Promo posters as seen on "WKRP in Cincinnati" #88

Albums: Adam & The Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier (Epic, 1980), The Scooters - Blue Eyes (EMI, 1981), Elvis Costello - Trust (Columbia, 1981)
Episode:  Season 3, Episode 19, "A Simple Little Wedding"
Original air date: Sunday, March 21, 1981


Click here for more WKRP posters!

MFD Not-So-Random Five #18

In which I select five songs from 1976-1985 based on an arbitrary theme. (Not to be confused with this blog's Random Five feature, a different exercise in arbitrariness). Today's theme: covers of The Doors' "Hello, I Love You" mostly from bands I've never heard of before.

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1. Stupid Set (1980)
   Devo-wannabes from Italy, but I gotta hand it to them - you've gotta be brave and confident to name your band Stupid Set. It's an interesting take on this song that could only have happened ca. 1980, but once is enough for me.


2. Adam Ant (1982)
   I've heard this one many times since 1982 and, most likely, more than I've heard The Doors' original. It's a fairly rote cover except for the wonderful additions of backing vocals and horns.


3. Hubble Bubble (1979)
   Hubble Bubble is a Belgian punk band in which Plastic Bertrand started his career. The first half is given a oddly kinda Latin flavor, then it abruptly switches gears to loud rockabilly screaming at the end. The group can't seem to keep a steady tempo and it's driving me crazy. I've listened to it four times and still don't quite know what to make of it.


4. The Delmonas (1984)
   Re-titled "Hello, We Love You" which is a subtle change but makes a huge difference in meaning. The Doors meet The Kinks. I'm not interested in the flat, thin vocals, but this garage punk arrangement is fantastic.


5. Missing Persons (1980)
   From the band's debut, self-titled EP. They took the thing and made it an unmistakable Missing Persons song. Fun arrangement, disjunct guitar solo, and great production.

Rock Short Takes, March 1982

Click on the image below to open a pdf file of the "Rock Short Takes" album reviews from Musician magazine's March, 1982 issue. Artists include Adam & The Ants, Joan Jett, Romeo Void, and AC/DC.

Smash Hits Album Ratings - 1981 [part 1 of 2]

Smash Hits was a British teen music magazine that was issued fortnightly. On a scale of 1-10, here's how the magazine's reviewers rated albums released in the first half of 1981. Hope you find something new that you missed back in '81.

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January 8 issue
Rocky Sharpe & The Replays	Rock-It to Mars	6
Dollar	The Paris Collection	6
Jermaine Jackson	Jermaine	6
Showaddywaddy	Bright Lights	5
Black Slate	Amigo	5
Queen	Flash Gordon	2
The Clash	Sandinista!	5½
Linton Kwesi Johnson	LKJ in Dub	7

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January 22 issue
Boomtown Rats	Mondo Bondo	7½
Elvis Costello	Trust	9
The Runaways	Flaming Schoolgirls	2
Steve Winwood	Arc of a Diver	5
UFO	The Wild, the Willing, and the Innocent	5
Basement 5	1965-1980	6
Gen X	Kiss Me Deadly	2
Mtume	In Search of the Rainbow Seekers	8
Rose Royce	Golden Touch	6

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February 5 issue
Sheena Easton	Take My Time	7
Pearl Harbour	Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost Too	6
Phil Collins	Face Value	5
Heatwave	Candles	8
The Stranglers	The Meninblack	6
Mike Batt	Waves	3
Splodgenessabounds	Splodgenessabounds	3
Styx	Paradise Theatre	2
The dB's	Stands for Decibels	8

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February 19 issue
UK Subs	Diminished Responsibility	2
The Barracudas	Drop Out with The Barracudas	5½
Moon Martin	Street Fever	6
Jets	Jets	5
Nash the Slash	Children of the Night	4
Walkie Talkies	Surveillance	6
Joe Sample	Voices in the Rain	7
The Boys	Boys Only	6½
The Selecter	Celebrate the Bullet	5½
Nine Below Zero	Don't Point Your Finger	5

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March 5 issue
Sister Sledge	All American Girls	6
Stray Cats	Stray Cats	5
Rainbow	Difficult to Cure	7
Gang of Four	Solid Gold	7½
Eric Clapton	Another Ticket	3
Marvin Gaye	In Our Lifetime	7½
Todd Rundgren	Healing	6
Brian Briggs	Brian Damage	7
Defunkt	Defunkt	8½
Spandau Ballet	Journeys to Glory	7

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March 19 issue
New Musik	Anywhere	6½
Russ Ballard	Into the Fire	3
James Brown	Rapp Payback	6½
Detroit Spinners	Labour of Love	6
The Spizzles	Spikey Dream	6
Tata Vega	Giving All My Love	4
Shona Laing	Tied to the Tracks	3
The Vapors	Magnets	4
Wilko Johnson	Ice on the Motorway	4
Linx	Intuition	8

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April 2 issue
The Shakin' Pyramids	Skin 'Em Up	5
Rico	That Man is Forward	8
Change	Miracles	5
Landscape	From the Tea Rooms of Mars to the Hell Holes of Uranus	8
Chas'N'Dave	Mustn't Grumble	4
Slade	We'll Bring the House Down	6
The Who	Face Dances	4
British Electronic Foundation	Music for Stowaways	9
Diana Ross	To Love Again	6
Status Quo	Never Too Late	7

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April 16 issue
Dave Edmunds	Twangin	7½
Incognito	Jazz Funk	8
Public Image, Ltd.	Flowers of Romance	8
Stiff Little Fingers	Go for It	7
The Cure	Faith	7
Whitesnake	Come An' Get It	4½
The Jags	No Tie Like a Present	4
Cockney Rejects	Greatest Hits, Vol 3	11
Roger Taylor	Roger Taylor's Fun in Space	3
B.A. Robertson	Bully for You	6

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April 30 issue
Gillan	Future Shock	4
Girlschool	Hit and Run	5
Tenpole Tudor	The Swords of a Thousand Men	7
REO Speedwagon	Hi Infidelity	4
The Keys	The Keys Album	5
Quincy Jones	The Dude	7½
Sharon Redd	Sharon Redd	8
Snips	La Rocca	6
The Isley Brothers	Grand Slam	5
The Scars	Author! Author!	8

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May 14 issue
The Undertones	Positive Touch	9
Holly and The Italians	The Right to be Italian	4
The Plastics	Welcome Back	7½
Split Enz	Waiata	7
The Lambrettas	Ambience	7
The Tubes	The Completion Backward Principle	4
Ruts DC	Animal Now	8
Albania	Are You All Mine	7
Kraftwerk	Computer World	4
The Beat	Wha'ppen?	7
Squeeze	East Side Story	9
The Cramps	Psychedelic Jungle	8
The Searchers	Play for Today	5

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May 28 issue
Original Mirrors	Heart-twango and Raw-beat	7
Richard Strange	The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange	6½
Joe Walsh	There Goes the Neighborhood	5
Shakatak	Drivin' Hard	7
Grace Jones	Nightclubbing	8
Bill Nelson	Quit Dreaming and Get on the Beam	8
Classic Nouveaux	Night People	6
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers	Hard Promises	7
Wild Horses	Stand Your Ground	4
The Psychedelic Furs	Talk, Talk, Talk	8
Sparks	Whomp That Sucker	6
Positive Noise	Heart of Darkness	5
Toyah	Anthem	3

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June 11 issue
Elton John	The Fox	5
Echo and The Bunnymen	Heaven Up Here	9
Doll by Doll	Doll by Doll	8
Jean-Michel Jarre	Magnetic Fields	7
UB40	Present Arms	7½
Ken Lockie	The Impossible	6
Phil Seymour	Phil Seymour	4
Black Uhuru	Red	7½
Eddy Grant	Can't Get Enough	9

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June 25 issue
Killing Joke	What's This For	7½
Third World	Rock the World	5
TV Smith's Explorers	The Last Words of the Great Explorer	5
Duran Duran	Duran Duran	4
Magazine	Magic, Murder, and the Weather	7
Siouxsie and The Banshees	Juju	5
Thompson Twins	A Product of...	6
Peter Tosh	Wanted Dread & Alive	4
Yoko Ono	Season of Glass	3
Modern Eon	Fiction Tales	8
Barbara Dickson	You Know It's Me	4

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h/t to Brian McCloskey over at Like Punk Never Happened

MFD Not-So-Random Five #8

In which I select five songs from 1976-1985 based on an arbitrary theme. (Not to be confused with this blog's Random Five feature, a different exercise in arbitrariness). Today's theme, for the "dog days of summer:" songs that have the word "dog" in their title.

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1. "Do the Dog" by The Specials (1979, 2 Tone)
   A ska cover of Rufus Thomas' 1963 single "The Dog" which is more like a complete deconstruction of the song than a cover. But I still dig it.
   


2. "Dog Eat Dog" by Adam and the Ants (1980, Epic)
   The first Adam and the Ants tune I ever heard was "Killer in the Home." It appeared on a 1981 Epic sampler cassette titled Exposed. I was intrigued. Then "Dog Eat Dog" came up on the second side of the tape and I was hooked. Purchase of the Kings of the Wild Frontier album quickly followed, and I stayed with Adam Ant until he teamed up with Phil Collins, then I quickly lost interest. But Kings of the Wild Frontier is one of my favorite albums of 1980 (even though I didn't hear it until later) and "Dog Eat Dog" is side 1, track 1 of that album.
   
   
   


3. "Dog and Butterfly" by Heart  (1979, Portrait)
   When I was a kid, I thought this was an Olivia Newton-John tune (I never claimed I was a smart kid, just a smart ass). But Ann Wilson sure brings it with these vocals, don't she? The star of this show, however, is the laid back folkish songwriting and subtle arrangement. The song barely cracked the Top 40, peaking at #34, which is a damn shame. Of course, Top 40 at that time was mainly disco and country crossover, so there really wasn't room for a folk ballad, no matter how beautiful it was. (note: I just checked out the Hot 100 chart of March 31, 1979 and that's a helluva chart. Maybe that explains why "Dog and Butterfly" didn't get any higher: too much competition. Or maybe this song just lulled me into a nostalgic 7th grade daze.)


4. "Dogs" by The Judy's (1980, Wasted Talent)
   The Judy's were a local band out of Pearland, Texas, just south of Houston. The trio would end up as opening acts for groups like Talking Heads and The B-52's (oddly enough, a then-unknown R.E.M. opened for The Judy's in Austin in 1981). They became a regional favorite, then me and my high school friends fell in love with them in the summer of 1982 with their album Washarama. "Dogs" comes from the EP released prior to Washarama, The Wonderful World of Appliances. Sung from the perspective of David Berkowitz, this song is an odd exploration of The Son of Sam. Far from my favorite tune by the band, it's creepy and catchy at the same time.
   


5. "Atomic Dog" by George Clinton (1982, Capitol)
   When you read this set's theme, you probably guessed I'd include this song by Dr. Funkenstein. "Bow-wow-wow-yippee-yo-yippee-yay!" may be some of my favorite '80s lyrics. Amazingly, this 1982 single never charted on the Billboard Hot 100 (it "bubbled under" at 101, but it topped the R&B chart and peaked at #38 Disco). I didn't love this as much in the early '80s as I should have. Now a classic, being widely sampled in hip-hop music for the last 35+ years.

Vintage Music Pinbacks #10

Tenth in a series.

Buttons, badges, pinbacks - whatever you call 'em, I've got a shoebox full. Here's a few of my vintage music pinbacks from the '70s and '80s:

1.  1.5" Billy Idol, 1984
2.  1" Joy Division, ca. 1979
3.  1" Adam and the Ants, ca. 1981
4.  1.25" Big Country, The Crossing, 1983
5.  1.25" The Jam, The Gift, 1982
6.  1.25" Ultravox, Quartet, 1982
7.  1.25" Roxy Music, Stranded, 1973*
8.  1.25" The Noise, ca. 1979

*1973 isn't in My Favorite Decade, but I wore this pinback plenty in the early '80s for obvious reasons. I believe it was a gift from my buddy Jim.

Vintage Music Pinbacks #5

Fifth in a series.

Buttons, badges, pinbacks - whatever you call 'em, I've got a shoebox full. Here's a few of my vintage music pinbacks from the '70s and '80s:

1.  1.25" Frankie Goes To Hollywood (pinback dated 1984)
2.  1.25" Kate Bush, ca. 1978
3.  1.25" Heaven 17 (pinback dated 1983)
4.  1" The Alarm, ca. 1983
5.  1" Pretenders (pinback dated 1980)
6.  2" Deborah Harry, ca. 1979
7.  1.25" Haircut 100, Pelican West, 1982
8.  1.25" Madness, One Step Beyond..., 1979
9.  1.25" Adam and the Ants, Ants Invasion Tour, 1981

Vintage Music Pinbacks #4

Fourth in a series.

Buttons, badges, pinbacks - whatever you call 'em, I've got a shoebox full. Here's a few of my vintage music pinbacks from the '70s and '80s:

1.  1.25" The Boomtown Rats, ca. 1977
2.  1.25" Ian Dury, ca. 1981
3.  1.25" Joe Jackson, Body and Soul, 1984
4.  1.25" Eurythmics (pinback dated 1984)
5.  1" Depeche Mode, "A Question of Lust" 1986*
6.  1" Adam and The Ants, "Dirk Wears White Sox" 1979
7.  1" Thompson Twins, Into the Gap, 1984
8.  1.25" Record Breaker, Manchester CT, ca. 1980
9.  1.25" The Human League, Dare!, 1981
10.  1.25" The Police, Synchronicity, 1983
11.  1.25" Asia, Asia, 1982

*I realize that 1986 is beyond the scope of this blog, but I like the pinback so I'm bending the rules.

Vintage Music Pinbacks #3

Third in a series.

Buttons, badges, pinbacks - whatever you call 'em, I've got a shoebox full. Here's a few of my vintage music pinbacks from the late '70s and early '80s:

1.  1x2" The Atlantics, Big City Rock, 1979
2.  1.25" Bow Wow Wow, "Do You Wanna Hold Me?" 1983
3.  3 cm. MTV  (pinback dated 1984)
4.  1.25" Haircut One Hundred, ca. 1982
5.  2" Adam Ant, Friend or Foe, 1982
6.  2.25" Miles Davis, Dr Pepper Music Festival, WPLJ, 1982
7.  1" Police, ca. 1979
8.  1.25" Joe Jackson, Night and Day, 1982

Vintage Music Pinbacks #2

Second in a series.

Buttons, badges, pinbacks - whatever you call 'em, I've got a shoebox full. Here's a few of my vintage music pinbacks from the early '80s:

1.  1.75" Rolling Stones 1981 Tour
2.  1.5" The Police (pinback dated 1983)
3.  1.25" The Milkshakes, ca. 1981
4.  1" The Motels, All Four One, 1982
5.  1.25" The Kinks, State of Confusion, 1983
6.  1.25" Asia logo 1982
7.  1" Adam Ant, "Antmusic" 1980
8.  2" David Bowie, "Fashion" 1980