Insiders “Ghost On The Beach”

I wonder what would have happened if the Insiders showed up with a record deal a couple of years later than they did.  I first heard about the Insiders by listening to WXRT.   The band, from the North Side of Chicago, major label debut Ghost On The Beach was released on Epic Records in 1987.  Their time in the spotlight was short lived.  Despite a deal for up to 10 albums with Epic Records, the band and the label split after the label “didn’t hear a hit” on the groups second album.   It makes sense, because by 1989 the pop rock sound was waning on pop radio and many artists who had enjoyed much hit radio success in the 90′s were being relegated to AC radio in favor of rhythmic artists.

If the Insiders had come along a couple of years, with Nirvana, Soul Asylum and all the other “alternative” sounding bands getting ready to explode would there have been a different outcome for the group?  I think so.  Listen to this song, then listen to a lot of the lighter sounding alternative music that hit the scene in the early 90′s.  Easily the Insiders could have had a few hits in that era.

While the Insiders made it further than a lot of Chicago rock groups, I have to say this is a song that should have been a hit but never really was.

Eve’s Plum “Cherry Alive”

“Cherry Alive” is the title track from the group’s second album, which was worked hard by Sony Music.  Eve’s Plum is a one hit wonder from the alternative 90′s explosion.  The group consisted of singer Colleen Fitzpatrick (vocals), Ben and Michael Kotch (drums and guitar respectively) and  Chris Giammalvo (bass.)  Giammalvo would be replaced by Theo Mack in 1994 before the release of Cherry Alive.

After starting the band in 1991 they were signed by Sony Music and released the album Envy.   The album’s first single “Blue” was featured in an episode of Beavis and Butthead but failed to chart.   The albums third single “I Want It All” would chart for one week on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart at #30.   Then the group appeared in the film Higher Learning performing the song “Eye” which didn’t chart either.  Sony worked four tracks from Cherry Alive none of which charted, and soon after dropped the band.

Why the band didn’t score some type of hit off of Cherry Alive is open to speculation.  I think Eve’s Plum just had the bad luck of being not rock enough for Alternative, and not pop enough for the Modern AC format that was taking hold at the time.  All the groups members went on to do other things in music.  Colleen Fitzpatrick, though, had the most chart success post Eve’s Plum.  Her song “Graduation (Friends Forever’) and “Smile” both charted around the turn of the 21st Century.

Currently Fitzpatrick is still recording trying to get a new record deal, and has had success writing for others including:  Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana and Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez.

Juice Newton “Queen of Hearts”

Juice Newton’s “Queen of Hearts” from her third solo album Juice is the second of three hits from that album.  “Queen of Hearts” has an interesting story. Hank DeVito, Emmylou Harris’ pedal steel guitarist, wrote the song .  Dave Edmund’s released the first version of the song in 1979 on his album Repeat When Necessary and went to #11 with it in the UK.  In 1980 Rodney Crowell put it on his album But What Will The Neighbors Think with DeVito playing pedal steel guitar.  It’s biggest US exposure though came when Juice Newton recorded it.

Newton’s version of “Queen of Hearts” made it to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981.  It probably would have made it to #1 had it not been for “Endless Love” by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie which kept it from the #1 spot.  Newton would go on to straddle the pop / country sound through most of the 1980′s.   In the 90′s Newton contributed to a Edith Piaf tribute album, recorded an album of duets that wouldn’t see the light of day because of legal problems until an “accidental release” in 2000 and an album of new material in 1999.

In 2005 she appeared on the show Hit Me Baby One More Time and performed a folk version of Ashlee Simpson’s “Pieces of Me”  and a short version of “Queen of Hearts.”   In 2007 she released a Christmas album and in 2010 released an album entitled Duets: Friends & Memories.  This past summer saw the release of Juice Newton: The Ultimate Hits Collection.

While “Queen of Hearts” made it to the top of the charts I suspect it’s country sound has kept it from getting airplay on anything other than a really well done 80′s feature.

Jay Ferguson “Thunder Island”

A lot of us hear a little ditty from Jay Ferguson every Thursday Night and we don’t even know it’s him.  I’ll tell you about that in a couple of minutes.  “Thunder Island” is the title track off of Ferguson’s second album which came out in 1978.  I was first introduced to the song when my buddy Chip put a bunch of classic hits on a CD for me that were some of his favorite songs.  “Thunder Island” has that 1970′s sweet rock sound that was too rock for oldies radio and too pop for Classic Rock for years.  It’s a sound that I think sounds great on the radio, especially on a sunny day in the summer.   With the merging and melding of oldies and classic hits this song hopefully will get a little more airplay than it has in the past.

That ditty a lot of us hear on Thursday Nights that you’d never guess is him?  It’s the theme to the Office.  After 6 solo albums Ferguson decided to write music for movies and television.  He is the composer of the theme to the Office, which won him “2007 Film & TV Music Award for Best Score for a Comedy Television Program.”

Here’s the office theme if you’re interested:

The Kings “This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide

Rarely has a band gotten as much mileage out of a song than the Kings have with “This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide.”   I first heard the song during it’s late 1980′s revival on Chicago radio.  97.9 the Loop, Classic Rock 105.9 WCKG and Chicago’s Finest Rock were all bangin’ the song on a regular basis.  Chicago DJ Bob Storud, then at WLUP, even had his band Rockestra record a version of the song.  Yet, the groups label Elektra didn’t realize this was happening, and missed a golden opportunity for a re-issue.   Arguably, one might consider this one of the last times a band scored a “regional” hit.

“This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide,” however, was a hit before the late 1980′s.  It charted in 1980 and the band even appeared on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.  Unfortunately the band never had another hit that approached the status of “This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide.”   The Kings are still together, and still mining gold from this song.  They currently have a full length DVD out called Anatomy of a One-Hit Wonder: The Kings This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ To Glide.

Classic Rock stations don’t play this song very much, but I found a copy somewhere and played it on 95.7 the Rocket while I programmed it.  I thought it was a great spice track.

Dweezil Zappa “Let’s Talk About It”

First off, let me say I can’t believe it’s been a month since I’ve updated this site.  Lot’s of stuff at work going on, and this project sort of got lost in the shuffle.  On to today’s song “Let’s Talk About It” from Dweezil Zappa.  I had forgotten about this song for years until my buddy Vince was going to play “Heartbeat” by Don Johnson during my station’s Awesome 80′s Lunch feature.  He mentioned to me that Dweezil Zappa played guitar on the track.  I casually mentioned Dweezil had a song get some airplay roughly around the same time.  He asked what the song was so I did a little research and found this gem.

“Let’s Talk About It” is a song from Dweezil’s first solo record Havin’ A Bad Day released in 1986.  The album generally got good reviews based on Dweezil’s great shredding and solid rhythm section.  The criticism I picked up from the review I read singled out this and one other track as being anti climatic, mainly because Moon Unit handles lead vocals on the songs, and they paled in comparison to his vocals on other tracks.  I think her vocals feel a little flat.

Of course “Let’s Talk About It” is the track MTV decided to air.  Which lead to both Dweezil and Moon Unit getting lots of air time as guest VJs on the channel.  They were on so much at some point I didn’t realize they were guest VJs.   He would lose his VJ job after bad mouthing MTV during an appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show.

Some info from the credits:  Dweezil’s dad, while serving as producer didn’t play on the album.  Also the album contained no keyboards or synthesizers.   Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait also provided some vocals for the album.

Eric Clapton “The Core”

I submit that if “The Core” had been 3:30 or 4:40 it would have been a huge hit.  The song shows off Clapton’s brilliant playing, has an awesome riff, and a great blues/pop sound.  Marcy Levy’s vocals, the horn section and the rest of it have this song ozzing pop.   Based around an infectious guitar riff and was originally known as “The Riff”.  While not a single off of Slowhand, “The Core”,  lead song on side 2 of the LP became a classic based on the popularity of the album.  The album itself spawned three singles “Cocaine”  “Lay Down Sally” and “Wonderful Tonight”.   Marcy Levy also wrote “Lay Down Sally” while a member of Clapton’s band.   The album itself reached #2 on the Billboard Album Charts and ranked #325 on Rolling Stone magazines list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Marcy Levy would eventually move to London and take her home town’s name as part of her stage name Marcella Detroit.  She would go on to be in Bananarama and Shakespear’s Sister.

Sheryl Crow “My Favorite Mistake”

When it comes to prolific artists like Sheryl Crow, there’s a variety of songs to choose from.  As an artist’s career progresses, radio tends to stop playing hits that programmers think aren’t the cream of the crop.  There’s a few Sheryl Crow songs that this has happened to.  One of them is 1998′s “My Favorite Mistake.”   The song is the first release from her CD The Globe Sessions and went to #20 in the US and #9 in the UK.

The song is widely believed to be about her relationship with Eric Clapton, although some believe the lover she’s talking about is Jacob Dylan.  Over the years she’s compared the speculation about the song to Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.”   She has gone on the record since then and said she doesn’t consider her relationship with Clapton “a mistake” and referred to Clapton in concert as “a real good friend of mine.”  So the song probably isn’t about him.  Crow has told the BBC this song is her favorite single and she still has fun playing it in concert.

 

Kate Bush “Rubberband Girl”

Kate Bush’s song “Rubberband Girl” was her first release off The Red Shoes in 1994.  The song did very well on the US Modern Rock charts because it came out during the period when CHR stations were flipping to “Modern Rock” formats and stations were playing a good variety of “alternative” artists.  Kate Bush, being old school when it comes to Alternative music, was able to take this song to #7  on the Modern Rock charts.  It did well on the UK singles chart going to #12, but faltered on the Billboard Hot 100 only making it to #88.

There was a very disco sounding remix released in the States called the U.S. mix.  Some folks don’t believe it’s called the U.S. mix for United States, but the U. S. Mix for Utah Saints who had used “Cloudbusting” in one of their songs.  This may very well be more legend than truth since the remix was credited to American DJ Eric Kuppa.

Personally, and this has less to do with the song than the Alternative Music genre, I think as a radio format programmers shouldn’t have squeezed out a lot of the music like this as the 90′s progressed.  I enjoyed the very early days of the 90′s Alternative boom specifically because of artists like Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, The Wallflowers etc.  Yes, pop radio co-opted a lot of these artists, but I think the format could have thrived if they kept at it.  The similarities of the Alternative and Active Rock format heading into the 21st Century really wrecked both genres in my opinion and left listeners who wanted to hear more than aggressive music with no real radio stations to listen to.

Utah Saints “Something Good”

“Something Good” is a great dance track and one of my favorites when I worked for Energy 88-7 WLUW in Chicago.  The original prominently sampled Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting” and went to #4 on the UK singles chart and #7 on the US Club chart.   Record producer Bill Drummond called them the first “stadium house band” although to my ears the music is way more driving and European than House Music.

One misconception is that Kate Bush sued the band for use of her music in the song, that’s false, it was cleared before release and Bush even sold the band footage from “Cloudbusting” to use in their video.

In 2008 a remix of “Something Good” took England by storm where it reached #8 on the charts.  This version used a re-recorded sample of “Cloudbusting” by Pop Idol winner Davina Perera.  You can see the remix here.