"If I could grow wings I would do anything Just to keep you with me Can't you see?"
Honeymoon Suite's "What Does It Take" is one of those songs that left a lasting impression on me. Not because it got tons of airplay way back in 1986 or because it was on every time I turned my boom box on. In fact, it didn't even crack the top 50 on Billboard's Hot 100. But it was part of my favorite radio station's Top 10 at 10 countdowns for a really long time. It was one of those songs that was goodnight dedication material and had staying power for months.
You guys remember the goodnight dedication shows, right? One of those things that I really miss about good old live radio. I can remember hitting redial repeatedly trying to get through to make a dedication and for a long time, this was THE song of choice.
Honeymoon Suite found moderate success back in the '80s but in truth, they probably should have hit a lot harder than they did because they were really great. Like many of the other great bands to come out of the '80s, Honeymoon Suite still does perform together.
"Shout Shout Let it all out These are the things I can do without Come on I'm talking to you Come on."
Is "Shout" by Tears For Fears one of the most recognizable songs of the 80's? The band seemed to think that it was one of the simplest songs to record but the mix of the synthesizer with a nifty guitar solo made a lasting impression. The song enjoyed three weeks at the top of Billboard's charts in August of 1985 and it also found itself in the top ten in at least 25 different countries.
The song itself was released at a time of unrest because many were still reeling from the fallout of The Cold War. "Shout" was intended to be a rallying cry that encouraged people to educate themselves and then speak up and out. I was 14 at the time and all that I knew was that the song sounded different from everything else on the radio and I loved it.
"You were the only one The only friend that I counted on How could I watch you walk away I'd give anything to have you here today But now I stand alone with my pride And dream that you're still by my side But that was yesterday I had the world in my hands But it's not the end of my world Just a slight change of plans"
I pulled out a bunch of old Foreigner records today to revisit their catalog. Yeah, I know that I've always really liked them, which is why I have so much of their stuff on vinyl, but I'm surprised that I don't listen to them more often. Agent Provocateur is the kind of album that easily plays from end to end without a song that just feels like filler.
You know what I mean, don't you? There are usually 2 or 3 songs on an album that aren't as good as the rest of it and it's almost like it's their purpose to bridge the singles. Except here. That's definitely not the case with Foreigner. While I've always insisted that "Urgent" is my favorite song, as I can still hear it blaring out of my transistor radio, "That Was Yesterday" is about as solid as it gets.
It's the grown-up, ice cold version of love gone bad and every once in awhile, everyone can relate to that, right? There's no (expiration) dating "That Was Yesterday" and I really love it. Check the video out below!
Drawing pictures Of mountain tops With him on top Lemon yellow sun Arms raised in a V And the dead lay in pools of maroon below"
I don't think that anyone really expected Pearl Jam's"Jeremy" to break through quite the way that it did. It was the third single off of their 1992 album Ten, but it was never given a widespread release. In fact when MTV first began airing the video it wasn't even charting on Billboard's Hot 100. That video helped to turn this into one of the most memorable songs of the decade. Lead singer Eddie Vedder penned the lyrics after reading an article about a high school kid that killed himself in front of his classmates and the visuals, well, they leave a lasting imprint. The kind that was strong enough to earn Pearl Jam four VMA's in 1993.
When I think back, 1987 was really as big a year for dance music as it was for hair bands. I mean, for every Def Leppard or GNR there was a Lisa Lisa or an Expose`. Pretty Poison was part of that syth-driven vibe that permeated top 40 radio at the time. "Catch Me I'm Falling" quickly became a favorite song during the summer of 1987 and I can remember the group popping up everywhere from American Bandstand to Soul Train. I also feel like they may have been a part of the final season of Dance Fever.
Everywhere I looked I saw Jade Starling and the rest of the group and I loved them. What was there not to like? The song was great and I was kind of obsessed with the whole bustier-tutu look (that was first made popular by Jody Watley). Truth be told, even thirty years later, "Catch Me I'm Falling" still has the kind of energy that gets me moving in the morning. Hopefully it'll have the same effect on you. Check out the video below!
"I can't stop the feeling I've been this way before But, with you I've found the key To open any door I can feel my love for you Growing stronger day by day, An' I can't wait to see you again So I can hold you in my arms"
While the 80's launched synth rock and the careers of icons such as Prince and Madonna it also gave us some pretty magical hair bands, didn't it? I know that you all still (maybe secretly) love your glam rockers because posts featuring them both here and on Boom's Facebook page tend to do really well. There's no shame in my game either because I have no problem admitting that at least one headbanger song turns up in my playlist each and every day.
Back in the 80's bands like Motley Crue, Ratt, Dokken andWinger were smart because each and every album included at least one power ballad. If the female audience wasn't into the blaring guitars then these guys hooked them anyway, one love song at a time. I think we all had our favorites and one glimpse of Whitesnake's "Is This Love" video made me not only fall in lust with the song but also with David Coverdale. It was a dreamy song and even Coverdale's future ex-wife Tawny Kitaen romping around couldn't kill the vibe. In fact, it actually MADE it for every guy that I knew. This song prompted me to buy Whitesnake's self-titled release and the cassette lived in my Walkman for years I think. While my friends had Def Leppard and Motley Crue hanging in their lockers mine was devoted to Coverdale (he may still have a spot on my office wall but that's a totally different story).
I mean, to this day you can't deny the hotness. Also to this day, Whitesnake's 1987 release is by far one of the best records to come out of the 80's and "Still Of The Night" is pretty legendary among every guitarist I've ever talked to. Do your self a favor and revisit the album if you haven't listened in a while. In the meantime, check out the stunning Mr. Coverdale below!
I was in 7th grade during the summer of Purple Rain and I remember it well. It was that rated R movie that none of us were allowed to see so we absorbed every possible detail from television, MTV and magazine articles. Back in the 80's (you know, when everything wasn't just the click of a mouse away), we cut everything about our favorites out of the newspaper or any magazine that we could find. My friends and I were divided down the middle, either you loved Prince or you loved Michael Jackson- it couldn't be both. I was a Prince girl and built my magazine cut out scrapbook accordingly. And the music truly did directly influence everything back then. If you loved Prince then you represented with your purple on the daily. Most Prince fans loved Madonna equally, especially when they toured together so it was a mix of purple lace hair bows, crosses, and purple jelly bracelets all summer long.
That summer ended up being the very best one of my childhood and the Purple Rain was always part of the soundtrack. My friends and I spent hours at the kitchen table together glued to a boom box waiting for a chance to call into Q-102 (THE station to listen to) to try and win a copy of the soundtrack. None of us won a Prince album but we did score theBoss, Steve Perry, Chaka Khan and a few others. Music was absolutely everything back then, especially when you were at the mercy of a DJ or MTV to play it for you.
It took me years to really understand that Prince was more than the freaky guy in purple with perfect eyeliner, that he was a musical genius. I had a friend absolutely obsessed with him and he spoon fed me various Prince facts while we worked together. By the time "Batdance" came along I understood what I was really listening to and came to expect nothing short of amazing-ness from him.
In the last 30 years, so many other artists have come and gone as my taste has shifted and changed over the years. I can honestly say that I like a little bit of everything (minus country) but so few bring to the table what Prince has. I mean, how many on Billboard's charts can play 27 instruments? Yeah, none. How many currently rocking in the top ten will be relevant in 30 years? Maybe 1 or 2 right, maybe? Or maybe none at all.
Today's artists aren't built for the kind of longevity like Prince, David Bowie or even Glenn Frey. They don't bring all of those elements to the table and that has only made the loss of these icons feel that much heavier on our hearts. Prince himself confirmed years ago that there really is a vault filled with his unreleased music. There are albums from Prince & the Revolution and also a few with The New Power Generation. Perhaps part of what makes him so iconic is the fact that he was thinking beyond his life here. He was not only making sure that he wouldn't be forgotten, but he left new music behind so that his presence would be felt in a new way after the fact.
If you manage to catch any of Prince's live performance videos on YouTube before they are pulled down, pay attention to the details. Every single second is choreographed and means something. Amazing how we notice all of the details after the fact, isn't it? Like the fact that there is a purple heart behind Prince on the cover of the Purple Rain album. I never noticed that before this week.Hard to believe that it was 35 years ago that Prince topped the charts for the very first time with "When Doves Cry".
If you don't remember the name "Cantaloop" it's okay because you still may verywell know the song. It was put out by a London group called Us3 back in 1993, to much critical acclaim. It ended up being a very successful fusion of jazz and rap (the rap always has had a spoken word vibe to it). The song sampled Herbie Hancock and selections from the Blue Note Record catalog. The end result was a great song that snatched up loads of radio play not to mention the fact that its' video was in heavy rotation on MTV for a long time. Sadly, Us3 never really followed up "Cantaloop" with anything that remotely compared to it. It's definitly a one-hit-wonder, but a great one at that. Check out the video below. Doesn't it end too soon?
"I'm not proud, I was wrong And the truth is hard to take I felt sure we had enough But our love went overboard Lifeboat lies lost at sea I've been trying to reach your shore Waves of doubt keep drowning me All the dreams that we were building We never fulfilled them Could be better, should be better For lessons in love"
We all have those songs that, for whatever reason, we just love and "Lessons In Love" by Level 42 falls into that category for me. It wasn't the band's most successful single when it topped the charts at number 12 back in 1987 (that honor goes to "Something About You" which reached number 7 the previous year) but it has always stuck in my head. The lyrics are all about screwing up a relationship and I'm pretty sure that my 15-year-old self had done exactly the same thing at that point in time, making it pretty much "my" song.
The thing is that "Lessons In Love" could easily have been (and probably was) a lot of peoples' songs because who hasn't been there. The best lessons are those learned the hard way and Level 42 spell it out perfectly. I've always thought it was more than a little ironic that this songs melody makes me happy while the lyrics are a bit somber. Check out the video below. Do you remember this one
Robin McAuley has been a steady fixture on the hard rock scene for close to 40 years now and if you think that he is ready to slow down you'd be completely wrong. He has spent the last five years performing several nights a week on stage in Vegas while also touring the world once again with Michael Schenker (the McAuley Schenker Group- or MSG first shot to fame in the states back in the '80s). Add to that a sweet side project with Jeff Pilson and Reb Beach and you've got an incredibly fruitful career.
I had an opportunity to chat with Robin this week and listened as he grieved the loss of a bandmate, anticipated the release of new music and reflected on what keeps him centered in that crazy rock and roll world.
DailyBOOM: So tell me, how are you? What have you been up to?
Robin McAuley: I haven't had new material out myself in a while, but I've been very busy. I spent nine hours recording just yesterday for the new Michael Schenker Fest cd. The deadline for that has been overshadowed by the fact that we lost our drummer, Ted McKenna, in a freaky routine surgery just a few days ago and it has really devastated everyone. It's the most routine, piece of cake surgery (hernia repair) usually but he hemorrhaged and they couldn't stop the bleeding. He was just the nicest dude, an absolutely gentle, kind man. A powerhouse drummer and a force to be reckoned with up there behind us, just so easy to work with. God rest Ted McKenna.
We've been out there with Schenker Fest for almost three years now, it first began at the Bang Your Head Festival in Germany and we're scheduled to do that one again this year. We've toured Japan and did a live DVD out of Tokyo that got a great response. Then we toured in support of our Ressurection album, again in Japan, then also Europe, the U.K and the states. We're scheduled to kick off our U.S. dates for this year on April 15th at The Whiskey in Hollywood. It'll be chaos and I think that's the whole idea (laughing). There's a lot of people in the band so it'll be a cluster (laughing) and that's what we want.
(Photo: Paul Bossenmaier)
DB: You're still working in Vegas too, aren't you?
RM: I've been working with Raiding the Rock Vault for a solid five years now. It has been voted the best in Vegas for five years in a row and that show keeps us really busy. We do five nights a week and it has an ever-evolving lineup. When I'm in town and not on tour, then I'm there onstage five nights a week Saturday through Wednesday. You get into an automatic mode when doing a five night a week show and you really have to stay on top of things. Your voice is a different kind of instrument and you're totally reliant on your health and the conditions around you, so Vegas is not an easy place to work. The air is very dry and it's windy, plus the casinos are very smokey. You get into a routine and you know what you have to do in order to maintain yourself to do this job, but I choose not to live in Vegas. Instead, I live in California with my family, so I drive home on Wednesday nights and roll in at around 3am.
People think I'm crazy for driving but there are no late night flights into Burbank and if I flew into LAX and then had to drive from there it's still going to take me four hours to get home. Driving is almost like detoxing for me, I don't mind the trip through the desert. One of my brothers will usually call me from back home in Ireland and we have a good old chat. I also listen to talk shows and wonder if some night I'll stumble across some sort of alien being while driving (laughing). It hasn't happened so far, that I know of, so I guess I'm of no interest (laughing).
DB: A little birdie by the name of Jeff Pilson told me that you're working on a project with him and Reb Beach. I think I need some details on that (laughing).
RM: Ah Mr. Pilson, the crazy Jeff Pilson (laughing). Maybe about 2 months ago he said he had this thing going on that he wanted me to do and I said, 'Nah' (laughing). He said, 'Please do it' and then he told me that Reb Beach is in it and that he thought that it was something that I should do. I then asked what he was doing in it and he said that he would be producing it and co-writing. I procrastinated a bit and then we got together and I wondered how we were going to do this. Reb is in Pittsburgh and he has Winger shows, I've got my stuff and Jeff, of course, he has Foreigner, but we're deep in the hole. We've made it all work and we're almost done, with a release date scheduled for later this year. It's really, really good. One of the most fun things and probably one of the very best things I've ever gotten into. When we heard the material we realized that it's great.
I'm absolutely stoked, hyper even because Reb and I managed to talk Jeff into playing bass with us. He wanted to take a backseat on this one and we basically said sure, take a backseat on this just bring your bass guitar with you (laughing). He agreed to play and at the moment it looks like we'll have Mark Schulman (Pink, Cher, Stevie Nicks) playing drums. We do have a band name but it has to stay under wraps for now. The material is just great and I can't wait for it to come out.
DB: How will you orchestrate this when like you've said, you're all already ridiculously busy?
RM: One of the biggest difficulties is to have us all in the same place at the same time but we have pledged to make it all work because it has to see the light of day (laughing). We have discussed it at great length though because we all have our own things to do. I hate that it's referred to as a side project because it makes it sound secondary or meaningless and I believe that it's a lot more than that. We've put a lot of work into it and so it really does mean a lot. Reb Beach is just a son of a bitch guitar player, he's just awesome. Jeff Pilson knows how to work on a level ten all the time. He's always on ten and ya know, I've known him for a very long time. Not many people know but Jeff was our chief witness when my wife and I got married. I've been married for 25 years and Jeff and I go back even way before that because he did an unplugged tour with Michael (Schenker) and myself.
DB: How do you do it all and still have so much positive energy just bouncing off of you?
RM: I love waking up to a good day. Life's too short. My family is my core and my foundation. I'm Irish and come from a very large family and that has always been my backbone, it's family first. Knowing that I have such a solid family is what allows me to step forward and not only do what I do but also really enjoy it. It's great to do what I'm doing because I know that I have a great family to come home to. We make more than the best of our downtime and personally I would be lost if I didn't have someone to come home to. I've always been like that, going home to a great one-bedroom place would depress the shit out of me (laughing). I couldn't live like that. The family balances my work and my work makes me grateful for my family.
Schenker Fest will hit the road this spring with about 25 U.S. dates coming your way. Grab your tickets here.
He was Superstar He was popular He was so exalted Because he had flair He was a virtuose Was a rock idol And everyone shouted: Come on and rock me Amadeus
Back in 1985 Falco became the very first German artist to score a number one hit in the U.S., thanks to the popularity of "Rock Me Amadeus". He was already incredibly popular is Germany, Austria and all of the U.K. but it took this song to make him a household name state side. He never managed to repeat that initial success with any of his follow up albums. In 1998 Falco was reportedly working on a comeback when the sport utility vehicle that he was driving collided with a bus in the Dominican Republic. Falco died of his injuries and an autopsy later showed that he had a mix of alcohol and cocaine in his system at the time of the accident.
Check out Falco's fun tribute to legendary composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart below!
