Melbourne hits and memories keep coming. I don't think I've heard this number 16 chartbuster since 1983 when I was in grade 6. Actually I think I thought Dear Enemy and the previous post's The Little Heroes were the same band until today.
Anyway here's some more synth-rock for your 80s FM radio. Mullets with the left ear pierced was the awesome trend of the day for these fellas who packed out Victorian pubs and clubs four nights a week for a coupla years.
Before chat gpt we had blokes singing to their computers asking it questions about love.
These guys are a lost band. What the hell happened to them? They had Men At Work's producer here but Computer One failed to crack the American top 40, only reaching #58. They only had one more single just scrape into the Aussie top 40, then they were gone.
...but we still have this forgotten futuristic synth anthem from the bogan Kraftwerk.
One Perfect Day is a classic synth-y pop rock ballad. Emotional then and emotional now for very different reasons.
This was peak Australia when everyone seemed confident and everything seemed possible and you belonged here in amongst it. Even really shonky commercial music was tops.
Melancholy adult themes designed to sound great on the FM radio dial.
The upbeat synth-rock of Lady Love was a regional hit in Melbourne but surprisingly only made it to number 43 on the national charts. A triumphant blend of prominent synths and loud guitars are the order of the day here. Legendary Antipodean producer Peter Dawkins captured MEO 245 at an inspired peak during this recording. It's got a certain immediacy and contagious bounciness to meet all your new wave needs.
It' a shame this didn't get released outside of Australia because let's face it Lady Love had Canadian top 10 hit written all over it.
This time we've got Aussie group Boys from Perth with this youthful burst of new wave power pop. How was this not a top ten smash I do not know, only scraping in at number 52. Wait... according to my book When You're Lonely was actually a regional number one hit in Perth. So there you go it's a number one hit and memory to many people over there in WA.
Fashion-wise these guys were regular new wave in black or stripes just like The Pretenders or Blondie but the singer made an interesting choice with his blue singlet. Perhaps it was a strategic marketing ploy as he had teen idol good looks, looked like he could probably put in four quarters of good footy, maybe lay a few bricks, get stuck into a slab, smoke some Winnie Blues and be nice to your mum. Mass appeal assured, well in Perth anyway...
Chris Bailey's post Ed Kuepper Saints shouldn't have been called the Saints because they could never compete with that original band and those three classic LPs. However they were called The Saints and you know what? They had some great tunes and this may have been the last of them.
Still bringing you all the misses that you missed and all the memories you never had.
Here's one from forgotten Seattle power pop legends The Heats. Remember Me was surprisingly not released as a single. It appears on their one and only LP Have An Idea which is on the edgier side of new wave power pop. Irresistible pace-y hook laden tunes drenched in harmonies are the order of the day for this album which is the connoisseurs choice for greatest lost power pop record.
Bass players named Kim for a thousand. Kim Gordon, Kim Deal and this Kim from some forgotten 80s Boston band, she had hair like Jean Shrimpton and a stance just like Bill Wyman.
Nifty lyrics, crafty tune and a pretty legendary 80s alternative sound. Power pop had spent five years in the wilderness when it was brought back by The Smithereens in a new incarnation that was much darker and heavier. The dude who co-produced REM's first two LPs, Don Dixon, twiddled the knobs to great affect here.
Some albums you taped off your friends and I can picture a TDK D-90 with Especially For You on one side and 1988's Green Thoughts on the other.
More golden non hits and memories. The opening tune to the debut Shoes record Black Vinyl Shoes and it's another crackin' tune.
I hate it when all a critic can say about a band is who they influenced. However when you hear this tune it's hard not to go "oh surely Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and The Pale Saints were into this" but I don't recall any of these bands back then ever citing Shoes as an influence in interviews during the late 80s otherwise me or my mates would have had some shoes records in our collections. Shoes got on my radar a few years later though, in the mid 90s via the Rev-ola reissue of Black Vinyl Shoes. It's fitting then that Rev-ola was a Creation Records sub label.
Before indie, paisley underground, noise-pop and shoegaze you had the low key buzz of the thin fuzz of Shoes. Their lo-fi power pop with occasional neo-psych overtones was distinctly not particularly new wave-y here. They were doin their own thing. The impeccable diy four track recording of the Black Vinyl Shoes LP was released on Shoes own record label Black Vinyl Records before Bomp signed them the following year for the Tomorrow Night single (see previous post). Do You Wanna Get Lucky?'s got mellifluent melodic charms, ace chugging riff-age, the spectre of Phil Spector and that little surreal guitar break of tripped out noise is something else.
