Badlands - Dreams in the Dark

By the late 1980s, hard rock was enjoying huge commercial success, a backdrop that should have made Badlands big, big stars.  Surprisingly, though, the band's blues-rock sound did not resonate with the record- buying public, making Badlands a rare case of an underrated late 1980s hard rock band.

The driving force behind Bandlands was guitarist Jake E. Lee, who left Ozzy Osbourne with the stated intention of forming a band.  The addition of lead singer Ray Gillen from Black Sabbath helped to cement that sound, which was roughed up blues-rock (think updated Led Zepplin).  Although the band was well-regarded in the music industry, their debut album (Badlands) was a commercial disappointment, peaking at #57 on the album charts.

"Dreams in the Dark" was their lead single, and it did not chart.  The video shows the band's approach -- we would describe them as a "let the music do the talking" sort of band.  Unfortunately, this image just didn't click with their audience at the time.

Their follow up LP, Voodoo Highway performed worse, and the band broke up in 1993.  Jake E. Lee has kept a pretty low profile since then, although he has put out a few solo albums and continues to play.  Ray Gillen died of an AIDS-related disease in 1993.

Divinyls - Boys in Town

"Boys in Town" was the debut single by Divinyls, the Australian rock/new wave act fronted by the charismatic Chrissy Amphlett.  The song was released internationally in 1983, as the lead single off the Desperate album.  (It had been released earlier in Australia, and was included on the soundtrack of Monkey Grip, an early Ken Cameron film.)

While the song was a big hit in their native Australia (#8), it did not chart in the U.S.  In fact, the Divinyls did not really break out in the U.S. until their eponymous 1991 CD, which includes the #4 hit "I Touch Myself."  By that point, the band was essentially a duo, with Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee (they used session musicians when they recorded or while touring).

The "Boys in Town" video is a performance clip from the Monkey Grip movie, and it shows the band in fine form.  Chrissy Amphlett really did use the illuminated mike stand in her early performances; that, combined with her schoolgirl outfit and aggressive attitude, made for a strong live show.

Sadly, Chrissy Amphlett passed away on April 21, 2013 after a long battle with breast cancer.

Cool trivia fact:  yes, the Divinyls count as a one hit wonder in the U.S., as "I Touch Myself" was their only  top 40 hit.

"Pleasure and Pain," the cool 1985 minor hit for Divinyls was posted on ERV on December 2017.

10,000 Maniacs - Like the Weather

Few bands have as much of a disconnect between their name and their sound as 10,000 Maniacs.  The inspiration for the band's name came from the 1964 Herschell Gordon Lewis splatter film, Two Thousand Maniacs!, which is about as far from folk-pop as you can get.  As an aside, the band may not have remembered exactly how many maniacs were involved when they picked their name.

10,000 Maniacs' first big commercial success was their 1987 album, In My Tribe, and "Like the Weather" was their first charting single.  Although it did not break the top 40, it reached a respectable #68.  The band would go on to have seven additional charting singles, including two top 40 hits (but only one after lead singer Natalie Merchant left the band in 1993).  With their mellow sound and socially-aware lyrics, they became a staple of the "coffeehouse sound" and enjoyed significant success on college radio.

The video is pretty standard fare, although it almost seems to be a song by Natalie Merchant with a backing band.  To be fair, she did write the song, though.

As most readers will know, both 10,000 Maniacs and Natalie Merchant remain active in the music industry as of this writing.

Cool trivia fact:  Rolling Stone views In My Tribe as the 65th best record of the 1980s.

J. Geils Band - Love Stinks

You have to just love a video that starts with the drummer playing on his set in an alley with frozen fish (yes, you read that correctly), followed by some great power chords and a guy playing two trumpets while bouncing on a pogo stick.  Welcome to the wonderful, slightly insane world of the J. Geils Band.

The band formed in the late 1960s, and had a solid career in the 1970s, with its blues-influenced bar rock and energetic live shows.  Their breakout album was, of course, 1981's Freeze Frame, which was a #1 LP with two top five singles ("Centerfold" and the title cut).  As is typical for ERV, we are going to dig a tiny bit deeper and go with the title song from their 1980 album -- Love Stinks.  

"Love Stinks" is a bit more rocking than most of J. Geils' early 80s songs, but shows the direction that the band was moving towards -- a more radio friendly sound with strong hooks and slick production techniques.    Ironically, this transition would lead to huge success a year later but also accelerated the end of the band, as the creative tensions between singer Peter Wolf and keyboardist Seth Justman (the band's songwriters) took its toll.

While the Love Stinks album peaked at #18, the single of the same name barely broke the top 40 at #38.  The well done video (unusual for its day) did generate some airplay on shows such as HBO's Video Jukebox, but was released before the video music revolution took hold.  Pity.

Some additional cool J. Geils insanity, also off the Love Stinks LP:  "No Anchovies, Please."

Cool trivia fact:  "Love Stinks" was the 83rd video ever played on MTV, and was played on the first day that the video channel was up.

J. Geils' "Come Back" was posted on ERV in June 2015.

Big Audio Dynamite - The Bottom Line

After being kicked out of The Clash, Mick Jones was left with a daunting task.  Specifically, what do you do for an encore after being a key member of the seminal punk band of the late 1970s and early 1980s?  Jones started off by co-founding General Public (along with members of The English Beat, among others) but left during the recording of their first album.  After a second failed band (Top Risk Action Company or T.R.A.C.), Jones finally sorted things out with Big Audio Dynamite (BAD).

To his credit, Jones did not attempt to re-create The Clash's sound in BAD, but instead pushed ahead with a dance and reggae influenced post-punk sound.  While Big Audio Dynamite was somewhat inconsistent during their career, they were also interesting and adventurous.

The first single from the first Big Audio Dynamite album (This is Big Audio Dynamite) was "The Bottom Line."  While it was not a hit, the song did generate some airplay, and showed the direction that Jones was moving in.  I'm not totally sure if the nearly one and a half minute introduction is courageous or just indulgent, but it is quite a way to introduce your second band to its audience.

The video captures the irreverence and sense of humor of the band, as well (although we don't remember seeing much of it on MTV at the time).  It also underscored just how much Mick Jones was into cowboy movies.

BAD would go on to have some success during the 1980s and 1990s, before breaking up in 1997.  Jones remains active in music to the present day.

Love and Rockets - So Alive

Love and Rockets emerged from the ashes of Bauhaus, an early and influential goth rock band that formed in 1978.  Bauhaus broke up in 1983, but the members stayed in touch and in 1985 agreed to a joint rehearsal.  Lead singer Peter Murphy didn't show up, but the other musicians -- Daniel Ash, David J and Kevin Haskins did and jammed together.  The jam session went so well that they decided to form a band, which became Love and Rockets, named after a comic book series by Los Bros Hernandez.

The band had somewhat of a cult following prior to their breakout 1989 hit "So Alive."  While their music was more driving and upbeat than Bauhaus (which is not saying much), it was still definitely indie rock, with a strong psychedelic vibe.  "So Alive," with its T-Rex and Lou Reed influences, is a bit of an aberration and caused some controversy among the bands' supporters, with some predictably calling it a sell-out.

In any event, the song became a big hit in 1989, ending up at #3 on the charts.  While Love and Rockets continued to make music until their eventual break up in 1999, they did not have another hit, leaving them as a one-hit wonder.  In the years since, there have been periodic reunions of both Love and Rockets and Bauhaus, although both bands appear to be on hiatus at the moment.

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.

Dazz Band - Let It Whip

The Dazz Band were part of the vibrant early 80s funk scene, along with The Gap Band, The SOS Band, Kool & the Gang and (of course) Rick James.  The band formed in Cleveland in the late 1970s, and was the result of a merger between two local funk bands -- Bell Telefunk and Mother Braintree.  The name came from "Danceable Jazz" which was the musical concept for the group.

Although the Dazz Band are an official one hit wonder on the pop charts, they were R&B stars, and had 18 charting songs between 1980-88 (plus two more in 1998).  However, only "Let It Whip," from their 1982 LP Keep It Live broke the pop top 40.  It peaked at #5.

The video is a performance clip of the band (at the LA Roxy, we believe).  As an aside, few funk bands made videos, and those that did tended to simply record their performances.  This is similar to hard rock bands of the era, and opened the door to the new wave artists who embraced the video music format.  We do not recall seeing this video back in the day (MTV was also not great about showing black artists until Michael Jackson broke through with Thriller).

The Dazz Band stopped recording in the late 1980s, but then re-formed in the mid-1990s as part of the funk revival trend.

Lita Ford - Gotta Let Go

Along with Joan Jett, Lita Ford built a successful solo career after the collapse of The Runaways.  However, Ford's style was more pop/metal (as contrasted with the punk sensibilities of Jett) and in fact, it was this musical divergence that was the main cause of The Runaways breakup.

In the aftermath of the breakup, Ford took vocal lessons and worked a variety of odd jobs, including gas station attendant, perfume salesperson, fitness instructor and hairdresser (!) before she landed a recording contract.  While her first solo LP, Out for Blood (1983), did not chart, her second album, 1984's Dancin' on the Edge, hit #66.  We remember seeing "Gotta Let Go" on MTV at the time, but it did not chart in the U.S. (it did break the top 100 in the UK, though).

Of course, Ford is best-known for her 1988 LP, Lita, which yielded two top 20 hits ("Kiss Me Deadly" and "Close My Eyes Forever.")  That album broke the top 30 and went platinum in the U.S.  While Ford has only had modest success since then, she remains musically active; her last album as of this writing (Living Like a Runaway) was released in May 2012.

"Gotta Let Go" is a fun video that features Ford as a suburban housewife who can magically transform into a leather-clad heavy metal super-heroine with her trusty guitar.  Unfortunately, aside from hitting and choking bad guys (who look a lot like The Stray Cats), the guitar has limited special abilities -- no shattering glass or laser beams here.  Still, the video gets a solid from us -- good song, fun story and reasonably rare.

MARRS - Pump Up the Volume

MARRS (or M|A|R|R|S) was formed when Ivo Watts-Russell, the head of 4AD records in London, proposed a project to blend soul with electronica.  He did this after two bands on his label -- Colourbox (electronica) and A.R. Kane (dream pop) independently mentioned the idea to him.  The project was called MARRS, after the artists' first names --  Martyn Young (from Colourbox), Alex Ayuli, Rudy Tambala  and Russell Smith (from A.R. Kane), and Steve Young (from Colourbox).

Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that the bands simply could not work together.  As a result, each band recorded material and then let the other band provide input.  Although the original idea was to record an LP, the groups recorded one song each and then the project shut down.  Colourbox contributed "Pump Up the Volume," which sampled some A.R. Kane guitars, while A.R. Kane wrote "Anitina," with Colourbox providing the drum programming.

This would have been the end of the story, except that "Pump Up the Volume" sounded really, really good.  Released as a single in 1987, it became the first #1 song in the UK that used samples. (It peaked at #13 in the U.S.)  The title comes from an Eric B. & Rakim sample (from "I Know You Got Soul"); other samples include songs from:  Fab 5 Freddy, Kool & the Gang, Public Enemy and Run-D.M.C.  In fact, some samples were cut from the U.S. version, as the rights could not be obtained.  Overall, the U.S. version has 23 samples (the original UK version has 26 samples).

In spite of the huge success, the bands had no desire to record together again, and the project was never re-formed.  Colourbox broke up in 1987, while A.R. Kane remained active until 1994. Interestingly, while both bands were well-regarded by critics, neither had much commercial success either before or after the MARRS project.