nostalgia attack! paul mccartney & wings’ ‘my love’

Memory is a funny thing. It’s also very tricky. It’s fluid and malleable. Memories can be implanted or modified. Memory is a funny thing.

Take, for instance, a memory I hold to this day surrounding Paul McCartney & Wings’ number one hit song, ‘My Love’. The song was written by Paul about his wife Linda (to whom, if she hadn’t died, Paul would still be happily married) and released in March 1973. At the time, I was 9 years-old.

Although the song was commercially successful, from what I gather, it wasn’t highly thought of critically. It is a fairly light and sugary song by Paul and it might have been the negative critical reaction to ‘My Love’ that inspired Paul to write ‘Silly Love Songs’. Well, be that as it may, I still like the song.

But, I started talking about memory, didn’t I. Here’s what I mean. I have a distinct memory from the summer of 1973 or 1974 involving this song.

I come from a family with four kids: an older brother and sister, then me, and a younger brother. And when we were old enough for the responsibility of chores, we got ‘em. We didn’t have a dishwasher (but, according to my dad, we had four of them.). So, each of us kids would get one week each month in which we had to do the dishes.

We were allowed to listen to the radio, as long as it wasn’t too loud, while we did our chore. We all listened to some Top 40 AM radio station in those days. What I remember is doing the dishes one summer evening, listening to the radio, and on came the song ‘My Love’.

That’s it. It’s weird how something so mundane sticks with you, isn’t it? To this day, whenever I hear that song I think of that moment; standing at the kitchen sink, gazing out the window, washing dishes and listening to Paul McCartney & Wings.

Memory is a funny thing.

I’ve included the video clip for the song.

Aaaaahhh, the 70s. Don’t you just dig Paul’s mullet? Maybe ‘My Love’ is a silly love song, but what’s wrong with that?

hey, would you like to buy a monkey?

In 1965, you could buy a live spider monkey for only $18.95 through the mail. Was that a good idea? I know the ad states that a spider monkey can make “an adorable pet and companion”, but a monkey? As always you shouldn’t believe everything you see in advertising.

The ad guarantees a live delivery. Along with the monkey you’ll get a free cage, a free leather collar and leash, a free monkey toy and monkey care instructions. I have my doubts as to how good those instructions are, because the ad tells us that spider monkeys eat the same food we do, even lollipops! A staple of any primate’s diet.

I wonder how many kids scraped up the $18.95 and purchased a “darling live pet monkey” through this ad in the back of a comic book. Without informing Mom and Dad. Must have been a pleasant surprise.

And live seahorses! A buck apiece! What a bargain!

three underappreciated bands from the 80s

Here I have picked three musical artists from the 80s who I think never really got their due. Sure, the critics loved them and many musical artists have named them as major influences. Most importantly, I like them.
Each of these bands did develop their own following of devoted fans, but they never received the kind of market saturation, big-time money, mega stardom they each deserved. These are quality artists, but they just didn’t catch the mainstream’s ear. They might have had what could be considered a minor, but nothing more than that.

I’ll talk a bit about each of the bands and offer what I think is their best 80s album. I’ll include the album that won the album of the year Grammy that same year that the three albums I’ll list by Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians, The Replacements, and XTC were released. Of course, my picks never won, let alone ever nominated for, a Grammy.

Let’s get started, eh?

Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians: I first heard Robyn when my friend, John, and I went down the Beloit, WI to visit a friend of ours going to college there. He took us around to the college’s radio station. The gal on the air introduced us to The Soft Boys (Robyn’s first band) and their album ‘Underwater Moonlight’. We were intrigued and John, who always had money, bought a few albums of Robyn’s material.

One of the albums he bought was ‘Fegmania!’ And what a great album it is. Some of my favorite tracks include ‘Egyptian Cream’, ‘Goodnight I Say’, ‘My Wife and My Dead Wife’, ‘The Man With the Lightbulb Head’, and ‘Heaven’. ‘Heaven’ might have been a minor hit for them, I’m not sure. The whole album should have been a huge hit, but it wasn’t.

‘Fegmania!’ was released in 1985. That year the Grammy for album of the year award went to Phil Collins ‘No Jacket Required’. Well, Phil’s album isn’t all bad and Robyn’s doesn’t have a track as great as ‘Sussudio’. I guess I can see why it didn’t make it.

The Replacements: Okay, okay. This isn’t a difficult choice. If you know the 80s music scene, you’ve, at least, heard of these guys. The Replacements are the definition of critic’s darlings. They should have been huge, but they didn’t really help their own cause. Jim Walsh’s book ‘The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting’ is an excellent source on the band’s history.

My pick for their best album is probably the obvious choice, ‘Let It Be’. It just holds me more closely than any of their other albums, although I like all their albums. ‘I Will Dare’, ‘Androgynous’, ‘Unsatisfied’, ‘Sixteen Blue’ are just a few of the stand out tracks. How ‘I Will Dare’ wasn’t a hit, is beyond me.

‘Let It Be’ was released in 1984. And that year’s Grammy went to… Lionel Ritchie and his crowd pleasing ‘Can’t Slow Down.’ The Replacements could learn a lot from Lionel.

XTC: This is my favorite pop group of all time, so, of course, I think they are underappreciated. They did manage a minor hit here in the States with ‘Dear God’, but that’s one of the weaker (but still good) songs on their album, ‘Skylarking’. In fact, ‘Dear God’ wasn’t even on the first pressing of the album. It was on the B-side for the single, ‘Grass’. For some reason, American radio stations started playing the song and it became a hit and was then included on later pressings.

‘Skylarking’ is my favorite of their many great albums. It had plenty of hit potentials with ‘Grass’, ‘That’s Really Super, Supergirl’ and ‘Earn Enough for Us’. But the hit was ‘Dear God’.

XTC stop touring in 1982, so their label didn’t promote the band well enough. The labels attitude led to problems with the band and the band going on a seven year strike, before they were released by Virgin and struck out on their own. Unfortunately, they have closed up shop and gone their separate ways.

‘Skylarking’ was released in 1986, the year that Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ won the Grammy for the album of the year. ‘Graceland’ is pretty good. XTC had some tough competition.

I do think that each of these artists deserved greater financial success, but, on the other hand, I’m kind of glad they didn’t. This way I can’t feel that I am in on something and that the majority doesn’t know what it’s missing. I also tend to lose interest with bands when they achieve mega-stardom. I liked early U2 and REM, but when they broke through to the major audience I thought they got a little annoying. I still liked them, just not as much.

Now that I think of it, feeling that way pretty much makes everything I just wrote pointless.

Nevermind.

horror inc.

This was a very local phenomenon.

I got to thinking about the old horror movie showcase programs that local TV stations used to put on. Do you remember them? They would usually be hosted by someone dressed as Dracula or a mad scientist. They would introduce some old horror film, most the time something from the 40s or 50s and not very scary. The shows would usually be on at midnight on Friday or Saturday.

They’ve pretty much all disappeared. I think Elvira was among the last of them. I also think Mystery Science Theater 3000 put the final nail in the coffin.

It’s too bad. I’d love it if some local station would give us back one of those horror showcases, instead of the never ending feed of insipid infomercials.

So, I got to reminiscing about the Twin Cities own horror showcase. It ran in the 70s at midnight on Friday. Maybe it was Saturday. Maybe both. It was a long time ago and I was awfully young. It was called Horror Incorporated. I don’t remember there being a host to the show. There may have been a host, but I just remember its creepy opening and closing.

My reminiscing led me to Google. I was able to find both the opening and closing on YouTube. With the help of my wife, I’ve embedded the clips here. I needed her help, because I’m fairly lost at this kind of thing.

The clips are very simple. Just a coffin with a vampire coming out at the opening (getting back in at the closing), some fog, some eerie lighting, some screams and maniacal laughter, and that great voice over. It’s very well done and to a kid of 8 or 9, as I was then, very scary. In fact, the opening was often times more scary then the featured movie.

I miss that show. I wish it would return…

From the grave!

comic books that have changed my life #6

Returning to the long left idle series on some of my favorite comic books, I will focus on The Avengers #164. This is the second issue of The Avengers’ title that I will examine. (The previous one was #171 which I reviewed way back in February 2006.) Issue #164 features guest penciler John Byrne. John Byrne is one of my all time favorite comic book artists. This issue was one of his early efforts for Marvel Comics, but he would soon make a huge splash in the comic world when he became the regular penciler for the X-Men (starting with issue #108 of that series).
I love Byrne’s work. For quite some time he was the top artist at Marvel. George Perez was a close second, but Byrne’s work just had something that impressed the hell out of me. He continued to produce great work for many years until he began writing titles as well as drawing them. Then he seemed to hurry his drawing.

Anyway, The Avengers #164 was early in his career at Marvel, but he was already showing those signs of greatness. His inker was Pablo Marcos for this three issue story that John would being drawing, giving George Perez, Avengers’ regular artist, a break. And I am focusing on the first part of the three issue story, because as I’ve said previously, the set up issue seems to be more interesting then the conclusion issue of a storyline.

The synopsis of this issue tells of an old Avengers’ villain, Count Nefaria, recruiting three other villains: Power Man, Whirlwind, and the Living Laser, to help him defeat the Avengers once and for all. Through the efforts of the team of scientists he employed, Count Nefaria enhances the powers of the three recruited bad guys. But only temporarily. This reunited and boosted Lethal Legion rob a bank, the Avengers try to stop them, but they get away and regroup and counterattack. In their counterattack, the Legion appear to have the upper hand and are about to become victorious when their powers begin to mysteriously disappear. Enter Count Nefaria, crackling with the super powers he’d just stolen from the Lethal Legion. That dastardly double crosser!

Ok, it ain’t Tolstoy, but it’s good comic book fun.

Now to look at the art…

The cover (see above) was draw by George Perez and it depicts the Lethal Legion putting the beat down on the Avengers. Power Man states that the Avengers are finished, but someone is shouting, “Not all of them!” But who is it? We do see a pair of gloved hands, but the story doesn’t let us know who it is. Is it Yellow Jacket? The Wasp? The Scarlet Witch? I guess we aren’t supposed to know. It was a common practice in comic books to have cover art that didn’t exactly fit the story inside.

The first frame I’m including is the beginning of the second battle between the Avengers and the Lethal Legion. The three bad guys decide to use the old attention getter of throwing a car through the window of the second story conference room of the Avengers’ mansion. How the Legion knew our heroes were gathered there I don’t know. Still it is a dramatic shot with the great sound effect “KA-SMA-A-ASH!” Marvel always did pride themselves with their uncannily descriptive sound effect words.

Next is a two frame sequence in which we get to see just how much more powerful Power Man has become. At the expense of the Beast, unfortunately. Poor Beast, that looks like it hurt.

Then I have the last page of the issue. Here is where Count Nefaria makes his dramatic entrance. He tears up the street under the Avengers’ feet, sending them all down to the ground, stunned. A shocked Capt. America recognizes the villain and can’t believe Nefaria is capable of such a display of power.

And doesn’t the Scarlet Witch have quite the nice behind?

I’m also including another two frame segment that always bugged me. It shows the Whizzer (yep, that’s his name) speeding through his apartment. He’s heading off to get into the action, but he really shouldn’t because he’s an older fellow and he’s got heart trouble. Anyway, he’s using his power of traveling at super speed when his daughter, the Scarlet Witch, (she wasn’t really his daughter. It’s complicated, so just take my word for it.) gets in his way.

He grabs a trellis rod and spins himself backward into the wall to keep from colliding with his daughter. I always thought the drawings were confusing. Why would he go backward? Looking at it now, I think I understand what happened. The Whizzer (Yes! That is his name!) must have reached to the left side of the frame to the “off camera” trellis rod and that’s why he’s flung backward into the wall. I guess Byrne had difficulty fitting the trellis into the frame.

Yes! He was called The Whizzer!

I’ll do more writing on the comic books soon. I hope.