Betty Boo - Boomania

Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia is one of the largest universities in the Tidewater area and one of the top institutions of higher learning in the state. It boasts superb facilities, nationally ranked athletic teams, a decent financial endowment and a loyal alumni fanbase. The only knock I have against the place is that, in terms of nightlife and activities, it's dull as dishwater.

I got to know ODU when I lived in nearby Virginia Beach about 20 years ago. My brother was a student there, and on occasion I used to head down into Norfolk to hang out with him. But when I say "hang out", I use that term loosely - in regards to decent bars/clubs/social amenities in close proximity to the ODU campus, the area was sorely lacking. Back then, there were three locales of any distinction close to the school - the 4400 Campus Club and another bar (whose name currently escapes me [addendum - was just informed that the other bar was called Friar Tuck's]) directly across the street from the main quad, and further up Hampton Boulevard, the King's Head, which showcased decent bands from time to time. That was it. Hell, even my alma mater, Navy, had a PUMPING nightlife just outside its gates, with the bars of downtown Annapolis a mere stagger away. The lameness of the area around ODU made Annapolis look like Las Vegas, comparatively.

Still, the ODU area had its attractions - mainly, the college girls who drank there most evenings. The 4400 Club also used to host a great DJ one night a week; the guy would play some pretty decent cuts - everything from Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and the Screaming Blue Messiahs to Madonna and the Cure. The guy also had little contests he ran during his set - trivia questions and "Name That Tune" sort of stuff. It was pretty enjoyable, and I usually ended up winning something on those evenings (due to my profound musical knowledge - ha ha), so I began making a point of going to the 4400 Club on nights this DJ worked,

One night, he was having a "Name That Tune" competition with random CD giveaways as prizes. He put the first song on, which I instantly recognized as Suidical Tendencies' "I Shot The Devil". My prize was a mixtape of various obscure songs and remixes the DJ had put together (it was actually pretty good - I still have it, all these years later) and a CD, Betty Boo's Boomania.

I listened to the Betty Boo CD the next afternoon, and initially I was convinced that the DJ was taking the mickey out of his audience (and me) by having this disc as a "prize". Englishwoman Betty Boo (real name: Alison Clarkson) was an eighteen-year-old sound engineering student in London in 1988 when she hooked up with a band of female rappers called the She Rockers. The group busked around London, and one day during one of their impromptu performances at a McDonald's in the city, were noticed by, of all people, Public Enemy's Professor Griff.  Professor Griff produced the group's first single, "Give It A Rest".

He also convinced Betty Boo to leave the group, as it appeared to be going nowhere; after little more than a year with the She Rockers, Boo went solo.

Betty's solo break came mere months later, when she guested on The Beatmaster's hit single "Hey DJ! (I Can't Dance to that Music You're Playing)", which went to #7 in the UK in late 1989.

She quickly followed up with a debut single of her own, "Doin' The Do", in early 1990. The song also went to #7 UK and topped the dance charts in the US. She spent the spring and summer of that year writing and recording songs in her bedroom for her first full-length release, which turned out to be Boomania. The album went to #4 in the UK, spawned two more UK chart hits ("Where Are You Baby?" and "24 Hours"), and at the BRIT Awards the next year (the British equivalent of the Grammys), it helped her earn the title of "Best British Breakthrough Artist". She was still only 20 years old.

The majority of the songs on Boomania are a strange hybrid of dance music and pop-rap, sort of a slightly 'harder', less trippy-dippy version of the stuff that Deee-Lite (whose album World Clique and lead single "Groove Is In The Heart" were big US/UK hits) was putting out during the same time period (Deee-Lite's album was released two months earlier, in August 1990). A lot of Boo's music sounds like the template the Spice Girls used to "create" their hateful pop-rap-dance sound ten years later - not a good thing (I'm sorry, but the British can't do rap to save their lives). Another analogy (I've got a million of 'em tonight) - Betty Boo was like Peaches with a lot less sass and a lot more accent. Which is why after that first listen, I thought the DJ gave out this disc as a joke.

However, once I delved deeper into the album, I found some gold there, once you got away from her formulaic "hits". "Valentine's Day" is an unheralded but superb tune, with Boo's voice exploring a more R&B direction. But the best song on the album in my opinion is "Shame", with Boo's excellent vocals backed by a nagging, incessant bass 'n' drum rhythm that drives the dancable groove along:

"Shame" should have been a huge club hit, but I don't think it even made the charts.

Betty Boo's fall was just as rapid as her rise. She began a world tour on Boomania, but during a concert in Australia in 1991, the audience discovered her lip syncing over taped vocals, and mass derision ensued. She cancelled the rest of the tour and stayed quiet for the rest of the year. Betty also left Rhythm King for Warner Music Group in 1991, and the next year Warner released

her sophomore LP, Grrr! It's Betty Boo. The album charted in the UK, but nowhere near the heights of her first album. In 1993, she left Warner and took time away from music to care for her terminally ill mother for the next several years; this effectively ended her singing career. In the past fifteen years or so, Betty Boo regrouped, and has carved out a niche for herself as a songwriter, writing tunes for British teen pop groups and the like.

As for the "scene" around the Old Dominion campus, the block containing the 4400 Campus Club was completely demolished at the end of the '90s. The area is now the site of the Ted Constant Convocation Center, the university's multi-purpose arena. I have no idea where the students go to hang out now - I guess they have to drive into the downtown area. Oh well.

Anyway, here, for your listening pleasure, is Betty Boo's Boomania, released in October 1990 by Rhythm King, and distributed by Sire Records. Have a listen to the cuts I mentioned above, and as always, let me know what you think:

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Poll Results - "Best 'Worst Album'"

Well, not surprised at the overall top choice. True Stories wasn't the greatest film in the world, and it got some pretty bad reviews in some quarters. But I (and many others) believe that the muted response to Talking Heads' album True Stories was due to the film's negative reception, with most people assuming that the disc was a movie soundtrack album (which it wasn't - it's a Talking Heads studio album featuring recordings of songs from the film rather than songs sung by the film's cast). Even with the huge hit "Wild Wild Life" (#4 US) on it, True Stories only made it to #28 on the US album charts, significantly lower than their previous (and in my opinion, musically weaker) album Little Creatures. There are plenty of other great songs on this disc, including one, the name of which was eventually appropriated by one of the greatest bands of the past decade - "Radio Head".

But enough of that - here are the Best Worst Albums, as selected by you all:

True Stories (Talking Heads) - 6 votes
Presence (Led Zeppelin) - 4 votes
Dirty Work (The Rolling Stones) - 2 votes
Good Stuff (The B-52's) - 1 vote
Cut The Crap (The Clash) - 1 vote
Hard (Gang Of Four) - 1 vote
One Hot Minute (The Red Hot Chili Peppers) - 1 vote
Halfway To Sanity (The Ramones) - 1 vote

And the rest, which apparently have no redeeming qualities whatsoever (0 votes):

Mad Not Mad (Madness), Around The Sun (R.E.M.), The Woman In Red (Stevie Wonder), Goodbye Cruel World (Elvis Costello), Give My Regards To Broad Street (Paul McCartney), Never Let Me Down (David Bowie), Dylan & The Dead (Bob Dylan), Total Devo (Devo), Packed! (The Pretenders)

I'm afraid to say that I own all of the albums on this List of Shame. But I must say that there are particular ones that have incurred the majority of my wrath over the years. The ones on this list that pissed me off the most, in no particular order:

- Good Stuff - The B-52's: As I've mentioned before, I was a Bee-Fives fan from waaaaaaay back. So no one was as pleased as I was when the band finally broke through in 1989 with their hit album Cosmic Thing. Sure, I was a little put out when all of those neophyte B-52's fans came out of the woodwork in its wake, shouting "Tin roof - rusted!" at the top of their lungs at every one of the band's now-packed concerts, but who generally were unfamiliar with the group's earlier songs. But that was OK - I guess when a 'cult' band goes big-time, the original fans will always sort of feel that way. So no worries there. But I was shocked to see how quickly this newfound critical and commercial adulation tore the band apart. Cosmic Thing was the first LP that the band made any serious coin on; Cindy Wilson took the money and ran, quitting the band in late 1990. With both Wilsons gone (Ricky died in 1985), it should have been time for the band to call it a day. Instead, the remaining trio (Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland and Fred Schneider) decided to soldier on, releasing Good Stuff in 1992. Good Stuff is a classic 'cash in' album, with the remaining members of the group milking their now-humongous fan base for one last big paycheck before pulling the plug. I remember buying this disc that June just before going on a road trip, so I could listen to it in the car on the way down. I thought the first song, "Tell It Like It T-I-Is", was a weak opener, but I expected the album to pick up as it progressed. No such luck. Every song on that album was weak, and WAY too long (average of 5:30 per song, with "Dreamland" clocking in at over SEVEN minutes). And frankly, the band sounded sort of worn out and jaded. It seemed that the band was going out with a whimper, instead of a bang . . .

- Cut The Crap - The Clash: I thought Combat Rock was brilliant (as I wrote in an earlier posting), so I was champing at the bit for The Clash's next release. However, I wasn't fully plugged into the whole music scene at that time, specifically the alternative music press. If I was, I would have heard more about the tensions within The Clash, specifically between Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, which eventually led to the latter's departure from the group in late 1983. You would think this would be a problem, since Jones essentially wrote all of the band's music up to that time. Undeterred, Strummer teamed up with controversial band manager Bernie Rhodes to co-write a bunch of new material, recruited a bunch of no-name musicians, and with them released these cowritten songs on Cut The Crap in November 1985. I bought this album on cassette the weekend before I headed up to the U.S. Military Academy, as part of a 7-day exchange program between the academies, ostensibly so Navy could see how Army lived, and vice-versa [quick aside: a VERY grim week there - cold and grey, in the middle of fucking nowhere. And EVERY cadet I spoke to there was hating life, rueing the day they ever HEARD of West Point . . . ]. During the bus ride from Annapolis to New York, I listened to this entire album a couple of times, and couldn't believe how bad it was. It was all just tired sounding sloganeering, a lame attempt to get back to The Clash's pure punk roots. Also remember that Mick Jones' new band, Big Audio Dynamite, put out their first album, the outstanding This Is Big Audio Dynamite, the month before this travesty came out - if Clash fans needed any further evidence as to the relative talents of Jones and Strummer, all they had to do was compare the two releases. Apparently I'm not alone in this assessment of the 'final Clash album' - the original band themselves (including Joe Strummer) have disowned this album, and its songs have never appeared on any official Clash compilation or retrospective. Cut The Crap is the Rocky V of Clash albums.

- Total Devo - Devo: I was as big a Devo fan as anyone, back in the day. But I can tell you quite frankly that Devo was D-O-N-E by 1982. Their first trio of albums (Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, Duty Now For The Future, and Freedom Of Choice) are pretty much unassailable, and even New Traditionalists, while somewhat weaker than the first three, is still a quality album. Their fifth album, 1982's Oh No! It's Devo, with its near-total reliance on synthesizers, was the first Devo album to completely splash the bowl. The follow-up, 1984's Shout, was another synthy stinker that ended my Devo fandom. But still the band soldiered on, essentially becoming embarrassing parodies of themselves. Some band members were smart enough to realize that the ship was dead in the water and sinking rapidly - longtime drummer and stalwart Alan Myers left the band around this time. He was replaced by former Gleaming Spires/Sparks drummer David Kendrick, who manned the kit for the next release, 1988's Total Devo. This album is crap, crap, crap, with Devo still concentrating on an electronic sound that had run its course five years earlier. There were no memorable songs or moments on this disc, which barely entered the Billboard Top 200 before quickly fading away. Even with the public making a loud and clear rejection of the band, Devo STILL had the gumption/wherewithal to release one more album, 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps, before the band finally, mercifully collapsed.

And so much for that. Thanks again to all who voted. I'll try to think of another poll question soon.

. . . Well, hell - since I brought this album up, I might as well have the damn thing available here; here's True Stories, released in 1986 on Sire Records. Bon appetit!

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Belly - Slow Dust EP

When I worked for a large financial institution in Rhode Island back in the early 2000s, I became good friends with my boss's administrative assistant, Sue. Sue's husband, a former newspaperman, had recently died, and she was left on her own to raise a teenage son. Despite this adversity and these setbacks in her life, Sue was just about the nicest, sweetest person you could ever want to meet in a corporate setting. I sometimes felt bad for her, because her (that is, our) boss was somewhat of a dick, and kept her jumping with demands that were sometimes frivolous. I guess technically she was my admin too, but I made a point of rarely asking her to do anything for me - I was a big boy, and was old enough at that point to do my own copying and stapling.

By the middle part of the decade, both Sue and I had left the company, but we remained in touch over the years. She continued working here and there, and ended up putting her son through college and grad school (he's now a Boston attorney). She also remarried, this time to a droll, charming older gentleman who is her perfect match. Over the years, she settled into a new life of semi-leisure with her new husband, living the genteel Newport lifestyle and doting over her now-extended family, which included several grandchildren on her husband's side. She also retained the media and political connections she made when her first husband was alive, so she was fully plugged into what was happening in the state. I left the state for a time, all the while hearing from her every so often and getting the news regarding our old office mates and whatever else was happening up in Rhode Island.

A couple of months ago, Sue extended me an invitation to the Providence Newspaper Guild Follies, an annual affair where the state's media community roasts Rhode Island's state and national government officials and lampoons the political stories that made regional headlines over the past year. From what I understood, it was to be a pretty hoity-toity affair, with most if not all of the state's leading politicians in attendance, so generally it's pretty hard for the average Joe to get into. But Sue was able to use her late husband's connections to get an entire table in her name.

Now, stuff like this is generally not my bag. I figured it was going to be pretty snobby, and very "deep politics"-oriented, referring to people and events here that I knew little if anything about. But I hadn't seen Sue in a long time, and I assumed that she wouldn't steer me wrong and invite me to something that I would find miserable and stultifying. So I accepted her invitation. At the very least, I thought, they'd probably have some decent grub.

So on an icy, snowy Saturday night in late February, I drove to the venue, the Venus De Milo banquet facility in nearby Swansea, MA (I guess there was no place in Rhode Island large enough to handle an event like this). I arrived to find the place packed with what I assumed were Rhode Island's elite, most of whom were distinguished grey-haired hawk-eyed gents in tuxedos, escorting their bejeweled blue-haired wives. Not a lot of younger 'talent' in evidence, but I figured as much before I got there. There was a period of mingling/glad-handing before the actual banquet and show. So I got a drink at the bar, then made my way to the edge of the crowd to observe the human sideshow. I spotted the new governor, Lincoln Chafee, fairly quickly, and during the course of the night I saw, and spoke with, both of Rhode Island's U.S. senators, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse. After a time, I tired of hobnobbing, and went in search of Sue's table.

I found her seated in the banquet hall with her husband and two other couples she had also invited to share her table. I settled into my place as Sue introduced me to her friends. She motioned to the older couple sitting next to me as a "Mr. & Mrs. Gorman, from Newport". I nodded politely and shook hands with them. Then Sue added this little bombshell, "Their sons used to be musicians. Have you ever heard of a band called Belly?"

I was jolted, and whirled toward the Gormans. "You're Chris and Tom's parents?", I all but shouted. They were obviously extremely pleased that I knew of their children and that band. Shoot, way back when, I was a BIG Belly fan.

Belly was formed in 1991 by Tanya Donelly and Fred Abong, both Newport natives and former members of the critically-acclaimed Throwing Muses. Donelly co-founded Throwing Muses as a fifteen-year-old high school student in 1981 with her half-sister Kristin Hersh. Ostensibly equals within the group, by the time the Muses released their fourth album, The Real Ramona, in 1991, Hersh's prolific songwriting output and overall aesthetic were almost completely eclipsing Donelly's role, relegating her to that of little more than sideman to Hersh's vision. This led to rising tensions within the band.

Actually, the tensions within Throwing Muses were evident way back in 1988, soon after the release of the band's second album House Tornado. In support of this album, the Muses went on a European tour with a band recently signed to 4AD opening for them - The Pixies. Over the course of that tour, Donelly and Pixies bassist Kim Deal began bonding, as they were both in similar circumstances within their respective bands - reduced to supporting a dominant frontperson's sound and vision. The two began discussing a side project to work on together during their bands' recording hiatus, the result of which was the formation of The Breeders and the subsequent release of Pod in 1990.

But with The Breeders, Donelly once again found herself in a familiar role - second banana to someone else. Donelly only contributed to one song on Pod; the rest had been penned by Deal during and just after the 1988 tour. Although critically acclaimed, Pod was not a strong seller. At the same time, both The Pixies and Throwing Muses were gearing up for their next albums (Trompe Le Monde and The Real Ramona, respectively), forcing the Breeders to go on hiatus. Dispirited with her experience working with/for Deal, Donelly halfheartedly rejoined her band for the recording session, a group which now featured Fred Abong on bass, a replacement for the recently departed founding member Leslie Langston. Once again, Donelly's contributions to the new Muses album were minimal; she received writing credits on only two ("Honeychain" and "Not Too Soon") of the twelve album cuts (however, "Two Step" is credited to "Throwing Muses", so I guess she gets partial credit there as well), all of which were buried on Side 2.

Apparently, these twin disappointments within a year in getting her music released were the last straw for Donelly. The Real Ramona was released in March 1991; she left both The Breeders and Throwing Muses that summer, taking Fred Abong from the latter band back to Newport with her. There, she reconnected with the Gorman brothers, childhood friends who had become musicians themselves, playing in a regional hardcore punk band called Verbal Assault. The four united as Belly, and quickly signed a recording/distribution deal with 4AD, her previous band's label.

Belly entered the studio in Warren, RI in the spring of 1992; their first release, the four-song Slow Dust EP, came out in late June of that year. Donelly wrote every word and note of the EP, and she had to feel some sort of vindication when the EP became a sensation and smashing success in the UK, where it reached Number One on the country's indie charts. It also received significant airplay here in the States; my local alternative station, WHFS, had it on heavy rotation during the summer of 1992. I bought that EP the moment it came out here, and played it to death on my car's CD player.

On the strength of the EP, 4AD rush-released Belly's first full-length album, Star, in January 1993, again with all songs written by Donelly (three of the songs off the EP were included on the album). 4AD's optimism was rewarded - Star was an unexpected hit in the U.S., garnering Gold record status with over 800,000 copies sold (2 million + worldwide), spawning three Modern Rock chart hits ("Feed The Tree", "Slow Dog", and "Gepetto") and later being nominated for two Grammy awards. The album also reached #2 on the UK album charts, thrashing anything the Muses ever put out over there (or The Breeders, for that matter). Donelly had to feel on top of the world at that point. Belly was so huge in 1993 that, for their tour that summer, their opening band was Radiohead.

Unfortunately, 1993 was Belly's peak. For some reason, Fred Abong quit the band shortly after the release of Star, altering the band's overall sound to something 'rockier' and more mainstream. Belly's sophomore effort, 1995's King, was not well-received due to this change in sound, selling only a fraction of what Star did. Donelly broke up the band soon afterwards.

Since then, Tanya Donelly has released several solo albums of middling success, and even reconciled with Kirstin Hersh, since 2000 appearing on stage and on record occasionally at Throwing Muses reunions. Fred Abong dabbled around with music for a while, then went back to school. He recently received an MA in Humanities from Salve Regina University in Newport. And in chatting with their parents, I learned that the Gorman brothers now have a photography studio in Brooklyn, and apparently are doing well with that. It was weird but cool talking to the Gormans at that event. Here I was, in the midst of some pretty "inside" political discussion and bantering, listening to them talk about heading over to Europe with their sons for part of their band's tour, hanging out backstage at their concerts (yes, she actually met Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood during the '93 tour, and said they were "nice boys"), and having Kristin Hersh over at their house for lunch. It's funny who you end up meeting, in the most unlikely venues, eh?

Anyway, here's Belly's first release, the Slow Dust EP, put out by 4AD in England and distributed in America by Sire Records. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think:

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Jerry Harrison - Casual Gods

Jerry Harrison gets no respect.

Here's a guy who was a major contributing member of not one, but TWO seminal bands - the first a hugely influential proto-punk group linking the arty sound of the Velvet Underground with the raucous punk rock yet to come; the second one of the most innovative and critically acclaimed bands of the 1980s - and you almost NEVER hear his name mentioned in relation to them. It's really too bad, and it does a grave disservice to what Jerry Harrison brought to each of these groups.

A talented and all-around smart guy, Jerry Harrison started playing keyboards with bands in his native Milwaukee, and continued finding groups to play with while studying as an undergraduate at Harvard. In early 1971, just before he graduated, a local musician buddy of his, a VU fanatic named Jonathan Richman, convinced him to join his band, The Modern Lovers. Within a year, the Modern Lovers were getting a lot of attention from some major labels, and in the spring of 1972 the band flew to L.A. to record some demos with John Cale, songs that were eventually released in 1976 on the now-classic album The Modern Lovers. Despite all of the industry attention, a deal never came through, and by 1973 Harrison had parted company with Jonathan Richman and returned to Harvard to teach.

Teaching was his gig in Cambridge for the next couple of years, along with playing music with several local bands. Then Harrison began a new course of study in architecture at Harvard. One night in April 1976, he went across the Charles River over to Boston, to the Berklee School of Music there to check out a visiting band, a quirky New-York-by-way-of-Providence trio called Talking Heads. He enjoyed the show, but was convinced that the band was missing one essential ingredient - himself. He began campaigning for inclusion in the group, and by September of that year, he was a full-fledged member. Talking Heads signed with Sire Records the following year, and the rest is history . . .

When people talk about the sound or the success of Talking Heads, a lot of that discussion centers around David Byrne (of course), or the rhythm section of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz. Heck, even Brian Eno gets more than his rightful share of credit for the development of their sound. Many people seem to forget that Talking Heads had been playing since 1974, and had recorded several demos, but hadn't gotten anywhere in the industry until Harrison and his keyboards joined the group. It's no coincidence that the major label signing came mere months after he joined up. That fact is conveniently forgotten. In many ways, Jerry Harrison is sort of the Lindsey Buckingham of Talking Heads - the factor that pushed their respective bands over the top, that no one seems to remember or talk about (heck, Harrison and Buckingham even look somewhat alike!).

Harrison was a loyal soldier within Talking Heads, unlike Frantz and Weymouth, who chafed under the semi-benevolent band dictatorship of initially Byrne and Eno, then Byrne alone. Frantz and Weymouth's side project, Tom Tom Club, and the release of their self-titled first album in 1981, was basically an act of defiance against Byrne. Harrison also released his first solo project in 1981, The Red And The Black, but it was done more for something to do during the band's two-year hiatus between Remain In Light and Speaking In Tongues. As a debut, Harrison's album was superb, expanding upon the sounds and ideas present on Talking Heads' Remain In Light (and using a lot of the same personnel, like Nona Hendryx and Bernie Worrell).

Harrison's second solo release, Casual Gods, came out six years later, just as Talking Heads was falling apart. "Man With A Gun" was part of the Something Wild soundtrack, and when I saw the movie that year and heard the song, I knew instantly that it was by Jerry Harrison. I think I got this album shortly after I purchased the movie soundtrack. In Casual Gods, Harrison winds down the percussive funk of his debut, moving into more of a looser, groovier, more radio-friendly vibe. That's not to say that he sold out on this album - au contraire! The songcraft and selection are totally solid, and even Harrison's singing improves slightly on this album. He even got a semi-big radio hit off of this release, "Rev It Up".

Since the demise of Talking Heads, Jerry Harrison has gone on to be an in-demand producer of successful albums for a host of bands, including Violent Femmes, General Public, Live and No Doubt. He also was one of the founders of garageband.com, which showcases unknown independent bands. His own music-making days may be over, but the guy left a small but excellent legacy of his own work behind.

Check this out, and let me know what you think. Rev it up!

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Martini Ranch - Holy Cow

I first heard the song "World Without Walls" in 1988, listening to the old WHFS while driving through Washington, DC. I immediately recognized Cindy Wilson's voice in the chorus, and at first assumed, with no small amount of excitement, that the B-52s were recording again and about to release another album. Mind you, at that time, it had been more than two years since the B-52's last album, Bouncing Off The Satellites, released in the wake of guitarist Ricky Wilson's death in October 1985. A lot of people, myself included, assumed that with the lack of a supporting tour for that album, and the general silence of the band over the intervening years, the B-52s were finished (of course, within two years, that would turn out to be untrue . . .). So it was good to hear what I assumed were noises from that quarter.

I wasn't quick enough to catch the name of the song at the time, so it took me a while to discover that it was not a new B-52s song at all, but one by a band called Martini Ranch. Martini Ranch was started in 1982 by guitarist Andrew Rosenthal, who noodled around the edges of L.A.'s rock scene for a while until

hooking up with a new friend and bandmate, actor Bill Paxton.  Yes, THAT Bill Paxton. In the mid-1980s, Paxton had been making a bit of a name for himself in movies like Stripes, Streets of Fire and, of course, Weird Science. But he wasn't really a huge name in Hollywood yet, so he split his time on both acting and musical endeavors.

The result was Martini Ranch's sole album, Holy Cow. Despite the band dragging in several of their more famous and successful music and Hollywood friends for guest appearances (including the aforementioned Cindy Wilson, members of Devo and Judge Reinhold(!)), or maybe because of it, this album is frankly kind of crap. Its sound, a sort of generic hybrid late-80s LA synth-pop, was dated about two minutes after the album was pressed. And a lot of the ideas behind the songs are too jokey, lame or half-baked. "World Without Walls" is the best song on the album, but that's not saying it's a classic.

With contributions from the B-52s and Devo (two long-time favorite bands of mine), this album should have been right in my wheelhouse. But outside of a couple of songs, it's just irritating. I think that Bill Paxton made the right decision to concentrate on acting. But here - you decide:  

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