Dwight Twilley - Girls

Mixing rockabilly, country and British Invasion pop, Tulsa-born Dwight Twilley does not fit neatly into one music segment.  Combine this with nearly unbelievable bad luck throughout his career (including plane crashes, bribery scandals, and O.J. Simpson) and his lack of real success is understandable.

In spite of these issues, Twilley had two top 40 hits -- 1975's "I'm on Fire" (as the Dwight Twilley Band) and 1984's "Girls," from Twilley's solo album called Jungle.  Coincidentally, both singles peaked at #17 on the charts.

The "Girls" video is a Porkies tribute, and there even is an R-rated version with nudity (FYI, the version here is PGish).  The video shoot was co-funded by The Playboy Channel, and featured Bunnies.  We believe that at the time Playboy was looking to create R-rated videos for its own music video show.  As an aside, we originally saw this video on the old USA Network show Nightflight, a truly great TV show that mixed videos, interviews, concert footage and indy films.

The video is great, cheesy fun, complete with male and female shower scenes, and features the coolest full uniform football player pretending to play guitar solo scene ever.  (Yes, really).

Cool trivia fact:  Tom Petty sings backup vocals on "Girls" -- he and Twilley were on the same label and became friends in the late 1970s.

INXS - Don't Change

It is easy to downplay INXS; they sounded like a new wave bar band, and were not the most innovative or creative group of their time.  What INXS did, however, was churn out a ton of really good rock songs; they had ten top 40 hits in the U.S. and have sold more than 30 million units worldwide, mostly in the 80s and early 90s.

"Don't Change" was the last song on 1982's Shabooh Shoobah and the second single from the album (after "The One Thing.")  It reached #80 on the U.S. charts, so it was not a big hit at the time, but is widely regarded as on of the band's best songs.  Sound-wise, "Don't Change" comes off almost as a rocked up version of Roxy Music, with big, atmospheric keyboards and a great chorus.

Of course, the band followed up Shabooh Soobah with four consecutive platinum albums, including 1987's Kick (which sold 6 million units in the U.S. alone.)  The nineties were tougher on INXS, and the original lineup ended with the tragic death of lead singer Michael Hutchence in 1997.  We suppose that the stories of virtually all rock bands are tragic in the end.  Still, it is cool to go back in time, so to speak, and see them as a young Australian band doing a simple video of a great song.

Note:  The INXS/Jimmy Barnes song "Good Times" was posted on ERV in September 2013. 

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.

MTV's 10th Anniversary Video

The Pretenders video was the 50th Video we have put up at ERV, and we thought that it would be cool to show something different.  Think of this as a musical sorbet, to cleanse the palate prior to the next bunch of tasty videos.

This video was shown during MTV's 10th Anniversary Special, a one-hour special that aired on the channel in 1991.  As a result, there might be some 90s videos on it, (heavens to Murgatroyd!!) but the clip is dominated by 80s acts.  While most of the video clips shown are not rare, a few from this site do slip in.

Can you recall ...

Pretenders - Day After Day

It took Chrissie Hynde years to find the right fit in a band, but once she did, the results were impressive.  Hynde was originally from Ohio, but moved to London in the early 1970s in order to pursue a career in music.  After several failed attempts (including early versions of both The Clash and The Damned), Hynde found her band in the Pretenders.

The band was named after The Platters song "The Great Pretender," and found almost immediate success -- their first album hit #9 in the U.S. and was a #1 album in the UK in 1980.  Pretenders II followed in late 1981 and hit #10 on the U.S. charts.

"Day After Day" is a rare Pretenders song not written entirely by Hynde (guitarist James Honeyman-Scott co-wrote it).  The song was never released as a single, but the band did release a video (of course), which went into heavy rotation on my favorite video music channel.  The song is classic Pretenders, mixing pop, new wave and punk into something greater than the sum of its parts.  This is a band at the top of their game.

Unfortunately, drugs would soon destroy the first incarnation of the band.  Bassist Pete Frandon was kicked out of the Pretenders in June 1982 due to drug use, and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott died days later of cocaine intolerance.  Farndon subsequently drowned in 1983, after taking heroin in a bathtub and passing out.  Hynde soldiered on, but to our ears was never quite able to fully re-capture the magic of the first version of the band.

Note that "2000 Miles" was posted at ERV in December, 2012.

Steve Perry - Strung Out

By 1984, the relationship between Steve Perry and the rest of the Journey had become strained, so Perry did what all 80s lead singers did under similar circumstances:  he released a solo album.  Street Talk went on to become an enormous success, selling more than two million units and peaking at #12 on the charts.  Four songs broke the top 40, including "Oh Sherrie," which hit #3.

"Strung Out" was the fourth single from Street Talk, and it charted (at #40), before fading into relative obscurity (until now, that is).  The video was shot after "Oh Sherrie," but plays like a slightly amusing prequel (for those who are not familiar with "Oh Sherrie," just watch them back-to-back).

While "Strung Out" is admittedly pretty basic (i.e., commercial), we have always had a soft spot for it (call it a guilty pleasure).  It is, we think, a catchy, well crafted song.

After Street Talk, Perry waivered over whether to leave Journey, and actually started work on a follow up album, tentatively called Against the Wall.  Eventually, Perry returned to Journey and sang on 1987's Raised on Radio, before leaving the band (Perry actually left the industry as well, for seven years).  Against the Wall was never finished, but a few of the songs made it on to Perry's 1994 solo album For the Love of Strange Medicine.

Chilliwack - My Girl (Gone Gone Gone)

Chilliwack's history dates all the way back to 1964.  Originally called The Classics, and then The Collectors, the band became Chilliwack in 1970 (!).  The band named itself after a town near Vancouver (which in turn is named after a Salishan phrase meaning "going back up").

While the band had no less than 10 songs that charted in the U.S. between 1973 - 1983, they are best known for their 1981 album, Wanna Be a Star, and "My Girl," their biggest single, which peaked at #22 in the U.S. (and was a #1 hit in Canada).  While the song may sound like there is a story behind it, Bill Henderson (who wrote it) states that it was a total figment of his imagination.

The band released two albums after Wanna Be a Star, but was unable to generated much momentum, and broke up in 1984.

Special shout out to Steve and Karen, who posted this on their fb pages and spurred us to action.  It is great to have old friends who like 80s music.

Cool trivia fact:  The second single from Wanna Be a Star, called "I Believe" hit #33 on the U.S. charts, so technically Chilliwack is not a one hit wonder.  No, we don't recall ever hearing "I Believe" either.

Feargal Sharkey - A Good Heart and You Little Thief

Here at ERV, we like a good salacious story as much as the next rarely-read blog, especially if it involves music videos from the 1980s that are ... well, rare.  So without further ado ...

Feargal Sharkey got his start in the Northern Irish punk band, The Undertones.  Best-known for "Teenage Kicks" (a John Peel favorite), the band kicked around during the late 1970s and early 1980s before breaking up in 1983.  As an aside, Feargal Sharkey goes on our list of "best rock names ever" with Digney Fignus, Fee Waybill, and Benmont Tench (more on him later).

In 1985, Sharkey released his first solo album, called Feargal Sharkey (ok, so he wasn't the most original chap). He also transitioned from a new wave singer to a pop crooner (and we mean that in the nicest way possible).  His first single, "A Good Heart" was a #1 hit in his native UK, and charted in the US (#74).

His second single, "You Little Thief" did not do as well, but it hit #5 in the UK.

Now stay with us, because here is where it gets interesting.  Remember Lone Justice (the band just before this posting)?  The band that was helped out by Tom Petty?  Well, it turns out that Maria McKee (the lead singer of Lone Justice) and Benmont Tench (the guy with the cool name, as promised, who was Tom Petty's keyboard player) ... well, Maria and Benmont were an item for a while.  And when they broke up, Maria wrote, "A Good Heart" about it.  Perhaps in response to this, Benmont wrote "You Little Thief" about the same breakup.  So Feargal Sharkey's first two single were written by ex-lovers about each other.  Interesting, no?

Cool trivia fact:  the Feargal Sharkey (still love that name) album was produced by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, who was seemingly everywhere in the early to mid 1980s.

Lone Justice - Sweet, Sweet Baby (I'm Falling)

LA-based Lone Justice showed up on the music scene in 1985 with their self-titled debut, and were another in a long line of bands briefly viewed as The Next Big Thing.

The band came out the the early 1980s cowpunk scene (yes, there really was a country/punk scene in LA in the early 1980s).  With supporters such as Linda Ronstadt and Tom Petty (who wrote "Ways to be Wicked" for the debut album) they were able to land a recording contract with Geffen.  The Lone Justice LP received rave reviews and ... basically didn't sell very well.  For whatever reason, country rock seemed like a hard sell in the eighties, even though it did well in the 1970s and the 1990s (to this day, in fact).  Go figure.

At any rate, most of the band left after the first album, but singer Maria McKee put out a more pop oriented second album the following year (Shelter), which did not do any better.  Lone Justice officially broke up soon afterwards.

"Sweet, Sweet Baby" was the second single from the Lone Justice album, and really shows off the radio-friendly country rock sound that by all rights should have been more successful than it was.

Note that "Ways to be Wicked" was posted on ERV in November 2015.

The Radiators - Like Dreamers Do

"Like Dreamers Do" is a rare, catchy and slightly eccentric pop song that unfairly received only a modicum of airplay. It is by by the Radiators, a hard-working New Orleans band that was the spiritual successor to Little Feat.

The song was from the 1987 album Law of the Fish, which was the band's third album (although the first for major label Epic).  Law of the Fish rose to #139 on the Billboard charts, and ushered in the Radiators' brief period as a modestly successful commercial act (the band released two other albums on the Epic label before being dropped in 1990).

In the aftermath of leaving Epic, the band continued to tour and play, and developed a core following of fishheads.  The Radiators wrote and performed more than 300 original songs (many never recorded for an album) and also performed over 1,000 covers.  Their shows, which included long jam sessions, often ran over three hours.  In short, the Radiators became the New Orleans party band of choice.  Cool trivia fact:  the Radiators' members did not change through the years; the original 1978 lineup remained intact until the band called in quits, in June of 2011.