, turns out we have a thread on him already!

And who the hell is Hair Metal Legend Guy Mann Dude?

i need the album by michael's dreamland records labelmates Nervus Rex. never see it. now playing: dreamland records superstar holly penfield's full grown child record. also from 1980 same as Michael's album. also produced by mike chapman. for completists, the label's roster basically consisted of: suzi quatro, michael des barres, shandi, spider, holly penfield, and nervus rex. and pretty much ALL of the labels releases, singles and albums, came out in 1980. spider album ain't that hot. suzi is suzi. shandi i don't know. nervus rex i want to know even better than i do. and michael des barre was obviously the king of rock & roll.

http://www.shugarecords.com/images/records/88f8835c-4447-452b-8601-129067dbd314-0.JPG

such a great cover by the way:

http://cdthen.net/CD_Graphics/nervusrex.jpg

That Spagna album is really good, especially the side openers "Call Me" a

so glad I never follow your advice about anything lol

haha

Nervus Rex record is greatgreatgreat bubblegum new wave imo!

A+ cover

the northern pikes - secrets of the alibi (virgin - 1988)

the tragically hip - up to here (mca - 1989)

You are obviously not Canadian. Ecspecially if you haven't heard of the Tragically Hip.

they are nervous because someone spilled a drink

i like that paul kelly record

the silencers were pretty popular in scotland (unsurprisingly)

Different Silencers.

I was familiar with the Scottish Silencers back in the late 80s, but I saw the other early 80s Silencers records in the bin and wondered if there was any connection. There was most definitely not.

Just checked Joel Whitburn's book.

American Silencers were from Pittsburgh, had a singer (Frank Czuri) ex- of the Jaggerz (so, maybe a buddy of Donnie Iris) and Diamond REO; had one U.S. Hot 100 hit: "Shiver And Shake," 1980, peaked #81.

Scottish Silencers also had one U.S. Hot 100 hit: "Painted Moon," 1987, peaked #82.

American Silencers win!

"Painted Moon" meh. "Razor Blades of Love" ftw!

i only know of OXO because their bass player, Frank Garcia, is in a documentary (The Cameraman) that was shown on This American Life (in season 1 I think) that was made by his stepson in which he appears to be a horrible asshole shitheel of a stepdad, although over the course of the documentary, the son discovers that Frank actually isn't the terrible one, it's his mom.

it is vital viewing if you are ever curious what happened to people in bands like that.

The great disco critic Michael Freedberg on Spagna, Boston Phoenix, January 1987 (A-side is on that album you have, B-side isn't):

Spagna, "Easy Lady"/"Jealousy" (Simple Records, import) In which my favorite Italian flirt of the year bumps on, all the way through the A-side, only to crash into a blues ballad B-side about still needing a man.

Found my old Creem singles column review of "Call Me," too, but it's dumb. Only good part is where I say her perky electrobeats and haircut both remind me of A Flock Of Seagulls.

By the time "Call Me" gets to the chorus, it's okay. But you have to navigate a minefield to get there.