Posted in Uncategorized on March 31, 2021 by 80smetalman
I’ve been wracking my brains over the past few days trying to find something unique to say about heavy metal in the year 1987. In the end, I still couldn’t think of anything. There were no history changing events in music that I can remember, except for possibly the emergence of rap metal compliments of RunDMC the previous year. This new genre would be made even more popular in 1987 thanks to the Beastie Boys. Don’t worry, I’ll definitely visit their album in a future post! However, while there might not of been any life changing occurrences in music in that year, that doesn’t mean to say that 1987 was some sort of bland year in music. It definitely was not! There were a lot of great albums to be listened to an enjoyed. I know, I listened and enjoyed a lot of them and you will get to read about it here.
Beastie Boys
While, in that year, heavy metal was still splitting into sub-genres and that’s not a bad thing, there were voices in the music world calling for unity. Of all the great song lyrics from that year, the one which sticks in my mind the most was from Suicidal Tendencies who sang, “I don’t care about the clothes you wear, it’s the size of your heart not the length of your hair.” Maybe that’s something we can all take on boards.
Suicidal Tendencies
For me, 1987 was a year of much change. I started the year an angry young man. What I thought was hatred for my country of birth was still stirring strong inside me but that lessened as the year went on. The major breakthrough was when I finally started to receive my Veteran’s educational benefits. But there was another major occurrence in my life. I met my first wife and got married and as a result of that, would change countries of residence as come August, I will have been living in the UK for 35 years! So, for me, 1987 was a good year in many ways. But enough about me, let’s get to the great music which came out in this year.
Next post: REO Speedwagon- Life As We Know It
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
Posted in Uncategorized on March 27, 2021 by 80smetalman
This is the last of the series from previous one hit wonder posts because from 1984 on, I included the songs in the actual posts. I have decided to include one song from 1983 which will be deemed controversial. Nowadays, this song would probably never see the light of day but in 1983, it brought a lot of laughs, especially if you listened to the Dr. Demento Show on Sunday evening radio. However, I have decided to leave it in because it is a part of music history and history should never, never be erased. In this case, it’s a great scale to measure how much things have changed over the past 40 years or so. FFI: Click the link below.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 24, 2021 by 80smetalman
1982 was possibly the first year where I posted songs from those who weren’t actual one hit wonders. One was from a band who had already been around for a couple of years and had some great albums. It’s just in 1982, they only released a single. FFI click the link below. It was, after all, the year I discovered my all time favourite country song.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 21, 2021 by 80smetalman
Here I go again, this time it’s from 1981. At least one of these might surprise you but as always, there is method to my madness. Clink the link to read the full story from 1981.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 20, 2021 by 80smetalman
Carrying on with 1979 and 80. I’m attaching the links to the original posts for those years but I’m now giving you the songs to relive the memories. This way I don’t have to explain again why I have a disco song in 1979 when I was a fully paid of member of the “Death Before Disco” club.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 17, 2021 by 80smetalman
Because I didn’t start the one hit wonders segment until I was well into 1978, I realized that there were more songs from my youth which I had lingered in the “Saved” file of my mind only to come to the front when I made the previous post. So, I now present three more songs pre-1978, which were from artists who were either one hit wonders or I just never got around to exploring them more. I promise, this will be the last of pre-78.
Carl Douglas
Some say that I should look back on this and cringe at the fact that in 1975, “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas was my favourite song at the time. Well, I wasn’t the only one who sited it as their favourite. Most of my junior high school and beyond said the same thing, even if they won’t admit it now. I wonder that in today’s “woke” climate, if the lyrics of the song would now be considered racist.
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
Winter of 1977, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s big single “Blinded By the Light” was my favourite song at the time despite having stiff competition from Boston’s “More Than a Feeling.” As a very impressionable fifteen year old, I thought the guitars and keyboards on this song were just out of this world. Manfred Mann were in no way one hit wonders but I never really delved into them beyond their hits. “Mighty Quinn” is a brilliant song too.
I don’t know if I can call “Lonely Boy” from one hit wonder, Andrew Gold, (he was definitely one in the US), my favorite song in the summer of 1977, but it was definitely a prominent song at the time. Like with “Shannon” the year before, when the camp I worked at that summer went roller skating, this song got played each night. Not during the couples skate of course.
Those were three more songs from my youth and they all still linger in my memory.
Next post: Definitely will be One Hit Wonders From 1979-80.
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
Posted in Uncategorized on March 14, 2021 by 80smetalman
Since I started adding song samples to my posts, posting about albums has been more successful of jogging people’s memories or even introducing them to songs that have been considered long forgotten. This has especially been the case when I’ve written the “One Hit Wonder” posts for each year of the tour through rock and metal history. People might not have remembered a song but when they listened to it here, they thought, “Oh yeah, now I remember that one.” However, I didn’t start posting sample songs until the tour of 1984 began. So, I thought that it would be a good idea before I launch into the metal history of 1987, that I’d go back down memory lane and upload all the songs from the one hit wonders and other significant songs between the years 1978 and 83. And because I didn’t think of the one hit wonder idea before I was into 1978, I thought I’d start by including two songs which I remember quite well from before that year.
Henry Gross
I worked at a summer camp during the summers of 1976, 7 and 8 and every Tuesday night the camp would go roller skating at the local rink. In the summer of 1976, the song, “Shannon” by one hit wonder Henry Gross seemed to get played at every last couple’s skate of the evening.
A recent post from Lana got me thinking about this next song. When I think back to late 1977 and early 1978, I can sympathize how songs can get overplayed to the point of putting you off them. During that time, it seemed every time I turned on the radio, “Baby Come Back” by the band Player would be playing. So much so, I got tired of hearing it, especially when I song I thought was far better, “Come Sail Away” by Styx wasn’t played enough. Having not listened to the song after so many decades and listening to it again, I realize that it’s a pretty good 1970s progressive rock tune. It’s too bad that Player were only one hit wonders. On the other hand, “Come Sail Away” still blows “Baby Come Back” away!
1978
The main purpose of this was for you to listen to the songs that weren’t uploaded when I wrote the original post. So, to save time and me repeating myself, if you want to read about my motivations behind these songs or just want to stroll through history, I’ve provided a link for 1978 and will do so for the other years in the upcoming posts.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 10, 2021 by 80smetalman
One point of heavy metal debate in 1986 came with the emergence of glam metal. There were a lot of heavy metal musicians who wore more make up than my sister, ratted out their hair and basically looked like girls. I have always found the whole thing rather amusing but it did get some hostility from the emerging thrash element. Wayne’s World, (Not the film but the segment on Saturday Night Live) even did a top ten list of rock dudes who look like chicks. Before I get to it, I would like to put down my top three in the category as they don’t appear in Wayne’s list.
3. Michael Monroe- Hanoi Rocks
2. Vinnie Vincent
1. Wayne includes just the bass player in his list, I think the whole band should be there.
I hope you enjoyed that and feel free to let me know your choices!
Next post: Since I didn’t start including songs in my posts until I got to 1984, I thought I would venture back and share the actual songs from one hit wonders between 1978-83.
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
Posted in Uncategorized on March 7, 2021 by 80smetalman
Michael Stanley
I have just learned that 1970s-80s singer, song writer Michael Stanley has passed away in his sleep after a long battle with lung cancer he was 72. Michael was best known for fronting the Michael Stanley Band, two of whose albums I posted here what seems a very long time ago. Those albums were his 1982 “MSB” and the 1983 “You Can’t Fight Fashion,” which yielded one of my all time favourite songs, “My Town.” Another tragic loss for music.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 7, 2021 by 80smetalman
Recently, many of you have been writing about how music has kept you going in these troubling and uncertain times. It has been the same for me. However, as I have been posting about all the great music which came about in 1986, it has reminded me how music got me through the end of that year. As the year was closing out, I was attending university in London. During the Christmas break, most of the other students went home, leaving me pretty much on my own except for a couple of friends. I couldn’t do much because I was going through financial hardship at the time due to the Veteran’s Administration refusing to give me my veteran’s educational benefits stating the course I was pursuing in London wasn’t approved. It even went as far as for me to declare that I hated America. This was against a backdrop of a small but vocal minority of British students who believed the myth that all American students were filthy rich. Needless to say, I was at a very low point in my life but fortunately, I had music to soothe the pain.
It’s a McDonald’s now but in 1986, this place was a great Friday night heavy metal club.
Every Friday night, we would go to a club called Oscar’s in a part of London known as Newbury Park. As you can see, it’s a McDonald’s now but back then, all the metalheads in the area would go there to headbang away. There was even a guy who was the splitting image of Ozzy who used to go there. Another common occurrence was during the guitar solos, everyone on the dance floor would stop headbanging and form a big pile up in the middle of the floor. Yes, to the average observer, it all looked very homo-erotic but no one cared. It is also where I got the attention of the woman I would marry six months later when I went sliding across the floor on my knees and started playing air guitar on her leg. Oh, we were already acquainted by then but I thought it was a good way of making a grand gesture. Ah, the memories! I did happen to go to that McDonald’s in 1998 and while the inside might have changed, I could still see Oscar’s in my mind.
Before I went to London in that summer, there were two songs from 1986 which have always stuck in my mind. Both were related to the Cold War and East-West tensions. First, I’m surprised no one has asked why I didn’t include Sting’s debut album, “Dream of the Blue Turtles.” Basically, it was because I wasn’t impressed the songs I did hear on it and was convinced that like other artists I accused of doing so, he had sold out and became a Top 40 singer. However, the single “Russians” has always stuck in my mind. Likewise for Elton John. I really liked his early 1970s material but thought the same of Elton come the 1980s. It didn’t help that a video for one of his songs brought back a lot of painful memories for me. Anyhow, while it’s not a rocker, the lyrics to his 1986 single, “Nikita,” has also stuck in my mind. Probably because I was very politically aware at the time.
Beki Bondage
Back to London, what I loved about the city in 1986 was that somewhere, at some pub or club, there would be a heavy metal or hard rock band playing. One I mention quite a bit in “Rock and Roll Children” was a pub called “The Wellington” in the Shepherd’s Bush part of the city. I saw some great bands there, including the band who I became friends with, Torque Show. However, one November evening in 1986, I attended a benefit gig to raise money to fight drug addiction in young people, a worthy cause. Opening was an Iron Maiden influenced band called Elixir and there was an band made up from musicians from around the city, which included Lisa Dominique on vocals and on bass was a musician who appeared on the popular UK soap opera “East Enders.” Closing out the night was a band called Beki and the Bombshells, led by Beki Bondage. They were described as a punk/metal crossover but they ended the evening very well.
Well, that concludes the tour of 1986. You know, at one point, I thought I would never get through the year as there were so many great albums. Maybe in one case, it was a very good thing for me at the time because music can help you forget your troubles even if it’s only for a brief moment. One final note, I hear that The Wellington is now either a Burger King or KFC.
Next post: Rock Dudes Who Look Like Chicks
To buy Rock and Roll Children, email me at: tobychainsaw@hotmail.com
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