Friday 80s Flashback for January 17, 2025

[Centerfield Rising] -- For the second full week of this month, we have two albums that are celebrating the 40th anniversary of their release date. Both records, as best I can determine, were released on January 14, 1985. One record is pop rock (or Americana rock) while the other is a classic of post-hardcore. 

Centerfield – John Fogerty had found immense success with Creedence Clearwater Revival. But was kind of floundering after becoming a solo artist in 1973. But that all changed with the release of his third solo studio LP, Centerfield. Released 40 years ago this week, Centerfield went to #1 on the Billboard 200, Fogerty's only solo #1 record. And the album spawned three singles on the US Billboard Hot 100. One of those singles, "The Old Man Down the Road," peaked at #10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 (making it Fogerty's only top ten single as a solo artist) and #1 on the US Billboard Top Rock Tracks. Centerfield is unique for two more points. First, Fogerty played all the instruments on this album himself. Second, it was at the center of a rare case of self-plagiarism; yup, John Fogerty was sued for sounding like John Fogerty. 

New Day Rising – Similar to John Fogerty, Hüsker Dü released their third studio album on January 14, 1985. And that's pretty much where any similarities between Fogerty and the Hüskers end. New Day Rising was raw and, compared with Centerfield, blisteringly powerful. Sure, New Day Rising wasn't exactly pop rock, but it was a bit of a shift away from the hardcore punk of Hüsker Dü's debut album. Some of the songs here are melodic and have catchy hooks, but they are also vicious and relentless. No surprise that you won't find any hit singles here, not that hits should be the final arbiter of quality. And New Day Rising did chart, albeit at #10 on the UK Indie Chart. It's an absolute rough gem of the underground rock movement. If you want to read more, Patrick Smith does a great job covering the history of and individual tracks on the album he calls the "very apex" of Hüsker Dü's career, a record that has songs "as melodically solid as any top-40 hits of the time, but all whipped up in a great Minnesota blizzard."

So, which of these albums made it to your own turntable or tape deck in 1985? 

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Flashback #1: Centerfield (January 14, 1985)

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Flashback #2: New Day Rising (January 14, 1985)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

See you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for January 10, 2025

[A Silver Tone] -- I don't know what your first memory of Chris Isaak was, but mine was his 1989 breakout hit, "Wicked Game," from his album of the same year, Heart Shaped World, and then featured in David Lynch's 1990 film, Wild at Heart. But here's the thing: That Isaak-Lynch collab got started here, with a 1985 album. 

Released on January 10, 1985, Silvertone was Chris Isaak's debut studio album. The album was titled after Isaak's first band, which he had formed with guitarist James Calvin Wilsey right out of college in 1981. This rockabilly band took their moniker from a Sears-branded line of consumer electronics (radios, batteries, etc.) and musical instruments (some popular guitars in the 1950s). Silvertone – the band, not the brand – had performed together a few years prior to getting considered for a recording contract. But when the time came to record an album, the producer pretty much envisioned Chris Isaak as a solo performer, and he relegated Silvertone to backing band status. 

Adding insult to injury, the record company wanted to downplay the Silvertone name so Sears wouldn't potentially get lawsuit happy over their copyright. And the aforementioned James Calvin Wilsey was the only original member of Silvertone to be credited on this debut album, and he continued to work with Isaak through 1993. The band is remembered in the album title, but most of tracks were recorded using session musicians, so the band isn't even preserved in recorded memory. 

Anyway, Silvertone (the album, not the band or brand) was a critical success ... but not a commercial one. Well, it did reach #77 ... in Australia. Still, there's a bit of a silver(tone) lining: Two of Silvertone's tracks – "Gone Ridin'" and "Livin' for Your Lover" – did get new life when they were featured in David Lynch's 1986 film, Blue Velvet. And that's what launched an ongoing collaboration between Isaak and Lynch. 

The rise of Chris Isaak as an artist begins here, in an oft-forgotten debut album. And it's actually quite good. I guess it just couldn't cut through to an audience when it was released.

Flashback: Silvertone (January 10, 1985)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

I'll see you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for January 3, 2025

[believe in gas, food, lodging] -- New year, same motive for the 80s Flashbacks: Celebrate albums that have, or will, turn 40 years old in the current calendar year. And I'm starting off the year with a two-fer post. And while both of this week's albums were released in 1985, quite possibly early in January 1985 (as best I can determine), I'm not 100% positive on the specific release dates. Still, each one should be 40 years as of this week, or at least by the end of this month.

Gas Food Lodging – Possibly released on January 1, 1985, Gas Food Lodging was Green on Red's second studio album. They are said to have recorded the album in only five days. I think the wayward energy, rather than any lack of polish, definitely attests to the short timeframe. It's a loud and rough record, a soundtrack for the road, with more than a sideways glance at country rock and a slight aftertaste of psychedelia. Robert Palmer of The New York Times called it "the most distinctive and accomplished of all the recent 60's-rooted albums" ["Psychedelic Rock Stages a Comeback," The New York Times. p. A23, 2 June 1985] while The Ottawa Citizen pointed to its roughness as portraying "a bleak view of the American heartland" ["Rock," Ottawa Citizen. p. F5, Evelyn Erskine, 3 Apr 1987]. I could not find a complete YouTube playlist for this album, so I have embedded the band's 2021 re-release on Bandcamp. 

Something to Believe In – The Scottish band APB released Something to Believe In at some point in January 1985. It was sort of considered a debut album, but it was actually a compilation of the band's previous independent singles, plus some new tracks. The initial release of this LP did not include the band's 1981 debut single, "Chain Reaction," but that song has since been added as a bonus track on subsequent releases. In fact, you can find re-releases that have upwards of 16 total tracks. My introduction to APB was their 1986 album,  Cure for the Blues. Their funky bass enraptured me and I had to find more. Fortunately, one of my dormitory friends had a bunch of APB's earlier singles. And while APB performed sporadically in the 1980s and 1990s, they did not record much new material after 1986. So, the band's discography is pretty sparse, but their re-releases and anniversary editions are well worth checking out, especially if you like the chunky new wave aesthetic they display on Something to Believe In. 

Tell me: Did you like either of these records back in 1985?

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Flashback #1: Gas Food Lodging (January 1, 1985)

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Flashback #2: Something to Believe In (January 1985)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

I'll see you in seven!

Friday 80s Flashback for December 27, 2024

[Experimental Day] -- Psychic TV were not just an experimental post-punk band working out of England in the 1980s. They were also the "musical arm of upstart occult organization Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY)" [Pitchfork, July 2017]. And shortly before Christmas day in December 1984, forty years ago this week, they released their latest offering: Pagan Day. It was a limited edition picture disc, with only 999 copies available, all of which were at the Rough Trade record shop in London [ibid]. 

This record kind of captures that feeling of taking song ideas from a notebook and working them out in a sort of live, improv recording. That isn't to say that the record feels or sounds unfinished, but it does sound stripped down with less studio fabrication or gimmicks. As befits a band like Psychic TV – and this material – there were no singles released, no music videos recorded. 

The embedded YouTube playlist here has the full 11 tracks of the original release as well as a bonus track ("Farewell") included on later reissues. That bonus track is inexplicably positioned close to the middle at track #7, which mirrors the 2017 reissue by The Sacred Bones Record Society (and available on Bandcamp). The 1994 Cleopatra Records re-release, however, correctly positions "Farewell" near the end of the album, along with two additional bonus tracks – "Unclean (Gen's Mix)" and "Pirates." 

Flashback: Pagan Day (December 23, 1984)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

I'll see you in seven!

The Man Who Would Be Santa (or "Christmas Eves of Long Ago")

"The children sleep upstairs and Santa works below."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzT2QuRTW7I

In my childhood, Christmas Eve and Christmas morning loomed very large. Christmas Eve in particular was a flurry of activity because, for many years, we waited until that day to put up the tree. Oh, we already had it, and by Christmas Eve day it would have been resting on the front porch for a few weeks, just waiting for its big moment. But it was Christmas Eve -- and, yes, the evening to be precise -- that the tree got to be front and center for a few hours. I have vivid memories of my father first rearranging the furniture to clear the bay window area. Then he would drag in the tree which was wrapped in old throw rugs and such to avoid scratching the floor or door jams. Next, he would judiciously saw off some lower branches to prepare it for the tree stand. The scent of pine filled my nostrils and the sounds of Christmas music floated throughout the house.

Later that evening, after a visit to church (yes, there was a time in my life when I attended church) and a helping of Christmas sausages, my father would read a story. The story was always a choice between 'The Night Before Christmas' or 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.' I'm not certain how we alternated between them -- maybe even years for Night and odd for Rudolph, or maybe my sister and I took turns choosing the story -- but the important thing is that, as far as we kids were concerned, that story concluded all family work for the evening. After the story, my sister and I would be sent to bed.

Did you notice I didn't mention anything about decorating the tree after it was put up? I hope you caught that, because it's an important element in the magic of my childhood. You see, in my house, Santa visited not only to bestow a bevy of gifts, but also to decorate our tree! Well, at least he did until (ahem) we were old enough to be part of the decorating ritual.

As clearly as I recall my childhood Christmas Eves, I have a less vivid recollection of when I first heard "The Man Who Would Be Santa." Like many folks, I probably didn't even hear of the artist, Vertical Horizon, until their breakout single, which was the second single and title track of their third studio album, EVERYTHING YOU WANT (1999). Vertical Horizon had been around since 1991, when Matthew Scannell and Keith Kane formed an acoustic duo at Georgetown University.  I loved EVERYTHING YOU WANT so much that I dug back into Vertical Horizon's catalog. And there I found "The Man Who Would Be Santa" sitting inconspicuously on their second studio album, RUNNING ON ICE (1995). Now, it is not as though Vertical Horizon is known for Christmas songs. But they are, in my opinion, quite adept at crafting songs that tug at memory and bespeak the ties that bind people together. And, so, every time I hear "The Man Who Would Be Santa," I am taken back to those childhood evenings in my Elk County hometown. But only the first verse is tied to that memory. The next two verses focus on later stages of The Man Who Would Be Santa's life. And it is because of this long story arc that the song so very much reminds me of my father, particularly now that I spent my 40s watching my father become that old man who "sits and tells of days when time stood still."

I think I may be getting a little misty eyed just thinking about it.

"The Man Who Would Be Santa" was never released as a single, so there is no official music video. For your entertainment, the link at the outset of this post is for a video of Matt Scannell, the frontman of Vertical Horizon, performing a solo acoustic version of this song at the Atlantic Auto Mall in West Islip, NY. For your reference, this next link is for a YouTube video that features the version of the song that appears on the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz4K0uvjBfU 

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// THE MAN WHO WOULD BE SANTA //

And the man who would be Santa slips into the room
And the hour of daylight's yet to come but he hopes they don't wake too soon
All the presents wrapped in paper and tied with a bow
The children sleep upstairs and Santa works below
And he can hear the children dreaming

[Chorus:]

     And he says
     All I want is for you to have
     A life you love and live
     Take from me all I have to give
     Because you are in my heart

And the man who would be Santa tells his son to write
And to call him if he needs him in the middle of the night
Don't you worry don't you cry now you'll do just fine
Your mother and I love you
We think about you all the time
And he can see the train is leaving

[Repeat Chorus]

Now the old man sits and tells of days when time stood still
The hours always seem to fade but the memory never will
All the love that you gave me
All the dreams in the night
And I just want to thank you while the day's still light
But I can see the sun is setting

[Repeat Chorus]

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Notes:

1. I adapted this post's details about "The Man Who Would Be Santa" from my 25 Days of Holiday Music blog post for December 4, 2012, and posted it to Facebook on December 24, 2022.
2. The attached image contains two photos: 
• Photo of an undecorated Christmas tree found online.
• Photo of a Whitman Giant Tell-A-Tale Book edition of "The Night Before Christmas." This is the very copy that my late father would read to us. I took this photograph at my parents' home in June 2018, during the prep to get their home ready for the market.

Friday 80s Flashback for December 20, 2024

[Still Hot Those House Flowers] -- December and the winter holidays put me in mind of jazz and classic rock, because those were the genres my late father most played on his stereo system while I was growing up. I mean, sure, he played some holiday fare, too. But if he was tooling around the house, he needed some old rock music. And if he was cooking or baking, then jazz was the soundtrack of choice.  

This week's Flashback album would have qualified for that soundtrack. 

Forty years ago this week, on December 18, 1984, Winton Marsalis released Hot House Flowers, his third studio album as a leader. And while Hot House Flowers garnered some mixed reviews (you can read this one from WaPo, if you can get past the paywall), it was a commercially successful album. Not only did this record peak at #90 on the Billboard 200 and #53 on the Billboard R&B Albums chart, it also reached the #1 spot on the Top Jazz Albums chart. Oh, and Hot House Flowers picked up another accolade the following year, in 1985: it snagged the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist. 

What I find interesting about this album is that Marsalis opted for the jazz plus strings formula rather than augmenting the jazz arrangements with synths – and this was the 1980s! So, Marsalis has a who's who in jazz (including is brother, Branford Marsalis) riffing over understated string arrangements by Robert Freedman. And while some critics at the time weren't too keen on it, like that WaPo critic, I find the strings to be softly supporting, and I think it works. Maybe it's because I don't always hear the strings. Maybe it's that Winton Marsalis understood how to work with the various standards he was covering. But I think the approach also works on the title track, the only one he wrote on the whole album. 

Anyway, if you like jazz and need a nice instrumental background while you're wrapping presents, give this one a spin. 

Flashback: Hot House Flowers (December 18, 1984)

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And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.

I'll see you in seven!

Superman ... and Metamorpho!

So, the teaser trailer for SUPERMAN (2025) came out today. For the most part, I'm trying to remain cautiously optimistic about the upcoming film. But two scenes in the trailer do ratchet up my potential excitement for the film, and both of them tease the first live-action appearance of ... Metamorpho the Element Man!

Writer Bob Haney and artist Ramona Fradon co-created Metamorpho in 1965. He has been a solo hero as well as a member of several teams, including the Justice League. 

Image description: Two screen grabs from the SUPERMAN teaser trailer and a comic book scan. Top left is a screen grab showing the Stagg Industries logo above Superman (Metamorpho worked for Simon Stagg in the comics). Bottom left is a screen grab showing a closeup of Metamorpho. Image to the right is a scan of The Brave & The Bold Vol. 1 #58, the second appearance of Metamorpho.