Georgia Satellites - Keep Your Hands to Yourself

"Keep Your Hands to Yourself" has one of the best opening lines of any eighties song: "I got a little change in my pocket going jing-a-ling-a-ling."  And with that auspicious beginning, the Georgia Satellites burst onto the music scene.  The Satellites played a wonderfully retro brand of rock and roll that owes as much to Chuck Berry as it does to Lynyrd Skynyrd.  However, their hybrid rock & roll/country stylings were well off the beaten trail in the mid-1980s, a fact that would eventually hurt the band.  [If this story reminds our readers of Lone Justice or Jason and the Scorchers, well, you may be on to something.]

The Georgia Satellites originally formed in the early 1980s, and actually broke up in 1984, as their career appeared to be going nowhere.  Fortunately, their manager continued to shop the band's demo recordings, and eventually found a small British label that released them as the Keep the Faith EP.  The positive response led to the band re-forming and they were subsequently signed by Elektra in 1986.

Their eponymous debut was a huge hit -- the album topped out at #5, while "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" peaked at #2, kept out of the top spot by Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer."  Sadly, from there it was all downhill, as rock radio more or less ignored the band, although they did manage to have a minor hit in 1988 with their cover of The Swinging Blue Jeans' song "Hippy Hippy Shake."  The band finally broke up in 1990.

Lead singer/songwriter Dan Baird would go on to have success with his 1991 CD, Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired, which goes on the list of greatest album titles ever.  Baird continues to perform as of this writing.  Other members of the Satellites re-formed the band and continue to perform as the Georgia Satellites.  Additionally, lead guitarist Rick  Richards is also a member of Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds (Izzy was a former member of Guns n' Roses, by the by).

Cool trivia fact:  "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" was supposedly based on an argument between the Satellite's drummer and his girlfriend, and was written on a tour bus.

Cool Trivia Fact #2:  The demo version of this song helped land the Satellite's recording contract.  However,  the band did not like any of the 'professional' takes of the song, so they put the original demo version on the album, and it is the version that you hear to this day (including in the video above).

The Satellites' video for "Battleship Chains" was posted on ERV in March 2014.

Stacey Q - Two of Hearts

Although she is thought of as a one hit wonder, Stacey Q actually had two top 40 hits ("We Connect" was the other, and no, we don't remember it either).

Stacey Q (real name: Stacey Swain) had an interesting career prior to her 1986 breakout.  Among other things, she was an entertainer at Disneyland and an elephant girl for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus.

In the early 1980s, Stacey Q became involved in the emerging electronic music scene, and became the lead singer of Q (later renamed SSQ after ... Stacey Swain).  While the band did not become successful, Stacey began using the Stacey Q moniker, and she kept it when she started her solo career.

1986's Better Than Heaven was her second solo album, and became a huge dance LP, peaking at #59 on the album charts, and providing two top 40 dance hits -- "Two of Hearts" and the aforementioned "We Connect."

While many readers will recognize "Two of Hearts," we think that few people know that it is a cover. The original (also from 1986) was co-written and performed by Sue Gatlin; the extended version of the original is below.  Also of note, the song's big breakout came when it was used in an episode of "The Facts of Life" TV show.  Yes, really.

As with many artists, Stacey Q was unable to maintain her success and quickly faded from view.  She has released five albums since Better Than Heaven and we believe that she continues to perform to this day.

The Stacey Q version of "Two of Hearts" (a #3 hit in 1986):

The original Sue Gatlin version of "Two of Hearts":

Benjamin Orr - Stay the Night

Benjamin Orr (Orzechowski) was the co-vocalist and bass player for the Cars, the seminal 70s and 80s new wave band out of Boston.  He released one solo album, 1986's The Lace, which peaked at #86 on the Billboard album charts.  The Lace also produce one hit single, "Stay the Night," which hit #24.

The Lace came out during a down period for the Cars; in fact, Ric Ocasek and Elliot Easton also released solo albums around the same time.  While the band did manage to churn out one more album (1987's Door to Door), in retrospect this was the beginning of the end.  Interestingly, the break up does not seem to have been terribly acrimonious, as many of the members stayed in touch.  It just seemed as if they were tired of working together as a band.

Orr continued to play music, but curiously never did a follow up album.  He apparently recorded some music for an intended CD in the 1990s, but it never materialized.  However, Orr continued to play music until his death (from pancreatic cancer) in 2000.

By the by, an earlier Ric Ocasek solo song ("Something to Grab For") was previously posted on this blog (September 1, 2011).  We also posted the Cars "Since You're Gone" in May, 2014.

Cameo - Word Up

One of the more interesting (and eccentric) bands of the 1980s was the funk group known as Cameo.  The band was formed in the mid-1970s, with front man Larry Blackmon ( a Julliard grad) serving as the focal point.  While they had some success in the 70s and early 80s, it was their 1986 release, Word Up (and the single of the same name) that really launched them into mainstream stardom -- the single peaked at #6 on the Billboard charts, while the album hit #8.

The "Word Up" video does a great job of highlighting the band's strengths -- it's a great funk song accentuated by their flair for the dramatic -- including Blackmon's red codpiece, and a young LeVar Burton (as a police detective trying to arrest the band).

"Word Up" represented the peak for Cameo, and while they released a few subsequent albums, they were not able to recapture the magic.  Larry Blackmon went on to become an A&R executive at Warner Bros.

Cool trivia fact:  "Word Up" samples from ... the theme song from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" by Ennio Morricone (yes, really).

"Candy," the underrated second single from the Word Up album was posted on ERV in March, 2015.

Cinderella - Shake Me

While Cinderella's image was hair-metal, their sound was more bluesy, hard rock.  "Shake Me" fits right in with this, and is a spiritual successor to "You Shook Me" (covered by Led Zeppelin) or "You Shook Me All Night Long" (AC/DC).  Now that we think of it, there should be more hard rock songs using the verb 'to shake' -- we propose the ultimate song could just be called "Shake" or "Shaken" or "Shaky."

Moving right along, "Shake Me" was the first song from Cinderella's first album, 1986's Night Songs.  The video does feature another fine example of a supernatural guitar -- it falls from the poster and then magically teleports the attractive young woman right on to the stage at the local Cinderella concert.  Though this is not as impressive as laser beams (or ill-tempered bass, for that matter), it still is pretty cool.  And no, apparently not all Les Pauls can magically teleport young women.

"Shake Me" did not chart, but Night Songs hit #3 on the charts in early 1987, spawned two other singles that did chart, and sold three million units.  The band went on to sell more than twenty million units in the 80s and early 90s, before the shift to grunge (and problems with lead singer Tom Keifer's vocal chords) ended the bands' run of platinum records.

Cool trivia fact:  Cinderella was discovered by Jon Bon Jovi, who saw them in 1985 at the old Empire Rock Club in Philly. He told his A&R rep about them and soon after they were signed to Mercury/Polygram.

Cinderella's "Gypsy Road" was posted on ERV in June, 2015.

Daryl Hall - Dreamtime

Hard to believe that there is a video on here for a song that hit #5 on the Billboard charts, and from an artist who has written or co-written 11 (!) Billboard #1s, but there you have it.  "Dreamtime" is a very solid pop/rock song from half of Hall & Oats (Hall is the blonde guy who sang, if you have to ask).  And yes, we think it has been somewhat forgotten in the sands of time.

The song was the first single from Daryl Hall's 1986 solo album, Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine.  Unlike Hall & Oats, there is no poppy, blue-eyes soul to be found; if anything, the song has a slightly psychedelic new wave vibe, not unlike Prince's "Raspberry Beret," which came out the previous year.

The video, although slightly pretentious, does compliment the song quite well, with lots of swirling graphics, weird sets, and seemingly random scene fades.  Ok, maybe there is just a bit too much Daryl Hall in the video, but it is his (second) solo album, you can't really blame the guy too much for that.

Cool trivia fact; Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics) plays guitar on the song.