Hipsway - The Honeythief

Ah, the one hit wonder - such an interesting phenomena.  The category is comprised of major bands where only one single hit the Top 40 (such as Roxy Music), talented underappreciated artists who never quite caught on (Marshall Crenshaw), and acts who just caught lightning in a bottle (T'Pau).

Hipsway is mostly the latter, but there was definitely talent in the band, as well.  The group formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1984 and was led by Johnny McElhone (fomerly of Altered Images) on bass. Singer Grahame Skinner, guitarist Pim Jones, and drummer Harry Travers rounded out the lineup.

The group's self-titled debut album came out in 1986, and had a seriously catchy song on it, "The Honeythief," which became a hit.  Interestingly, "The Honeythief" was the third single released from the LP, which is kind of hard to understand.  At any rate, the song reached #19 in the U.S. and #17 in the UK, and helped the album to chart, too (#55 U.S., #42 UK).

Unfortunately, follow up success was elusive, thought Hipsway did have a few charting songs in the UK.  However, after the poor performance of their second LP (1989's Scratch the Surface), they broke up.  Noteably, Johnny McElhone would go on to have continued success in the UK with his next band, Texas (a definite candidate to show up on this blog down the line).

Hipswap did re-form in 2016, and even released a new album in 2018.

Kix - Cold Blood

Although they were lumped in with the hair metal scene, Kix were actually more of a bluesy hard rock band, along the lines of AC/DC or Cinderella.  Additionally, they were an East Coast act, cutting their teeth primarily in the northeast until their all-too-brief period of success.

The band formed in Maryland in 1977 and were initially called Shooze.  They then changed their name to The Generators before finally settling on Kix.  Led by frontman Steve Whiteman, and with bassist Donnie Purnell as the primary songwriter, the group seemed to have all of the ingredients for major success.  However, in spite of strong material their first three albums barely dented the charts.

This all changed with 1988's Blow My Fuse.  The LP went platinum and reached #46 on the charts, led by the power ballad "Don't Close Your Eyes" (which reached #11 on the singles charts).  However, in classic ERV style, we're opting for "Cold Blood" instead - a straight up banger that is more representative of Kix' style.

Unfortunately, the band was unable to maintain its momentum; the 3 year delay between Blow My Fuse and Hot Wire probably didn't help matters.  With the emergence of grunge, their fate was sealed, and the band broke up in 1995.  However, they subsequently re-formed in 2003 (without Donnie Purnell) and have been performing since, albeit with some personnel changes.

Cool trivia fact: the actress in the video is Helene Clarkson.

Sting - Fortress Around Your Heart

By the early 1980s, The Police were one of the biggest bands in the world, so Sting's 1985 solo album was huge news. Interestingly, The Police were apparently only on hiatus at this point, but they officially broke up shortly after a failed attempt at recording a new album in 1986.

Likely contributing to the breakup was the huge success of The Dream of the Blue Turtles (named after a dream that Sting had).  The album showed significant musical growth for Sting as it was both more polished and jazzier than The Police.  The result was an LP that peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts with four top 40 hits.

"Fortress Around Your Heart" was the third single off Blue Turtles and it reached #8 on the charts.  In our view, it was the most Police-like single off Sting's first solo album, and the odd, atmospheric video didn't hurt the song's success a bit.  In fact, it was all over MTV for a time in 1985.

Sting would go on to have almost continual success throughout his career, though he does seemed to have slowed down of late.  The Police eventually reunited for a hugely successful 2007-08 tour, but then disbanded, seemingly for good.  

The Outfield - My Paradise

The 1980s musical equivalent of a sunny summer day, The Outfield recorded a bunch of bright power pop gems, but somehow never became big stars.  While their first LP broke the top 10, they quickly fell out of favor, something that baffled us at the time (and ever since).  We suppose that there is no small amount of luck involved in success, and the group was not the flashiest, but they truly deserved a better fate.

Long time readers may recall that we featured the group's "Say It Isn't So" on ERV back in 2014.  That song was one of four singles off the Play Deep LP that did receive some airplay during the band's all-too-brief period of major success (primarily 1986).

For the blog we had several good options, and finally decided on 1989's "My Paradise." This song was the second single off the Voices of Babylon album (after the title track).  We don't recall seeing the video back in the day, and the single stalled at #72 on the charts.  To our ear though, this is a power pop gem. 

The Outfield continued recording through the early 1990s, but were absent from the industry from most of the rest of that decade.  They became more visible in the 2000s, but officially broke up when guitarist (and primary song writer) John Spinks died in 2014.  Sadly, lead singer/bassist Tony Lewis has also died (in 2020). 

Billy Ocean - Loverboy

Rounding out our All Hallows Even celebration is "Loverboy" by Billy Ocean.  This is definitely one of the oddest 1980s videos, with a plot that seemingly has nothing at all to do with the song.  We suspect that there may have been some controlled substances involved, along with at least one Star Wars fan.

Long time viewers may recall that this is Billy Ocean's second appearance on ERV, as "Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)" was posted last March.  As we mentioned then, Billy Ocean (given name: Leslie Charles) was a modestly successful singer until 1984, when his Suddenly LP broke out, reaching the top 10 in both the U.S. and the UK.

While "Loverboy" was a big hit (#2 in the U.S. and #6 in the UK), it was not as big a hit as "Caribbean Queen" in either market. Not not worry, though, Billy Ocean remained massively successful through the rest of the decade.

As to the video ... it is a perfect Halloween video, from the sci-fi perspective.  We are of two minds here - on the one hand, it is trying to be an ambitious mini-movie.  On the other hand, there seems to be little plot, and the visuals are cheesy, though perhaps less so by the standards at the time.  The plot seems to revolve around a lizard creature, who goes to a cantina to ... kidnap a female alien (?), after killing her date in an unprovoked burst of laser fire. Yeah. 

It's probably best to not analyze it too much, but it is a weirdly engaging and odd Halloweeny clip.

Cool trivia fact: superstar music producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange co-wrote the song, along with Keith Diamond and Billy Ocean.  

Real Life - Send Me An Angel

For our second All Hallows Even treat, we're posting Real Life's "Send Me An Angel" (the original version; more on that in a moment).

Real Life were an Australian band that formed in Melbourne in 1980.  Originally called The Wires, the group changed their name to avoid being confused with Wire (the UK punk rock act).  They settled on A Private Life, which turned out to be a terrible choice, as they were then threatened with a lawsuit from Private Lives (a Sydney band) and so changed their name again to Real Life.

"Send Me An Angel" was the lead single from the group's first LP, 1983's Heartland. The song did reasonably well, reaching #29 on the U.S. charts, and going to #6 in their native Australia.  The video, with a spooky forest and a wolfman (prince?) looking for his Celtic (?) princess (?) seems ... odd, but definitely Halloweeny.

As mentioned above, Real Life re-released the song (and video) in 1989, as part of their Send Me An Angel/Best of Real Life compilation.  Incredibly, "Send Me An Angel" re-charted even higher in the U.S., reaching #26.  The video is less interesting (and less spooky) than the original, but we've included it here anyway (cause that's what we do).

Special shout out to M, who asked for our help after seeing a portion of the video on Loop ... and then found it herself.  Obviously, we liked it enough to put it up on the blog.

Kiss - I Love It Loud

Welcome to ERV's 10th annual All Hallows Even party.  A reminder to our newer readers: our  prior ghostly (ghastly) clips can be found using the All Hallows Even tag on the right.

Leading off this year's festivities is "I Love It Loud" by Kiss.  As most readers know, Kiss has a long and somewhat controversial history.  The group started in New York City in 1973, and was led by Paul Stanley (guitar and vocals) and Gene Simmons (bass and vocals).  Ace Frehley (guitars) and Peter Criss (drums) rounded out the original lineup.  Right from the start, Kiss was known for their makeup, costumes, and theatrical stage shows as much as for their music.

The group really broke out following their 1975 Alive! double album and had a period of superstardom, which was on the wane by the early 1980s.  Changes to their sound likely didn't help - 1979's Dynasty was dance-influenced, while the 1981 "Music from 'The Elder'" concept album included orchestral parts.

With this backdrop, "I Love It Loud" from the 1982 Creatures of the Night LP was a return to form.  Although the album didn't become a huge commercial success, the anthemic hard rock and focus on music videos laid the groundwork for Kiss' success in the 1980s.  Stanley and Simmons capitalized on this by having the band remove their makeup (on MTV no less) and effectively repositioned Kiss as a pop metal act, which paid huge dividends for the rest of the decade.

From a Halloween perspective, "I Love It Loud" is spot on.  The makeup, costumes, and tank/drum kit are nicely complimented by the sonic assault (and glowing eyes).  The result works, in our opinion, and makes for a fun Halloweeny video. 

Eddie Money - I Wanna Go Back

This is Eddie Money's second appearance on ERV; "Think I'm in Love" was posted more than 10 years ago (way back in August 2011).  As most readers will know, Money was a star in the late 1970s and 1980s with four platinum LPs and 11 top 40 hits (yes, two of which were in the early 90s).

"I Wanna Go Back" was one of those hits; it reached #14 on the singles chart, while the Can't Hold Back album reached #20 on the album charts.  The video is a combination of Money in concert and going back to a high school reunion.  At the reunion, he sees (but does not connect with) a mysterious blonde - played by Marilyn Martin, who sang the backing vocals on the track.

Eddie Money remained active in the music industry (and even dabbled in acting) until his death from cancer in 2019. 

As a cool bonus, "I Wanna Go Back" is one of those "I bet you didn't know that it is a cover" songs that we love so much at ERV.  The original version was recorded in 1984 by Billy Satellite, an Oakland rock band who never quite made it ... and the original version also has a video (you're welcome):

Cool trivia facts:  "I Wanna Go Back" was also covered by Greg Rollie and Ace Frehley.

MTV Debuted August 1, 1981

 It was 40 years ago today ... (to commandeer a phrase).

Just after midnight on August 1, 1981, the world's first 24 hour video music channel launched.  At the time, only a few cable systems in New Jersey had MTV, though this quickly changed -- primarily due to consumer pressure driven by the "I Want My MTV" ad campaign:

MTV quickly became a sensation, and those of us who lived through the music revolution will never forget it.  In fact, we started our little blog 10 years ago (August 2011), after being inspired by the hoopla around the 30th anniversary of MTV.

Below is the first two hours of MTV, including commercials. We hope that you dig it.

As for ERV ... more videos will be coming soon :)

Jim Capaldi - Living On The Edge

While Jim Capaldi is not a household name (even here on ERV), he was an interesting and important figure in rock, especially during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Capaldi was born in  Evesham, Worcestershire (this isn't important, but we liked it anyhow) and became involved in the lively London music scene during the 1960s. He eventually started jamming with Steve Winwood, Dave Mason, and Chris Wood and they formed the influential rock/jazz band Traffic in 1967.

One of our favorite facts about Traffic concerns the way they wrote their songs.  Capaldi would write lyrics first and then Winwood would compose music that suited Capaldi's lyrics.

After Traffic broke up (for the second time in 1974), Capaldi married a Brazilian woman (Aninha Campos) and raised a family in Brazil, where he became interested in environmental and social issues (and Samba).  Although Capaldi remained active in the industry, his only real solo success came from his 1983 Fierce Heart LP.  That album hit #91 on the charts and generated two charting singles -  "That's Love" (#28) and "Living on the Edge" (#75). In typical ERV form, we are opting for the lower charting song, primarily because we like it better.  Additionally, it has a pretty far out there video with birds, motorcycles, and what appears to be some sort of Native American ceremony. 

[Note that the MTV has the wrong album title on their credits - Rock Art and the X-Ray Style is a 1999 album by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros.]

Jim Capaldi died from stomach cancer in 2005.