August 17, 2009 Earworm

The one hit wonder label is as subjective as any other form of reality even if the historical facts found in the charts of Billboard - Cashbox, even - are to be noted. For the buckets of acts handed the title, I can usually agree with only a few cans and even then, someone else will usually be more than happy to kick that around. Songs like "Antartica", "I Got The Message" "Where Do The Boys Go" and "I Like" might not be familiar to everyone - and that last one charted - who loved or despised Men Without Hats' "The Safety Dance" but all three were hits of some sort, somewhere, and the kids of Charles Village and Mt. Vernon danced ourselves silly to them all between '82 and '84.

By 1987, they were laughing referred to as "Men Without Hits", if they were mentioned at all. But, the laugh was on them when, along with cold winter weather, came "Pop Goes The World", a summer single if there ever was one. The silly Zeus B. Held produced thing hit the top twenty with it's giddy fizz about everything and nothing that fuels the world and it was no surprise to most of us that the point (non point) was that we couldn't take it, or anything else, too seriously because "...every time I wonder if the world is right, I end up in some disco dancin all night".

I uncork this for the birthday girl who bubbled up along with me whenever it hit the turntable. Happy birthday, Squirrelfriend.

August 13, 2009 Earworm

A quick check confirms that it's been almost three months since any song involving Paul Weller has been mentioned so, after a minutiae filled conversation regarding the various release formats of Style Council tracks with someone I didn't know at the time that the minutiae was being created, I offer up "You're The Best Thing". Keeping within the spirit of that conversation, I note that I'm not referring to the version that was on "Cafe Bleu" and/or "My Ever Changing Moods" and not the version issued as a single on Geffen in the US and not the UK seven inch "Groovin'" version. I'm referring to the long version of the single mix found on the UK twelve inch version of "Groovin'".

If you're looking for this version, go directly to Universal/Polydor/Chronicles 2003 20th Century Masters compilation, "The Millenium Collection: The Best of The Style Council". The liner notes will inform you that it contains the version found on TSC6, implying that it's the UK 7" edit. It's not.

Okay. Now, who wants to slow dance to one of the best things to ever happen?

August 01, 2008 Earworm

To celebrate the art of multi-tasking I'm closing out the work week while opening a new month in a way that has kept me giggling all morning. I will not be alone in the task because the sound you are about to hear will be a thud followed by two squishy rolling splats when Kmatt's jaw hits the desk and her eyes roll clear off her head at the mention of a song she's probably not thought of in almost twenty years and probably hoped she'd never hear again: "A Zillion Kisses" by Tommy Page.

Pretty Boy Page stepped out of the coat closet of Nell's armed with a demo tape that he brazenly handed the house dj. The dj, probably impressed with the sixteen year old's pluck - he probably loved pluck - began playing Tommy's tracks which caught the ear of producer Mark Kamins who forced the hand of Sire Records' honcho, Seymour Stein who, betting that he had the male answer to Debbie Gibson, signed Tommy. The song that started it all, "Really Turning Me On", didn't stir the public so the free styling "A Zillion Kisses" got the nod, a video that showed just how awkward the now eighteen year old could be in front of a camera, and a wicked remix that inexplicably came packaged in Sire's generic 12" sleeve. Delighted by the title, I shelled out a buck for a promo copy knowing nothing about it. Much dancing occurred after the initial sugar shock and "A Zillion Kisses" would eventually become a part of the soundtrack to the ritual of prettying up for a night on the town which just seemed right considering the depth to be found in all three experiences.

Sugar highs inevitably fade and it had been a long time since I have given any thought to this song or to Tommy Page so it took a few minutes to place the tune I found myself humming as I washed the dog bowls this morning. When I found that I actually had Tommy's debut on cd - and his second!, tucked right beside another teeny popper with a short shelf life - Jennifer Paige, I was shocked but not nearly as much as I was when I discovered that both Tommy's first and second album are still in print.

After finally getting some hits - #29 with"A Shoulder To Cry On" in '89, and the #1 (and New Kids on the Block associated) "I'll Be Your Everything" in 1990 - Tommy couldn't keep up the chart momentum yet carried a fan base strong enough to support seven albums in a twelve year span. He is still in the music business, producing acts like "High School Musical" star Ashley Tisdale, obviously not straying far from his humble beginnings. Meanwhile, here I am twenty years later with a mean case of the giggles as I play this disposable ditty over and over...

July 30, 2008 Earworm

By sheer persistence, Matt Bianco's "More Than I Can Bear" may be my ultimate summer song. As track two on "Whose Side Are You On", their debut LP, it closed out my summer of '84 and, in this mix, forever conjures up the smell of New York and the not so fresh feeling that accompanies the steamy heat of that city in August.

The remixed single version or, as I call it, Basia's last dance, was one of the few records that I carted around as I tried to reaffirm my footing in the hazy heated blur that was Baltimore in the summer of 1985. It played constantly as a main character of my childhood suddenly wandered into my second attempt at one, and as three new characters, all of whom I'm happy to now find within reach if not close enough to touch, joined in the dramedy of my life.

The inclusion of the remix on the US edition of the band's second album filled the summer of '86 with moments where I would play it as the evening began at The Depot, dropping the tone-arm and rushing to the bar to join that childhood friend in a campy duet, the soda dispensers as our microphones; lying on the living room floor in the dark with Renee, drunk on her despair, and chain smoking our way through repeated plays while singing every word as an attempt at exorcism; make out sessions with a beautiful boy in his tower high rise, in front of a wall of windows as the headlights from the cars below crawled across the ceiling and down the wall, stopping briefly on our faces before returning to us our privacy.

The next three summers brought new characters - fresh crop, we'd call it - and inevitably one of them would love the song as much as I and so it played on and on until it was time to go. Rummaging through endless mix tapes made over the years confirms its endurance and, by examining what proceeds and follows it, how it has fit so many occasions and moods, becoming timeless in my process.

As I look back at how the time has flown, realizing that it was nineteen years ago this week that I left home again, and finally for good it appears, and as the temperature rises into the 90's, the appreciation of my treasures from the 80's climbs even higher. And while I wouldn't change a thing that has happened since then, I'd give anything to have all those treasures together again, if only long enough to listen to "More Than I Can Bear", and to see if we've held up as well as it did.

July 01, 2008 Earworm

As we anxiously await the domestic release of Paul Weller's new one, "22 Dreams", Kmatt's lost in "Wild Wood" while I'm blinded by "Illumination" and my favorite track from it, "It's Written In The Stars". It brings back memories of those long ago days (2003) when we had a new house to paint and prep and the idea that the five weeks we had before moving in would be a luxurious amount of time to get everything done. Five years later we're still discussing what it is that we want to do with this and/or that, bemoaning what the terriers have done to the beautiful back yard we thought we were giving them, and wondering why I've yet to build the desperately needed shelving for earworm central while we watch the gorgeous sunsets to which our perch on top of the hill provides a perfect perspective. The vivid pinks and blues turn livid and the stars become full of themselves as the day quiets down and then one of the terriers spots the neighbor's cat.

June 10, 2008 Eaworm

To demand all or nothing is a risky proposition and is best left to the young: the rest of us know better. You can wish, ponder, and dream for all of it but Van Vechten was right and you get what want in the form you deserve. And who wants all of that?

A passing comment to a friend led to a nice compilation of the lads' work being sent to my door. It should move me past the "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake" album that seemed to be in the collection of every friend of my parents if I could stop listening to "All Or Nothing". The climbing/diving guitars, the terrace chants and, of course, the mind fucking vocal by Steve Marriott - alternately pleading and demanding - leave me speechless.

I'm not completely sold on Small Faces yet but I don't know how I've lived without this song and while it is playing, I give up everything.



with special thanks to Kmatt