I Am Siam

Artist: I Am Siam

LP: 7" single

Song: "Talk to Me (I Can Hear You Now)"

[ listen ] 

When I was in junior high, my friend Denny Kibbe and I were always excited when we got to visit Tower Records in Seattle. We usually had a hard time finding the place, but once we did we would spend hours inside, just digging through all of their 7" singles. Here's one that I picked up back then, in 1984. Having never heard of I Am Siam, I selected it solely because of its cover. 

Even now there's not much information about the band online. Their bio on LastFM tells us what we already know, and provides no information about the group: 

With the New Wave scene so active in the mid-eighties, many one-hit-wonders appeared on the charts for a brief, one-time stab at the big time. I Am Siam was one of those. Their record "Talk to Me" received only limited club and radio play, and the band faded from the scene as quickly as they appeared. 

I should note that other online sources indicate I Am Siam was a trio based in NYC. 

Big Hair

Artist: Big Hair

LP: 7" single

Song: "Puppet On a String"

[ listen ] 

Last weekend Jan and I decided to go for a Sunday drive to West Seattle for breakfast (the big West Seattle Bridge is out of commission since it's evidently cracked, so we had to go the long way around). We ate at Easy Street Café, then I suggested we browse in the record store to practice for our upcoming trip together to Minnesota. I've got quite a few record stores on my list in Minneapolis and St. Paul, so I wanted to be sure we'd manage.

I'm happy to report that things went well! Also, I found some pretty amazing records. Someone had brought in a nice bunch of early '80s (1980 to 1982) British goth/new wave 45s, similar to the earliest releases on 4AD, but on other labels that were also around at the time. One of them is this incredible version of "Puppet On a String" by Big Hair, released on Fresh Records in 1980. Discogs doesn't list any other records by Big Hair, which is unfortunate for my collection...but I suppose it's good news for my pocketbook.

[ Easy Street Records and Café in West Seattle ]

Men Without Hats

Artist: Men Without Hats

LP: 7" single

Song: "The Safety Dance"

[ listen ] 

 

I've inadvertently become a new Safety Captain at the Wallingford Post Office. Everyone got a letter in the mail a few weeks ago requesting submissions for a new safety slogan for the Seattle District of the USPS. There was an email address for submitting the slogans, so I came up with a ridiculous one and sent it in: "We are gonna' deliver for you...or we will die trying!" I instantly got this reply: "Thank you for volunteering to be one of the new Safety Captains! We will notify your station manager, and more information will be forthcoming. 

 

How was I supposed to know that anyone who actually opened the letter and read it all the way to the bottom automatically became a Safety Captain? Oh well. My first order of business will be the introduction of a simple "safety dance" that all members of the Wallingford mail carrier team can perform each morning in order to remind themselves to always proceed with caution.

 

[ Men Without Hats ]

INXS

 Artist: INXS

LP: 7" single

Song: "Don't Change"

[ listen ]

I saw this graffiti on the side of a building yesterday when I was riding my bike to the local café for breakfast. It has caused me to reminisce.

[ Graffiti ] 

It also kind of made me want to buy some spray paint and put the names of other semi-forgotten '80s bands on the sides of buildings in my neighborhood. Aztec Camera! Haircut 100! Prefab Sprout! The Pointer Sisters!

What is your favorite INXS song? "Don't Change" may be mine. It's from 1983, before INXS was very popular. The song only made it to #80 on the pop charts in the USA. Are you aware that the band's name was inspired by the British band XTC? Did you know that, early on, the manager of INXS tried to turn them into a Christian rock band? There is all this information, and so very much more, on Wikipedia here!

[ INXS ]

Plastics

Artist: Plastics

LP: Welcome Back

Song: "Diamond Head"

[ listen ]

 

My dear friend Refugio gave me a gift certificate for Singles Going Steady in Belltown for my birthday back in August and, after one false start trying to use it (they've got new COVID hours and aren't open on Tuesdays), I met with success with attempt number two. This drop-dead amazing Plastics LP from 1981 is one of the physical manifestations of that success. Both the B-52s and Talking Heads are big fans of this band. Duh. Oh yes, and if you haven't voted by now...then don't bother. You're obviously a lost cause.

 

[ Plastics ]

Eurythmics

Artist: Eurythmics

LP: 7" single

Song: "Never Gonna Cry Again"

[ listen ]

While I'm driving the truck around delivering mail each day, I begin the morning by listening to 95.7 The Jet FM, which is a local '80s music station. Unfortunately, they only seem to be aware of about 112 songs from the 1980s, so they just keep playing those same ones over and over again. Some of the songs are SO overplayed, I finally had to make a rule. At first, I decided I would change the dial over to 90.3 KEXP whenever The Jet played any one of these three songs: 1.) "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor; 2.) "Sunglasses At Night" by Corey Hart; or 3.) "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Eurythmics. 

But then I got so tired of hearing "American Pie" by Don McLean every 75 minutes (it turns out I absolutely hate this song; it's like some awful children's rhyming game!) and Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (not his finest moment, surely) that I had to add them to the list too. Then there's that other song, maybe by The Traveling Hillbillies or whatever, where the guy (Tom Petty?) whines, "She's a good girl...she's crazy about Elvis..." Oh, please. She sounds like a bore! I had to add that one to the list too. So basically, I listen to 95.7 The Jet for about 11 minutes every morning before they overplay one of these songs again and I have to change the station. 

We could choose any '80s artist for the following game, but let's take, for example, Eurythmics. "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" is a fantastic song (it went to no. 1 in 1983). But if you're going to claim that you play "the very best variety" of '80s music on the radio, then there's simply no reason in heaven or on earth to be playing this (or any other) song 6 or 7 times a day! Every now and then The Jet remembers about "Here Comes the Rain Again" (no. 4 in 1984), but as for Eurythmics, that's it, buddy. That's all you get. No "Missionary Man" (no. 14 in 1986), no "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves" (w/ Aretha Franklin! - no. 18 in 1985), no "Right By Your Side" (no. 29 in 1983), no "I Need a Man" (no. 46 in 1988), no "Thorn In My Side" (no. 68 in 1986), no "Would I Lie to You?" (no. 5 in 1985), no "Love Is a Stranger" (no. 23 in 1983), no "There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)" (no. 22 in 1985), no "It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back)" (no. 78 in 1986), no "Don't Ask Me Why" (no. 40 in 1988) and no "Who's That Girl" (no. 21 in 1983). And they've certainly never played "Never Gonna Cry Again," which is Eurythmics' first single, from 1981. It didn't chart in the US at all, and only went to no. 63 in the UK. I think I'll start calling the station to request it. Relentlessly.

[ Eurythmics in 1981 ]

The Wolfgang Press

Artist: The Wolfgang Press

LP: Scarecrow EP

Song: "Ecstasy"
[ listen ]

Beacon Cinema in the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle assembled a tribute to my favorite record label—4AD! The 100-minute program, which screened last night at 7pm, included music videos by iconic groups that were on the label (Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Clan of Xymox, etc.), along with interview clips and concert footage. (The show was sold out; I barely squeaked in! They're showing it again at 8:30pm on Sunday, February 16.) The tribute begins with clips of Bauhaus and The Birthday Party, who were on 4AD shortly after it was started in 1980, and covers roughly up to the early '90s, with bits from Pixies, Lush, Spirea-X, Pale Saints, His Name Is Alive, and Red House Painters from around that time. 

Of course they couldn't include EVERY band on the label, or the film would have been 500 minutes instead...but still there were three groups in particular that I'd like to have seen featured, perhaps instead of Pale Saints, Dif Juz, and Spirea-X. Two of them are Modern English and Colourbox. They barely got a mention, though both were prolific on the 4AD label in the formative years. The third is The Wolfgang Press, whose members were parts of other 4AD bands before starting The Wolfgang Press and releasing their first LP, "The Burden of Mules," on the label in 1983. They became progressively more danceable over the years, and released their final LP, "Funky Little Demons," on 4AD in 1995. More than any other, The Wolfgang Press represent the label's transition from their post-punk goth roster of the early '80s to the more accessible dancefloor-friendly sound the label moved toward on into the 1990s. ("Pump Up the Volume," anyone?)

The Wolfgang Press 3-track "Scarecrow" EP, released in 1984, was already out of print by the time I learned about it from the listing in the 4AD catalog on the inner sleeve of the 1987 label compilation album "Lonely Is An Eyesore." On the lookout for all things 4AD, I remember being ecstatic when I found my copy of "Scarecrow" at Randy's Records in Salt Lake City in the spring of 1988, after taking the bus up from Provo, Utah to record hunt in the big city for the day. (I didn't have a car...or a job...or any friends.) On the bus on the way home that night, the woman sitting next to me saw my bags and asked me what I'd bought. I excitedly showed her, and she began ranting about how my music was Satanic and I was going to go to Hell. I changed seats, but it still made for an awkward and longs bus-ride home.

Anyway, thanks to The Beacon Cinema for putting this tribute together. It brought back lots of memories, as the music of 4AD was basically the soundtrack of my life between ages 16 and 24.

[ The Wolfgang Press ]

Talking Heads

Artist: Talking Heads

LP: 7" single
Song: "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town"

[ listen ]

I started collecting 45s in early 1982, when I was 12, visiting the Yakima record stores regularly to see what they had that was new. Usually, a new single might have a 'limited-edition' picture sleeve when it first came out, but then after a while it would be sold with the plain company sleeve, or a generic white paper sleeve, instead. The Yakima stores usually carried only the top 60 hits, so singles that didn't chart, or that didn't chart high enough to reach the top 60, didn't often turn up in my town. 

At some point in 1983 or 1984 I started visiting Tower Records in Seattle when my family (or my church group) made trips to the big city over the mountains. Sometimes if my dad was traveling to Seattle for business, I'd give him a short list of singles and he'd stop by Tower to pick them up for me. That's how I ended up with a copy of Echo & the Bunnymen's "Bring On the Dancing Horses," which didn't make it onto the charts in the USA.

Tower Records had everything! They had singles displayed on their new release wall that hadn't cracked the top 100, but were still available for the very few who were interested. It was at Tower that I really built my collection of not-very-popular new save singles of the early-to-mid 1980s that I continue adding to today. 

Still, even with the plentiful bounty my young self found at Tower, I couldn't help but think of all the 7" treasures I'd missed. Imagine if I'd begun visiting Tower Records in 1977 instead! Over the past 35 years of crate-digging I've come across nice copies of some of the singles released during the 1977-to-1983 time period (by Devo, Blondie, the B-52s, etc.) but there were still some that were released briefly and that nobody bought, and that I still had never laid eyes upon. Talking Heads is one of my favorite groups that released several such singles. But now, thanks to the Internet in general and to Discogs in particular, releases like "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town" from 1977 are included my collection! You can find the complete Talking Heads discography on Wikipedia here.

[ Talking Heads ]

The Cars

Artist: The Cars

LP: 7" single
Song: "Since You're Gone"

[ listen ]

While listening to fits and starts of NPR's "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me" this past Sunday as I zoomed around Wallingford delivering Amazon parcels, I caught a brief snippet of the news that The Cars' frontman Ric Ocasek had died. I wasn't as much a fan of his solo work after the group split up, but The Cars' "Shake It Up" and "Since You're Gone" (which peaked at #41 on the Billboard singles charts in May of 1982) were favorites on the radio when I first began listening to popular music as a young teen. The Week magazine put together an obituary for Ric that I'd like to reproduce here, for two reasons: 1.) It's nice. 2.) Since I haven't worked a desk job since the end of May, I'm wondering if I can still type as fast as I used to. (Nope.)

Ric Ocasek Obituary from The Week of September 27, 2019; volume 19 issue 943: 

The Cars frontman who drove rock's new wave

With his lanky 6-foot-4 frame, drawn-out features, and wobbly deadpan voice, Ric Ocasek was an unlikely rock star. But for a decade, the Cars frontman was one of the most successful musicians on the planet. Ocasek and his band-mates hit on a winning formula that married the arty angularity and jaded lyrics of punk and new wave with pure pop hooks. The Boston band's eponymous 1978 debut album sold 6 million copies in the U.S. and contained three hit singles—"Just What I Needed," "My Best Friend's Girl" and "Good Times Roll"—that became FM radio staples. In the 1980s, the Cars embraced the music video, making Ocasek and his ever-present sunglasses a familiar sight on MTV. He delighted in being a musical omnivore who straddled the alt-rock and pop worlds. "I was a huge fan of Dylan," he said, "but I always went for the left side of the music brain too. I loved the Velvet Underground and the Carpenters."

Born in Baltimore, Ocasek moved with his family to Cleveland—where his father worked as a NASA systems analyst—at age 16, and became something "of a teen misfit," said RollingStone.com. He spent hours in the family's basement, tinkering with guitar amplifiers and learning piano chords. He dropped out of college, and in 1965 met bassist Banjamin Orr. The pair performed together in various bands before forming the Cars in the Boston area in 1976. Local radio played the band's demo tape "so often that Elektra Records signed the group in 1978," said The Washington Post. Working with Queen producer Roy Thgomas Baker, the group cranked out their debut in 21 days. It remained on the album chart for 139 weeks.

"Ocasek's pop abilities reached a kind of pinnacle on 1984's Heartbeat City," said The Guardian (U.K.). He wrote the LP's smash single "Drive," which combines a gorgeously smooth melody with despairing lyrics. "Who's gonna pay attention to your dreams?" Orr sings, "And who's gonna plug their ears when you scream?" After the band split in 1988, Ocasek went on to release seven solo albums and produce albums by alt-rock acts such as Weezer, Bad Religion, and No Doubt. Music is "a way to get beyond loneliness," he said in 1980. "Just turn on a radio and there it is: a sense of belonging."

[ The Cars ]

Ric Ocasek

[ March 23, 1944 — September 15, 2019 ]

We will miss you, Ric.