Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies (1974 & 1975)

An old elementary school classmate of mine died a couple of weeks ago. I can't call him a "friend", per se, but he was an essential presence in my childhood experience.

I've mentioned in previous postings that my Navy officer dad's next duty station after the conclusion of our time in Wisconsin was serving as a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. We arrived there that summer, and settled into a two-story townhouse in military housing across from one of the main academy gates, directly behind the neighborhood pool and adjacent to the neighborhood of West Annapolis.

West Annapolis is about a forty square block area, bounded by Rowe Boulevard to the south, Weems Creek to the west, the Severn River to the north, and government property along its eastern edge. The neighborhood is pretty much cut off from the rest of the city of Annapolis proper due to its proximity to said "government property" - namely, the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy and the adjacent housing areas for officers and their families stationed there, where I lived. As such, West Annapolis has over the decades developed a somewhat insular, go-it-alone stance among the longtime residents there, not mixing much with regular Annapolitans and maintaining a cool attitude towards the "interloping" military families living just on the other side of the old wooded Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad right-of-way.

However, the young children of area officers had to go to school somewhere. And since the Naval Academy Primary School, a K-through-5 private school located across the Severn at the Naval Station, had limited enrollment, for many years the majority of kids living in Arundel Estates and Perry Circle (the military housing areas) were required to attend local facilities, the first and closest one being West Annapolis Elementary School (WAES). So in 1974, that's where the majority of my siblings and I began our latest academic year.

For the most part, relations between the local youngsters and the relatively more transient military offspring at the school were tranquil. I know that some of the West Annapolis boys and girls considered many from my area as "rich kids" and elitist snobs (believe me, we were most decidedly not!), while some of my Navy acquaintances thought many of the locals were lower-class lowlifes (again, not remotely true). But in those years, that tranquility was constantly being roiled by one boy, Frederick, the Terror of West Annapolis.

Frederick (or "Freddie" as he was more commonly known) was a short, wiry redhead with a fiery temper and rock-hard fists that he seldom hesitated to make use of, if the situation called for it. He was a year behind me in grade; however, for a few years in the early/mid '70s, WAES administration decided to experiment with a new teaching approach whereby instead of having the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grades in four separate classrooms, each classroom would contain a combination of ALL FOUR GRADES. So each individual teacher was were forced to provide instruction to all of the learning levels simultaneously, every day - which must have been a nightmare for them. In hindsight, it was a nutty idea, and I don't recall learning very much that year. WAES finally abandoned that practice before the 1970s ended, segregating the grades into separate classrooms, like most other schools in the nation do. But I went to school there through the brunt of this experimental period... and as 'luck' would have it, Freddie was one of my classmates.

Freddie's fearsome reputation, cultivated by classroom and schoolyard incidents that landed him in the Principal's office several times that year, and nurtured by juvenile word-of-mouth, was such that he became, in many of our minds, the pre-teen 'crime boss' and 'bete noire' of West Annapolis. Outside of attending school there, most Navy kids avoided the neighborhood, especially the area close by Freddie's house, lest they run afoul of "Freddie's gang" of area kids he reportedly controlled.

There used to be a little neighborhood store directly across the street from WAES, on the corner of Melvin Avenue and Annapolis Street about a block away from his home, called Waxman's Grocery. Mr. Waxman was the sour and crotchety proprietor of this old-fashioned one-room store, and he seemed to hate kids (many years later, I learned that Mr. Waxman's son, a WAES graduate, had been killed in Vietnam in his teens shortly after arriving over there as a new enlistee in the late 1960s... so it was then I began to understand Mr. Waxman's demeanor and feel some sympathy for him). Despite his cantankerous nature, children flocked to his shop after classes ended for the day, as Mr. Waxman stocked every brand and variety of popular candy then available - Atomic Fireballs, Mike & Ikes, Lemonheads, Pop Rocks, Marathon bars, Chunky Bars, you name it. The store owner was well aware of the individuals who kept him in business. The market was Ground Zero for the local Wacky Packages craze of the mid-70s; students would buy the packs by the dozen, trading the adhesive parody renditions of popular consumer products with others in the school or otherwise sticking them to their school folders and lockers.

Bubble Yum, the first soft chunk bubble gum, was released by LifeSavers (in limited quantities) in the Western U.S. in late 1974, and the company began a gradual national rollout later that year, with the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area serving as an early East Coast test
market. When it initially appeared, it was shipped to only a few stores in our area in very small quantities, and Waxman's Grocery, with its proven track record of moving vast amounts of confectionery product, was one of the stores selected. When Freddie and his boys discovered this, they staked out Waxman's for hours on end, watching for the delivery trucks and, by their presence, "discouraging" (so to speak) non-neighborhood kids from going there. Freddie's gang would buy up every pack of Bubble Yum available, at 30 cents for a pack of five pieces, then take them to school and resell them to children craving the new gum for upwards of fifty cents to a dollar for each individual chunk. Those guys ended up making a small fortune that winter and spring, until increased product distribution and availability put Bubble Yum in more local stores. But for a long while, they were the preteen Gum Mafia.

As much as I've detailed the fearsome, threatening antics and actions of Freddie and his gang here, I did have some normal interactions with him from time to time. More that once, I recall heading over to West Annapolis to hang out and play with him and his friends, and during the winter he and his crew gathered with the Navy kids sledding down Suicide Hill directly adjacent to Perry Circle, the only decent place to slide in the immediate area. In our few playtimes, a sort of detente existed between us, as it does between kids. Still, Freddie would sometimes suggest we do activities that I wasn't comfortable with, such as shoplift sweets at the local 7-11. In those situations, I would demur, then try to quickly and quietly remove myself from his presence and head back home, as the unspoken threat of drawing the ire of "Freddie's gang" was always present.

The mid-70s period was a transitional period for music. AM radio fare, consisting of lite rock, novelty songs and other lightweight fare, still ruled the airwaves, but harder-edged punk, reggae and hard rock music was bubbling just below the surface, ready to break out. Songs that were giant hits and schoolyard favorites during that time included "Up In A Puff Of Smoke" by an obscure (for the U.S.) British singer named Polly Brown:

For some reason, this song was HUGE as WAES - never did much for me, though (in a related story, Polly Brown never had another charting song in America...).

Another massive song from that time was "Billy, Don't Be A Hero" by Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods:

Although the premise was hokey and overly sentimental (a young woman begs her love not to go off to war, but stay and marry her; he goes anyway and, of course, buys the farm in his first battle), this song still went to #1 in America in the summer of 1974, selling nearly four million copies. However, it was hated as much as it was loved, voted No. 8 on Rolling Stone magazine's readers' poll of "10 Worst Songs of the 1970s".

What I didn't know at the time was that this song was a remake of a British hit from earlier that year. Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods were an obscure group of journeymen from Ohio who hadn't had much success in the prior ten years of their music career, until they glommed on to "Billy, Don't Be A Hero", originally penned by a British group, Paper Lace, who took their version to the top of the UK charts just three months prior. Understandably pissed at seeing their thunder and stateside glory stolen by Bo Donaldson et al., Paper Lace quickly released their follow-up single, which made it to US #1 six weeks later that midsummer, the group's first (and only) American hit - "The Night Chicago Died":

Children couldn't get enough of songs like this back then!

The potential menace of Freddie and his gang overall did little to affect the fun times I had living there in Annapolis.  There was a great group of kids on my street and up the hill in Perry Circle, and we were a close-knit bunch.  We would all hang together at the pool on warm days, playing Marco Polo and basking in the sun.  The winters were marked by building huge snow forts, from which we would choose sides and have intense snowball fights.  There were birthday parties, slumber parties, football games, and expeditions into the restricted areas near Shady Lake or through the old Civil Defense tunnels and shelters under the apartments.  During the holiday season, we would practice Christmas carols together, then put together a chorus and go door to door singing to our neighbors.  Or we would head over across the street through the Naval Academy gates, to play baseball on the diamonds there, hang out on the platforms and structures of the old Academy obstacle course on Hospital Point, or try to sneak into the "Midshipmen/Authorized Staff Only" areas throughout the Yard.  

After years of requests, I was finally awarded the paper route in my neighborhood, delivering the Evening Capital each night after I got home from school (I was one of the paper's youngest newsboys).  I worked that route like a dog, doubling the subscriptions on my street inside of a few months, and by Christmas that year I was making a fortune (well, a relative fortune for a preteen in the 1970s).  The Evening Capital provided me with a few extra over-the-shoulder newsbags, and there were always a few extra papers in my stack each day.  So with them, my friends and I devised a game called Dogfight: each of us would have a bag filled with newspapers tightly wrapped with rubber bands, then we would get on our bikes and ride circles around each other in a big field, whipping papers at other riders to see who we could knock off!  Sounds kinda brutal now... but it was a very fun, looked-forward-to activity, and I never recall anyone getting seriously hurt.

Great memories. 

Freddie and I weren't close friends, only casual acquaintances at best, and I didn't keep in close contact with him after I left elementary school and moved on to Bates Junior High across town the next year. I would, however, continue to hear stories about him from some of my younger friends who still attended WAES - from all reports, his attitude and demeanor didn't change an iota. And after my family left Maryland in the late 1970s, he all but completely faded off of my radar. I learned more about him in recent years through my contact via Facebook with his older brother, who I didn't know at all back during my Annapolis childhood but got to know later. Through him, I learned that after Freddie left high school, he served a short stint as an enlisted Navy man, then quickly returned to the Annapolis area, where for decades he worked as a local handyman and house painter.

My lone interaction with Freddie since the end of our school days together occurred a couple of years ago, when I repeated to his brother a funny (and probably apocryphal) story about a practical joke Freddie reputedly played on one of his West Annapolis cronies, that quickly made the schoolyard rounds. Freddie fired off a blistering response through his brother's thread, angrily denying the legend and castigating me up and down for even INSINUATING that it was true. Mind you, I was retelling the tale of a harmless and minor childhood prank that allegedly occurred... but still, almost fifty years later, it managed to set him off. Apparently, some things - and some people - never change. Freddie's brother is friendly, stable and accomplished, and managed to put together a pretty good life for himself and his family - in other words, the complete opposite of Freddie.

So, as such, I don't have any particularly deep feeling of loss regarding Freddie's demise - he was a bully, and sort of a dick, and from all reports and indications remained so up to his dying day.  I wasn't the only one with this reaction; for decades, I've remained in close contact with several of my old Arundel Estates childhood friends. Their feelings on Freddie's death can be summarized in a single comment one of them made to me: "He was the 'bogeyman' for a lot of kids back then." Can't really refute that assessment.

With that being said, Freddie was an integral part of that fondly remembered time and place in my life, and his presence and actions have done little to obscure the happy times I recall living in Annapolis as a child (prior to my return there as a Naval Academy midshipmen almost a decade later). If anything, Freddie was like a grain of sand in an oyster shell - an irritant whose presence still ended up creating something lasting and cherished.

So, in honor of his passing, and in homage to that time, here are a few music compilations from that period that will give you a sense of what was being listened to in the mid-70s. These are part of a forty-volume(!) series of recordings released by Time-Life Music between 1989 and 1999, covering the entirety of the 1970s. I only picked up a few of these, since I had other compilations that covered this same general time period. But the ones provided here, covering 1974 and 1975, are an excellent summation of music from that time.

In case you're wondering, here's the lineup:

Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974:

1. Can't Get Enough – Bad Company
2. Show and Tell – Al Wilson
3. Come and Get Your Love – Redbone
4. I Shot the Sheriff – Eric Clapton
5. Help Me – Joni Mitchell
6. I Can Help – Billy Swan
7. Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy) – Al Green
8. Rock the Boat – The Hues Corporation
9. Bennie and the Jets – Elton John
10. Midnight Rider – Gregg Allman
11. Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd
12. The Loco-Motion – Grand Funk Railroad
13. Smokin' in the Boys' Room – Brownsville Station
14. Rikki Don't Lose That Number – Steely Dan
15. Rock On – David Essex
16. Midnight at the Oasis – Maria Muldaur
17. Kung Fu Fighting – Carl Douglas
18. Keep on Smilin' – Wet Willie
19. Then Came You – Dionne Warwick & The Spinners
20. The Bitch Is Back – Elton John

Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974 - Take Two:

1. Lookin' for a Love – Bobby Womack
2. You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
3. The Joker – Steve Miller Band
4. Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do) – Aretha Franklin
5. Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe – Barry White
6. Mockingbird – Carly Simon with James Taylor
7. I've Got to Use My Imagination – Gladys Knight & The Pips
8. Sundown – Gordon Lightfoot
9. Everlasting Love – Carl Carlton
10. Shinin' On – Grand Funk Railroad
11. Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo – Rick Derringer
12. Takin' Care of Business – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
13. Rock Your Baby – George McCrae
14. Sideshow – Blue Magic
15. Haven't Got Time for the Pain – Carly Simon
16. Tin Man – America
17. Dancing Machine – Jackson Five
18. Jungle Boogie – Kool & the Gang
19. Nothing from Nothing – Billy Preston
20. I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song – Jim Croce
21. Radar Love – Golden Earring

Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975:

1. You're No Good – Linda Ronstadt
2. Jackie Blue – Ozark Mountain Daredevils
3. That's the Way (I Like It) – KC & the Sunshine Band
4. Must of Got Lost – J. Geils Band
5. Why Can't We Be Friends? – War
6. Sister Golden Hair – America
7. Philadelphia Freedom – Elton John
8. Black Water – Doobie Brothers
9. Love Is a Rose – Linda Ronstadt
10. How Long – Ace
11. Dance with Me – Orleans
12. Free Bird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
13. You Are So Beautiful – Joe Cocker
14. Feel Like Makin' Love – Bad Company
15. Lady Marmalade – Labelle
16. Pick Up the Pieces – Average White Band
17. Island Girl – Elton John
18. Some Kind of Wonderful – Grand Funk Railroad
19. The Hustle – Van McCoy & Soul City Symphony
20. Let's Do It Again – Staple Singers

Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975 - Take Two:

1. When Will I Be Loved – Linda Ronstadt
2. Bad Time – Grand Funk Railroad
3. Roll On Down the Highway – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
4. Movin' On – Bad Company
5. Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While) – The Doobie Brother
6. They Just Can't Stop It (The Games People Play) – The Spinners
7. L-O-V-E (Love) – Al Green
8. Shining Star – Earth, Wind & Fire
9. Get Down Tonight – KC & the Sunshine Band
10. I'm on Fire – Dwight Twilley
11. SOS – ABBA
12. Shame, Shame, Shame – Shirley & Company
13. Cut the Cake – Average White Band
14. You're the First, the Last, My Everything – Barry White
15. Low Rider – War
16. Fight the Power (Part 1 & 2) – Isley Brothers
17. Bungle in the Jungle – Jethro Tull
18. Only Women Bleed – Alice Cooper
19. Can't Get It Out of My Head – Electric Light Orchestra
20. Poetry Man – Phoebe Snow
21. I'm Not in Love – 10CC

Enjoy these discs, released in 1990 and 1991 (for the "Take Two" versions), and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email links below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

• Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974: Send Email
• Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975: Send Email
• Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies: 1974 - Take Two: Send Email
• Various Artists - Sounds Of The Seventies: 1975 - Take Two: Send Email

Andy Gill (Gang Of Four), 1956-2020

Sad news:  Andy Gill (shown pictured at left with bandmate Jon King), the founding, stalwart and only constant member of the various formations (and reformations) of post-punk giants Gang Of Four, died over the weekend at the age of 64.  Here's his obituary from The Guardian:

Andy Gill obituary

And from the same source, here's a excellent overview/tribute to his art and influence; I can add nothing of substance to this superb writeup:

Andy Gill: Gang Of Four's genius guitarist who burned a route out of punk

I got into Gang Of Four way back in the early '80s, when a friend of mine loaned me his vinyl copy of their debut album Entertainment! To say I was blown away by it is an understatement... I LOVED every single song on that album, and after I got my own copies (successively on vinyl, cassette and CD over the years), I played them to death! At one time, "Anthrax" was my favorite song; I once told a story in an earlier post about how I coerced a short-lived alternative radio station in Norfolk, Virginia to play it during weekday rush-hour drive time... quite possibly the one and only time Gang Of Four was ever broadcast in that area.

And years later, when I was in my own band, made up of middle-aged finance executives (the full story of which I have yet to tell), playing rock and pop standards, I somehow convinced those guys to include a cover of "I Found That Essence Rare" on our playlist - the drummer Bill used to refer to it as our "punk set"!

After an equally great follow-up album, 1981's Solid Gold, the original group lineup began to splinter, with bassist Dave Allen leaving the band to form Shriekback, replaced by Sara Lee. The first release with this new bassist, 1982's Songs Of The Free, signaled a subtle shift away from the jagged, scabrous, Situationism-influenced bent of their earlier music and into a more commercial sound, a move signified by the centerpiece song on the album, "I Love A Man In A Uniform".

Still, there were enough good tunes on this release (I especially loved "Life! It's A Shame" and "I Will Be A Good Boy") to satisfy fans of their signature sound and attitude - including me. And I remained a Gang Of Four

devotee even through the following year's widely-panned album Hard, recorded by a trio of Gill, King and Lee in the aftermath of original member drummer Hugo Burnham's departure.  Hard was a blatant bid by the band for wider radio airplay, and it failed miserably, with Gang Of Four devolving into little more than a disco-influenced funk band. The remaining members called it quits the next year, undertaking a "farewell tour" through the spring and summer of 1984 (I'm still disappointed in myself for skipping the opportunity to see them on that tour).

However, that wasn't the complete end of Gang Of Four; various members got back together in the following years in various iterations to make new band recordings. Gill and King collaborated on 1991's Mall and 1995's Shrinkwrapped (the latter being more well-received than the former, although in my opinion, neither were up to the standards of the group's first three releases). Finally, in late 2004, the original lineup of Gill, King, Allen and Burnham reformed, and spent most of the next year touring the world. I saw them that summer when they played The 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, finally seeing one of my

old favorites live; they were, of course, excellent. Later that year, the reconstituted band released Return The Gift, rerecordings of songs from their earlier albums - an interesting, but somewhat unnecessary product. Afterwards most of the band members immediately scattered, although Gill and King continued working together until 2011.

In the following years, Gill kept the Gang Of Four flag flying, with different and various members, and issuing new releases (2011's Content, 2015's What Happens Next, and most recently last year's Happy Now) from time to time. I saw the group for the last time just about a year ago (the same week I saw Martin Phillips and The Chills at a nearby venue), when they played at a small club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was good to see Gill up on stage again, but the show made me long for the original sound and the original band, as I heard them all those years ago.

So here, in memory of and tribute to Andy Gill and his seminal group, Gang Of Four, I offer up the following:

• Their first release, the Damaged Goods EP, put out by Scottish indie label Fast Product on vinyl on October 13th, 1978 (this disc features the original version, with different lyrics, of "(Love Like) Anthrax");
• The 100 Flowers Bloom two-disc compilation, a mixture of demos, album cuts, live versions and remixes, released on Rhino Records on November 3rd, 1998.  This one has been a long-time go-to source for Go4 music for me!; and
• The Peel Sessions Album, a collection of all three of the group's appearances (in 1979 and 1981) on BBC1's John Peel Show, put out on Strange Fruit Records in 1990.

Enjoy, remember, and as always... well, you know; I always enjoying hearing from you all.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

Damaged Goods EP: Send Email
100 Flowers Bloom: Send Email
The Peel Sessions Album: Send Email

Paul McCartney & Wings - Venus And Mars Outtakes Are Alright Tonight, Vol. 1 & 2

Happy 75th Birthday, Sir Paul! Many, many more!

I was too young to absorb the Beatles in real time, so the first Beatles-related release I was conscious of as a kid was McCartney's "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey", a single from his first solo album Ram, released in August 1971.

I can't tell you why I enjoyed this tune so much as a child - maybe it was the sound effects (thunderclaps, ringing phones, seagulls), that made it seem more like a Yellow Submarine outtake (I'd just seen that movie for the first time that year, as part of a summer film series for kids sponsored by the local elementary schools - I saw Willy Wonka and The Phantom Tollbooth for the first time that summer as well).   After that limited exposure to McCartney's work, I wasn't really aware of anything regarding his music for another three years.

I remember when Band On The Run came out - my older cousin had a copy of the LP, and he played it for me during a visit my family paid to his in 1974. I was fascinated with the "jailbreak" cover! Outside of Paul McCartney and his wife, I didn't know or recognize any of the other people featured on the front of that album. But it didn't matter - I thought that everything about Band On The Run - artwork and music - was great. My favorite songs at the time, outside of the title track, were "Mrs. Vandebilt" and "Helen Wheels" - they remain some of my favorite Paul tracks to this day. By the time I got to experience the album, it seemed that a vast majority of Americans and the world seemed to think as positively about this disc as I did. I had no idea until much later how much work and effort went into making this album the runaway hit it became.

Due to the mixed critical and commercial reception of the group's first two albums, 1971's Wild Life and 1973's Red Rose Speedway, buyers were initially reluctant to shell out their hard-earned cash for Band On The Run, only to get burned again by yet another weak Wings release.  So, despite some positive reviews from influential music writers and publications, early sales performance of this release in December 1973 was good, but not great.  The album rose slowly on the US Billboard charts to a peak of #7 in early February 1974, before beginning to slowly slide back down the list.

To counter this perceived public lack on interest, Apple (well, specifically, Capitol Records, Apple's US distributor) embarked on a very planned and methodical marketing campaign - quite possibly the first one ever considered necessary for a Beatles-related release. Essentially the brainchild of Capitol's marketing head, Al Coury, Coury goosed LP sales by strategically releasing album singles at key points during the year, initially over McCartney's objections.  The first single Marketing released was "Jet" b/w "Let Me Roll It" in late January 1974.

The song quickly shot into the Top Ten in both Britain and America, where it remained until late spring, and rekindled public interest in the album - Band On The Run began moving up the charts again, and reached #1 US for a week in mid-April. When album sales began declining again that month, Coury arranged for the release of the next album single, the title track "Band On The Run" b/w "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five". This single was even huger than the previous release; "Band On The Run" topped the American charts by June, and dragged the album along with it - the LP hit #1 again for three weeks that same month. Band On The Run topped the US album charts yet again in July. All told, the release was at or near the top of the charts for almost the entirety of 1974, staying in the Billboard Top Ten from January to late November. Its reception made McCartney the most commercially successful of the solo Beatles from that point on (believe it or not, but George Harrison was eating Paul's lunch on that measure in the early '70s).

After this year of great success, both McCartney and Capitol Records were eager to keep the money train rolling. Wings' lineup was augmented with new members during mid-1974 (Geoff Britton on drums and Jimmy McCulloch on lead guitar joined Paul & Linda McCartney and guitarist Denny Laine), and after some early session work in Nashville and London in the fall of 1974, the band headed to Sea Saint Studios in New Orleans in January 1975 to complete recordings for the next album. The Louisiana sessions were progressing fairly well, except in one area - some animosity had arisen between Britton and McColloch during the Nashville stay, and by the time they reached New Orleans, they fucking HATED each other. Fed up with the tense atmosphere, Britton suddenly quit the band in the middle of their Sea Saint session - he'd been a member of Wings for less than six months. McCartney scrambled to find a replacement, quickly auditioning a suitable alternate, American drummer Joe English. Despite that brief hiccup, the main album tracks were all laid down less than a month after arrival in New Orleans. Some rerecording and overdub work was completed in California a couple of months later.

The album Venus and Mars was released in late May (two weeks after the release of the lead single, "Listen To What The Man Said") to a public still hungry for Wings product, and in the afterglow of the positive vibes for the last album. Both the single and the album topped the US charts, with the latter selling over 4 million copies worldwide. However, the overall critical reaction to Venus and Mars was much more subdued and muted than for Band On The Run; the LP was generally viewed by music writers as a step back by the band. Still, it sold - which was all Capitol cared about.

The commercial success of this album served as the impetus for McCartney and Wings to embark on a year-long worldwide concert tour, Wings Over The World, where the band played over sixty arena-rock shows in eleven countries on three continents. In all, more than a million people attended those sold-out concerts, further establishing McCartney's reputation as a commercial juggernaut.

The tour even resulted in a companion album, the triple-disc Wings Over America live release, another Number One record for the band in early 1977.

Generally, I tend to agree with the critics regarding Venus and Mars. Outside of "Listen To What The Man Said", I've never found the music on this disc to be as immediate or compelling as that of the previous album. It's not as though McCartney was resting on his laurels here, after the huge success of Band On The Run - there was some thought and hard work put into these selections. I don't know whether it was due to the band turmoil during the recording, or label pressure to start milking Paul and his band as a financially-viable hit machine . . . but for me, there's something missing in the overall album.

However, some folks regard Venus and Mars as equal to, if not superior, to Band On The Run. I'll let you all be the judge of that, by giving you a glimpse into the creative effort behind the making of this album. Here are an assortment of demos and rehearsal tracks from the Venus and Mars sessions in 1975. According to bootlegzone.com, The 910 (a key publication on unreleased Beatles recordings) states that the source of this music is an unnamed person (presumably in the production crew) who surreptitiously recorded and retained a low bias cassette dub of some early takes and some later, more polished remixes.

Here is an excerpt from the liner notes on the 2005 release of this bootleg, containing a bit more info:

"The music was culled from sessions that took place between January and April of 1975, first at Sea Saint Studios, New Orleans and later at Wall Heider Studios in Los Angeles. The majority of the sessions feature the fifth Wings line-up of Paul/lead vocals, guitar, bass; Linda/piano, synth, backing vocals; Denny Laine/guitar, bass, backing vocals; Jimmy McCulloch/guitar, backing vocals (lead on Medicine Jar); and Joe English/drums (it is unknown whether this music features any of Geoff Britton on drums)."

In terms of track listings, here's the lineup for both discs:

Disc 1

1. Venus And Mars (instrumental)
2. Rock Show
3. Love In Song
4. Letting Go
5. Medicine Jar
6. Venus And Mars (reprise)
7. Listen To What The Man Said, Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People, Crossroads Theme
8. Venus And Mars
9. Rock Show

Disc 2

1. Love In Song
2. You Gave Me The Answer
3. Magneto And Titanium Man
4. Letting Go
5. Medicine Jar
6. Venus And Mars (reprise)
7. Spirits Of Ancient Egypt
8. Call Me Back Again
9. Listen To What The Man Said
10. Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People
11. Crossroads Theme
12. Lunch Box/Odd Sox

For your consideration, here are Vols. 1 and 2 of Venus And Mars Outtakes Are Alright Tonight, a rare and hard-to-find selection of rough cuts, rehearsal tracks and unreleased material from Wings' sessions for the album of the same name, first pressed by bootleg label Starlight Records in 1990 and subsequently released on CD by equally shady German record label No Pig International in 2005. Have a listen, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

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Ed's Redeeming Qualities - More Bad Times

A hopelessly obscure and woefully nearly forgotten band, the alt-folk group Ed's Redeeming Qualities was formed by four New Hampshire friends in 1988.  Band members Carrie Bradley and Dan Leone met while they were students at the University of New Hampshire; they later linked up with Dan's brother Dom (who moved to the state from Ohio) and Neno Perrotta. With their quirky, funny songs (many of them written by the gifted and prolific Dom) and strange instrumentation (most of their music was driven by Carrie's violin, Dan's ukelele and Neno's bongos), Ed's Redeeming Qualities quickly became one of the darlings of Boston's late-80s indie scene, along with bands like The Pixies and Throwing Muses, playing places like the Middle East and the late lamented Rathskeller ("The Rat").

Sadly, soon after their Boston debut, Dom was diagnosed with cancer.  He died in November 1989, taking with him much of the band's spirit. After Dom's death, the band relocated to San Francisco, where they landed an album contract with a small folk label. They released two albums there in the early 1990s, More Bad Times and It's All Good News, but found little commercial success with them. Their only real mainstream radio exposure was on Dr. Demento's nationally syndicated novelty music radio show, where a couple of their songs were occasionally featured. Needless to say, that's not exactly the sort of exposure you're looking for to establish and maintain a following.

Probably the only reason I know anything about this band is that Carrie Bradley was briefly a member of The Breeders. She participated in the group's legendary demo sessions and their first album, 1990's Pod.  Ed's Redeeming Qualities received its biggest exposure in 1994, when The Breeders covered their song "Drivin' On 9" on their platinum smash Last Splash:

(The Breeders also covered the song on the Pod demos - I honestly prefer that version to the album version, but whatever . . .). Bradley joined the Deal sisters' band again as a guest during their 1994 Lollapolooza tour, and ERQ started receiving some favorable press during that time.

The positive vibes from Last Splash maintained Ed's Redeeming Qualities for a while, but with the lack of commercial success it was unsustainable. The group released one final album, At The Fish And Game Club, in 1996, before disbanding the following year. Since their demise, Carrie Bradley went on to form the band 100 Watt Smile, which released two albums in the late 1990s, and does a lot of session work. Both Dan Leone and Neno Perrotta became writers, Dan penning food and fiction columns for weekly alternative newspapers and Neno writing and publishing poetry. But ERQ is still beloved in the Boston area - they played a very well-received reunion show at TT The Bear's Place in Cambridge (just around the corner from the Middle East) in January 2011. And they still have plenty of fans across the nation, who appreciate and adore their strange and humorous songs. They might not be everyone's particular cup of tea . . . but they are well worth a listen.

Here's Ed's Redeeming Qualities' More Bad Times, released in 1990 by Flying Fish Records.  This was burned off of my vinyl copy (which, in an instance of synergynistic coolness, I bought off of a member of Washington State's Beat Happening), as the CD version is nearly impossible to track down.  Enjoy, and as always, please let me know what you think.

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Ultra Vivid Scene - Mercy Seat and Special One EPs

More good stuff from that golden music era of the late '80s/early '90s . . . I used to catch the occasional Ultra Vivid Scene tune on one of the various alternative radio stations I listened to back in the day, and always enjoyed what this band had to offer.

Ultra Vivid Scene was essentially singer and guitarist Kurt Ralske, accompanied occasionally by a rotating host of musicians. Ralske was a gifted musician pretty much from the get-go; at sixteen, he had already gained entrance into Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music. But Ralske was always a free spirit and seeker of sorts on all levels, never settling on one particular thing, but absorbing what he thought was necessary before moving on to the next location and experience. He stayed at Berklee long enough to gain a thorough exposure to jazz music concepts, before moving on to college in New York City in the early 80s, and falling in with some of the major figures in that city's "No Wave" music scene (folks like James Chance and Thurston Moore). These New York sounds, which included not only the contemporary experimental scene but also the output of the Velvet Underground and hardcore punk, were a major influence in the music Ralske was attempting to piece together. He joined his first bands while in New York, serving as guitarist for Nothing But Happiness (who released a single ("Narcotics Day"/"Couldn't Make You Mine") in 1985 and an album

(Detour) in 1987), Dissipated Face (sort of a punkier version of The Contortions), King of Culture and Crash, fronted by singer-songwriter Mark Dumais. When Dumais decided to relocate Crash from NYC to London in 1987, Ralske went along.

During his time in England, Ralske was exposed to the experimental, abrasive, guitar-driven sounds of bands like The Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. To quote an interview he conducted years later: " . . . the example of the Jesus & Mary Chain was very important for me. It pointed [toward] a way of doing things that were both simple and very complex at the same time. I was keen on this idea that things could have a simple form but actually be complex and subtle in their meaning."   It was the culmination of his extensive experience playing with his bands along with the profound influence The J & M Chain had on him that led him to form Ultra Vivid Scene in early 1988.

Ultra Vivid Scene (which, as stated above, was essentially Ralske) was quickly signed by 4AD later that year. His/the band's first recording, the four-song She Screamed EP, was released that August. Of all of the group's releases, it's the one that comes closest to emulating the Jesus & Mary Chain sound, albeit filtered through Ralske's extensive exposure to more mainstream rock (probably because it's the only release completely written, produced and performed by him). For example, here's the title cut:

UVS's first full album, a self-titled release, quickly followed in October 1988. The album is somewhat less abrasive and experimental than the preceding EP; the mixture of pop and noise here is definitely skewed toward the pop end of the spectrum. For me, in some cases (like the songs "Nausea" and "A Dream Of Love") this amalgamation is compelling; in others, it comes off as bland and whiny alt-rock. The best song on Ultra Vivid Scene in my opinion is "Mercy Seat", an almost perfect grind-pop meld of My Bloody Valentine and The Velvet Underground. [In my scrambled musical memories of years past, I had all but convinced myself that I had heard "Mercy Seat" in late 1987, more than a year before it was actually released. After a little reflection, I realized that I was confusing the song with the band Mercy Seat, former Violent Femmes vocalist Gordon Gano's gospel-punk side project, which released a self-titled album in the fall of 1987.]

The group and 4AD also realized what a winner they had in this song. In the spring of 1989, “Mercy Seat” was re-recorded and released on an EP, along with an excellent cover of Buffy St. Marie’s “Codine”, a new song called “H Like In Heaven”, and the original version of the lead track. The new version of “Mercy Seat” was augmented by a long, languid intro that almost doubles the track’s length but doesn't necessarily add anything new or compelling to it - in many ways, it weakens the power of the original album cut.

Here's one of the two videos made for "Mercy Seat" (the shorter version) - I included this one because near the end of the clip (at about the 3:25 mark), you can catch a glimpse of one of Ralske's erstwhile session band mates - none other than Moby himself - with hair no less!

Both the album and the Mercy Seat EP were fairly well received by critics. But Ultra Vivid Scene's main problem at the time was that they couldn't translate their music to audiences in a live setting. The band set out on their first American tour in 1989, but the shows were not well received. Ralske hired musicians rather than doing it all himself, so there may have been an issue with getting these hired hands fully conversant in his music. In addition Ralske (admittedly) paid little attention and less interest as to how to adequately capture his studio sound in concert. The result was a series of poor shows that killed much of their momentum in America; they were reportedly so bad that after a label representative saw them play in New York, he recommended that Ultra Vivid Scene become purely a studio concern, and no longer be allowed to play live.

Despite these setbacks, UVS soldiered on. Ralske reentered the studio in November 1989 to record the follow-up to Ultra Vivid Scene. This time out, he enlisted some help - namely, an established producer (Hugh Jones, who previously produced well-received indie/alternative releases, including That Petrol Emotion's Manic Pop Thrill and The Icicle Works' debut album) and a bevy of seasoned studio musicians. He also got some assistance from some of his friends in the industry, such as The Pixies' Kim Deal. The extra support freed Ralske from shouldering the entire burden of putting an album together, and led to the creation of probably Ultra Vivid Scene's finest record.

The new album, Joy 1967-1990, was released in May 1990. Overall, it's a lot peppier and somewhat bouncier than its predecessor (perhaps reflecting the lifting of pressures off of Ralske), and it was very well received in both the UK and US. The album reached the British Top 60, and three cuts off of it charted on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks. The highest charting single in the US was Ralske's sole collaboration with Deal, the excellent song "Special One" (which liberally steals much of its riff from Big Star's "September Gurls"). Here's video of the song:

[This is purportedly the "official video" - there's another one I used to see years ago, a black and white version with just Ralske and Deal sitting together and singing . . . I always hated that video, because Kim Deal (as much as I love her) acts like a complete bitch in it and all but hijacks the performance - smoking, mugging for the camera, pushing Ralske off his stool and and one point giving him a vicious face slap . . . not her finest moment.]

As with the previous album, 4AD recognized this as the strongest track off the new disc, and subsequently released "Special One" on its own EP later that fall, along with three non-album cuts.

Despite the negative reaction to their first tour, in the wake of the good press they were receiving with the new album, UVS went out on the road again in 1990, starting with a small concert series in England. Again, disaster ensued. Ralske commented years later about the shows:

" . . . with great fanfare, there were four nights of performances at a smallish club in the centre of London called the Borderline. In the audience were all the press and everybody important in the music industry. And basically we went out there and completely sucked: we had a very inadequate performance. I have spoken to other people who told me that, that was the point at which the fate of Ultra Vivid Scene was sealed. The performances were so bad that 4AD apparently begged people not to write about it. [laughs] Nobody wanted to think or talk about this group at all, ever again."

Ralske's take of the reaction to their performance was pretty spot-on. From that point onward, 4AD's support of UVS was sharply curtailed. Yet the relationship between the band and the label continued for a little while longer.

Prior to the sessions for Ultra Vivid Scene's third release, Ralske put together a real band to go into the studio with (consisting of himself on guitar and vocals, Julius Klepacz on drums and Jack Daley on bass), and this time the music was a true collaborative effort between the three of them. Rev, with a clear, polished

professional sound, was released in October 1992. Once again, despite label trepidations, Ultra Vivid Scene went out on the road to support it. But this time, the trio was in sync, and the result was some superb live performances.  But it was too little, too late for the group. The album failed to chart in either the US or England, and only one song, "Blood and Thunder" made the Modern Rock chart. Ralske and his band were released by 4AD in 1993.

For most of the rest of the 1990s, Ralske made his living engineering and producing records for the likes of Rasputina and Ivy, while working on his own experimental electronic music (he released four albums in the late 90s / early 2000s). Since then, he has moved into other artistic fields. He is now a well-respected and award-winning video and media artist, who holds professorships at two renowned East Coast art schools, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and the NYC School of Visual Arts. His works have been exhibited all over the world; have you ever been to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in downtown New York City, and noticed the video display right there in the lobby? That's his, and it's on permanent display there. His current curriculum vitae focuses mostly on his digital endeavors, barely mentioning his stint as a popular, groundbreaking alternative musician.

The online music magazine The Quietus featured an extensive interview with Ralske last October, the first he's given in many years. In it, he does much to all but dismiss his previous career in music. “I know there are some people that are still interested in those [Ultra Vivid Scene] records”, he stated, “but mostly I’m just focused on the present and the future. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them.”  That sort of precious, pretentious "I'm a real artist now" attitude irked me, more than a bit. Kurt, you once made challenging, compelling, popular music - a creation that tens of thousands of people enjoyed, loved and still remember. OWN it, and respect your fans, instead of being a big arty wuss about it.

Shortly after I read the Quietus article last year, I received a letter in the mail, telling me I had been selected for jury duty that November.  I spent most of the first week of November cooped up with several dozen other similarly unfortunate members of the public in a dank room in the basement of the Rhode Island Superior Court building on Benefit Street in downtown Providence, just a little ways from the RISD campus. They gave all of us who weren't assigned a case time off every afternoon to go out to lunch, and I invariably made the walk down North Main Street to eat at Fat Belly's Pub.

It was during one of my lunchtime strolls through RISD that week that I saw someone walking towards me who I swore was Kurt Ralske - the guy had the same thinning hair and glasses that were in his interview picture. His words in the article - and my reaction to it - were fresh in my mind, and I was just about to address the man headed in my direction to see if it was, in fact, him . . . but at the last second, I just kept my mouth closed and let the person walk on by. It might not have been him at all - who knows? And even if it was, what would/could I say? I'll let him be content with his current life and career; I'll be content with the music he left behind.

And here it is for you all to be content with as well - two Ultra Vivid Scene EPs:

• The Mercy Seat EP, released in April 1989; and
• The Special One EP, released on November 12th, 1990.

Both discs were put out by 4AD, and distributed in the US by Columbia Records.  Enjoy these tunes, and as always let me know your thoughts.  

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:  

Mercy Seat EP: Send Email  

Special One EP: Send Email

Ratcat - "Tingles" EP

Another great memory from my days in the Washington DC area in the early '90s . . .

I first heard Ratcat's "That Ain't Bad" on the local alternative station there, WHFS, soon after I moved back to the area in the spring of 1991.  They really championed this unknown Australian band, and they HAMMERED this song on their station, day and night.  And it was easy to hear why - the song was catchy, hooky, punky, guitary - all the things I liked in music back at that time, all rolled up into one 3-minute blast.  After a couple of exposures to it, I ran like a bastard for the record store and snapped up an import cassette copy, which I began hammering myself on my car's tape player.  I didn't know much about the band at the time (it being the pre-Internet days), but their music was all right with me.  It wasn't until much later that I learned more about the group.

Ratcat was formed in Australia in 1985 by three Sydney-area teenagers, Andrew Polin (drums), Victor Levi (bass) and Simon Day (guitar/vocals), evolving from Levi and Day's garage band Danger Mouse.  The band paid its dues in the local small-club and party circuit, and gained a following among Sydney's skateboarding and punk communities with a sound that was more guitar-driven power pop than straight-ahead punk, although there were a lot of punk inflections in their music.  In late 1987, Ratcat came to the attention of local indie label Waterfront Records, who signed the band and quickly released their debut eponymous EP before the end of that year.  The record was well received in certain quarters of Australia, but did not chart.

Over the next two years, the band released several singles and one full-length album, This Nightmare, on Waterfront, which again made no great waves on the national charts.  This was mainly due to Waterfront Records' limited distribution and reach, which kept Ratcat's music off of Australian radio and held back the band's success.  Levi got fed up with it all pretty early, and quit the band in late 1988; he was replaced by new bassist John McAteer.  With the relative failure of This Nightmare, the rest of the band also saw the handwriting on the wall; after one final single release ("Saying Goodbye" / "Tura Satana" / "Overdrive") in late 1989, the band said goodbye to Waterfront as well, and signed with indie upstart RooArt in 1990.  McAteer decided to call it quits just before the label switch; he was replaced by Amr Zaid.

While RooArt, like Waterfront, was also a small independent, they had one major factor in their favor - the label had wisely entered into a distribution deal with recording giant Polygram, vastly increasing the exposure of groups on their roster.  RooArt engineered an all-out marketing strategy for Ratcat's first release that November, the 6-song "Tingles" EP.  The label saturated the country with a superb advertising campaign showcasing the band, and shrewdly directed purchasers to buy the disc at their local independent record shops (as album sales in department stores did not count towards the overall Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) charts).  The strategy was a bigger success than anyone could have imagined; the "Tingles" EP quickly shot to the top of ARIA's Alternative charts by Christmas, and soon after crossed over to reach #2 on the overall national charts.  The lead song off the EP, "That Ain't Bad", received massive mainstream radio airplay, and also reached #1 on the Australian singles chart.  Here's the video:

A band that could barely fill a mid-sized Sydney club less than six months earlier was suddenly the hottest, most popular group in Australia.

Ratcat followed up on their late-1990 success with their first LP release on RooArt, Blind Love, in April 1991.  Both the album and the lead single, "Don't Go Now", topped the charts by that June.  That spring, the band went on the road, supporting INXS on their huge "X" tour, then going out on their own as the headliner and playing to massive crowds of rabid fans.  In Australia in 1991, Ratcat could do no wrong.

Then the wheels started coming off . . .

Like many other Australian bands before and after them, Ratcat saw its future in the U.S. market.  In the summer of 1991, the band headed over to the States, playing support gigs with the likes of Iggy Pop and a recently reformed MC5.  The shows were well-received, but did little to enhance the group's profile stateside.  By the time they returned to Australia in early 1992, Ratcat-mania had subsided.  The band released two singles and a new album, Inside Out, with new bassist Marc Scully [man, this group went through a lot of bassists . . .], all of which reached the lower rungs of the Australian Top 50.  But Ratcat's bubblegummy, power-pop sound was starting to sound dated, especially in the wake of the rise of grunge music during this period of that decade.  The band released a couple of EPs in 1993 (neither of which charted) and laid down tracks for a third album (which wasn't completed/released until 1997).  But by the end of that year, the band was essentially kaput.

I had no idea about what had transpired with Ratcat; when I moved to New Zealand in early 1993, I fully expected the place to be filled with rabid Ratcat fans like myself.  So I was surprised (and somewhat put out) when some of my new Kiwi friends gave me the big laugh when I told them how much I liked this band.  By that time, Ratcat was being dismissed in one of two phrases: "Those guys are a kiddie band!" (akin to the present-day Jonas Brothers or One Direction), or "Ratcat?  Those guys were washed up a year ago!"

[That reminds me of when I was in high school in Monterey, California in the early '80s, when AC/DC was just getting big here in the States.  We had an Australian exchange student in our class, who used to laugh whenever someone came in wearing an AC/DC tee-shirt - "That band was washed up in Australia two years ago!"  I don't know how true that was, but at the time I believed it!]

In this case, my friends there were right.  With the lack of new releases by the band in the years I lived in Christchurch, I quickly determined that yes, Ratcat was no more, and moved on to new sounds.  But I never forgot that great EP and that incredible song . . .

And it appears that I'm not alone in remembering.  Ratcat has recently been experiencing a wave of nostalgia for their music; the band recently reformed for a one-off show in Sydney, playing Blind Love in its entirely and other hits before an appreciative crowd.  And a (godawful) cover of "That Ain't Bad" was recently showcased in an Australian bra commercial (Simon Day has a short cameo in the ad): 

Ratcat is now seen as a pioneer in Australian indie rock, finally providing the band with some long-overdue acknowledgement and appreciation.

And finally, here it is for you to appreciate as well: Ratcat's "Tingles" EP, released in November 1990 on RooArt Records and distributed by Polygram.  Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (RS500 - #406)

I've been checking back over the posts - it's been months since I did a Rolling Stone 500 album. That's inexcusable on my part! So here goes . . .

I first became aware of Sinead O'Connor in the late fall of 1987, when a good friend of mine (that girl I referred to here) clued me in to this great new Irish artist and her debut album, The Lion And The Cobra. I quickly ran out to the local music store in Athens, GA, where I was living at the time, and picked up a cassette copy. The cover art featured a pale, demure-looking girl dressed in blue, strikingly beautiful even with her shaved bald head. As soft and gentle as she looked on the cover, the music inside The Lion And The Cobra was anything but - every song (even the more 'gentle' ballads) was filled with tension and power; you could tell Ms. O'Connor threw herself into every note. The juxtaposition between the image and the music couldn't have been more stark. Still, this album quickly became a favorite of mine, and I brought it along with me everywhere.

I left Georgia a couple of months later, moving up to Norfolk, VA, and in the summer of 1988 found myself briefly in London, England, my first visit to that country. I was excited about checking out all of the music shops and venues there, and at one point found myself at the old Virgin Records at Piccadilly Circus, going through the stacks (this was the place I saw the 'CD factory' in the basement level, mentioned here). There, I came across the original British release of The Lion And The Cobra, and was somewhat shocked to find that the cover art was totally different from the American release. The UK album showed a much more threatening, aggressive O'Connor - frankly, she looked a little like the Devil . . . which, in my mind, makes the album that much cooler.

I did a little research, and learned that Chrysalis Records, the US distributor, was worried that O'Connor's 'look' would scare Americans away from buying the record. So the label, seeking to protect 'sensitive' Yankee minds from harmful, disturbing images, purposely replaced the original album art with a softer, less threatening pose . . . thus continuing the long and ignominious tradition of bowldering and homogenizing British releases for American consumption (with examples including Capitol Records issuing reordered (or in some cases, totally different) early Beatles albums; the censorship of the covers of Blind Faith's debut album and Roxy Music's Country Life; changing the name of Nick Lowe's first album from Jesus Of Cool to Pure Pop For Now People . . . the list goes on and on).

Anyway . . .

A year and a half later, I was back in the States, back in Virginia, and started seeing a girl I met at an Awareness Art Ensemble reggae show at the old King's Head club near Old Dominion University. My brother, an ODU student at the time, invited me to check the band out, and she caught my attention when I sensed her eyeballing me from across the bar. She was cute, small with short bobbed hair, and we seemd to have a lot in common, despite her (for me) 'unconventionality' (for example, she usually dressed all in black - not completely goth, per se, but not in a style that I was used to with my other girlfriends).

We went out quite a bit during the spring of 1990, hitting the bars in the Virginia Beach area, or grabbing a bite to eat at the Jewish Mother deli or Waffle House, or hanging out in her room until the wee hours (she still lived with her folks, so I had to be SUPER quiet . . .). With all the time we spent together, I gained a clearer indication of some of the issues and hangups that were obviously tormenting this girl - and there were many (which I need not go into here). Actually, I kind of sensed that something wasn't quite right with her from the first conversation we had; it wasn't anything specific, just little stuff - the way she moved her head, a telltale lilt in her voice. I should've cut and run early on, but the girl was intriguing, and fun to be around. And despite what was swirling around her her noggin, she seemed to enjoy my company just as much as I enjoyed hers. Shoot, I LIKED this girl, quite a bit. So I hung in there, hoping against hope she would - I don't know, "snap out of it" or something (yeah, yeah, I know - but I'm a guy, and that's how we think. So sue me).

The same month I started hanging out with her, MTV started airing the video of "Nothing Compares 2 U", the first single off of Sinead O'Connor's upcoming album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. The setup for the film was simple enough - a closeup of the singer, tightly focusing on her face while she sang the tune, intercut by moody, brooding shots of O'Connor wandering morosely around Paris. It's been over twenty years since this video debuted, but to this day it still retains much of its original impact and power. Sinead sings her heart out; you almost feel like a voyeur, watching this girl sing through what apparently was genuine anguish and pain (the tears falling from her eyes near the end just completely hammered that sense of loss home). And yet, you couldn't help but continue watching - she was just incredibly beautiful in the film; you couldn't take your eyes off of her:

My girlfriend and I were both big fans of this song and video, and watched a lot of MTV together, hoping to see it as much as possible. Of course, as new couples are wont to do, we strived to relate this song to our own relationship - I recall us many times staring dewy-eyed at one another while "Nothing Compares 2 U" played in the background (and yes, that is exactly as sappy as it sounds . . .). In addition to the music and atmosphere of the video, another thing that jumped out at me was the long coat that O'Connor wore during the "walking through Paris" portions. I thought to myself, "I gotta get me a coat like that!" After weeks of searching, I finally found the perfect one at a nearby Burlington Coat Factory - as black as midnight, and reaching practically down to my ankles. I wore that coat constantly, even with the weather beginning to warm up in the Norfolk area - apparently, I thought I looked cool in it.

O'Connor's LP was released in March (of course I snapped it up on cassette immediately). By the end of April/first part of May, both the album and the lead single were topping not only the American charts, but music charts worldwide. At around the same time, my ship was preparing for another six-month deployment, this time to South America. I was bumming about being away from this chick for so long, especially as she had also made plans to leave the country during that time, heading over to Europe and the Middle East for several months. I spent as much time with her as possible in my last few days in Virginia, then left one morning in early June for parts south, a very unhappy hombre.

The first month of our cruise was spent in the Caribbean, in places like Puerto Rico and Aruba. It should have been a lot more fun for me than it was. But I spent much of my time in the tropical paradises brooding over the girl I left behind. "Nothing Compares 2 U" was a big hit as well in all of the countries we visited, so it played constantly everywhere, always reminding me of her. I can recall riding in a shuttle bus in Aruba with a bunch of other shipmates, headed to Oranjestad to check out the signts and nightlife there, when suddenly this song came over the bus radio. It depressed me so much that I almost returned to the ship.

But as the cruise progressed, I began to enjoy myself more and more, and revel in all that the Caribbean and South America had to offer in terms of nightlife and danger. I attended a swank outdoor party at a naval base in Cartagena, a function quietly guarded by scores of rifle-toting Columbian Marines patrolling in the shadows. In Peru, in the midst of a martial law crackdown by the new Fujimori government, I went to a reception at the U.S. Embassy in Lima on a bus with blacked-out windows and armed guards stationed fore and aft, and during the party spoke at length with an affable embassy official who I realized much later was probably a CIA operative. I played roulette in a beautiful old casino in Valparaiso: got to wear my cool new long black coat out in Punta Arenas at the bottom of the continent: danced the lambada (badly) in Recife: and partied hard in Rio, one of the few cities in my experience which totally lived up to its advance billing.

As for my girl back in Virginia, I heard less and less from her as the weeks progressed and she was off on her own overseas trip. As my ship moved counterclockwise around the continent, the intensity of the feelings I had for her, nearly overwhelming at the beginning of the journey, began to subside. In mathematics, a standard equation is "rate equals distance over time". I discovered, as the months passed, that that numerical relationship also generally holds true for personal relationships - the rate at which I thought less and less about her increased with the length of our cruise and the time spent away from Norfolk.

By the time of our return to the U.S. in early December, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got had faded from the charts. My girl, back in the States ahead of me, was there to greet me as we pulled into port. But the thing we had had faded as well. We had a half-hearted reunion, then called it quits a couple of weeks later. I guess I knew early on that our thing wasn't built for the long haul - just like Sinead O'Connor's career. This LP and her hit song was her U.S. peak. A series of bad career moves, including two poorly received albums (1992's Am I Not Your Girl? (a set of jazz standard covers) and 1994's Universal Mother) combined with a disasterous appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in late 1992, seriously derailed her career. She wouldn't make another album until 2000's Faith And Courage. Despite her still-considerable talents, none of her efforts over the past 20 years have came close to the heights she reached in 1990. Too bad - for a short while in the music world, nothing compared to her.

Anyway, here's the album, released by Ensign Records in 1990 and distributed in the U.S. by Chrysalis Records. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think:

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And here's a special bonus: Sinead O'Connor's stunning cover of "Sacrifice", from a 1991 tribute album devoted to the songs of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. After I heard this the first time, I felt that no one should ever be allowed to cover this song again. See if you agree:

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(And, by the way - I still have that coat.)