Everywhere At Once: New Wave One Hit Wonders in Southern California

Wall of Voodoo

It’s no surprise that the post-punk/new wave era begat arguably more one-hit wonders than any other musical era before or since (the days of 60’s garage punk and of late 80’s hair metal are up there too).  For a time between about 1981 and 1985 it seemed like every English kid with a funny haircut and weird band name had one song that grabbed a brief quota of attention. 

Southern California, where I grew up, had its share of local one hit wonders who came out of the post-punk scene.  In a previous post I mentioned the group Wall of Voodoo.  Started by film score crafter Stan Ridgeway and Bruce and Mark Moreland, formerly of the first-generation punk band the Skulls, Wall of Voodoo created music that pulled on several different sonic strands, including punk, new wave, spaghetti western film scores, country, and avant-classical.  Their huge hit was “Mexican Radio”, which perfectly captures the strange post-punk-meets-spaghetti-western-soundtrack vibe of their work.  But a song that was almost as popular in my junior high was “Red Light”, which starts with a catchy beat and strident keyboards that owe a debt to LA’s seminal industrial punk band the Screamers.  The frantic rhythm and squalling guitars alternatively give this a new wave and a punk feel, respectively.  In a perfect world this would have been what the Screamers might have evolved into had they survived long enough.  But Ridgeway gives it his own personal touch with the guitars that come in throughout the song, which alternatively evoke that same spaghetti western feel of “Mexican Radio” and the funk guitar of groups like Parliament.  At the time, this song was just weird enough, but also just catchy enough, that it became a regional hit on LA radio (most notably alternative pioneers KROQ and the pre-metal KNAC).

Another twitchy new wave hit, both locally and nationally, was “The Fanatic” by Felony.    Lead singer Jeffery Spry had been a member of Ron and Scott Asheton’s post-Stooges band New Order (not to be confused with the much better-known English band of the same name that morphed out of Joy Division), along with Dennis Thompson of the MC5 circa ’75-77 but in 1980 or so formed a new band along with his brother Joe.  “The Fanatic” was featured in the seminal movie “Valley Girl” and has edgy lyrics about, well, a fanatic who’s into cigarettes and alcohol and dirty movies and other vices.   The song has a percolating bass line and memorable keyboard riff and a poppy rhythm but mostly is carried by Jeff’s slightly shrill vocals, which lend an authenticity to his talk of strange perversions and obsessions. 

A quick digression here:  If you haven’t seen it, “Valley Girl” is a great movie to check out, if only for the music.  Of all the movies that came out about teen life in the 1980’s, “Valley Girl” definitely had the soundtrack that was most spot-on in terms of what my friends and I were listening to at that time and in that place (i.e., Southern California circa 1981 or 2), and is a classic slice of early 80’s new wave one-hit wonders.  Pretty much everyone I knew loved the song “I Melt With You” by Modern English; it was THE most romantic song ever as far as we were concerned, and girls in particular loved it.  “Love My Way” by the Psychedelic Furs was similarly beloved for its lush feel.  “Jukebox” by the Flirts is an incredibly catchy slice of 80’s new wave-inflected girl group pop, while “Eyes of a Stranger” by the Payolas is soulful and a little dark.  Josie Cotton, who is featured performing in the climactic prom scene, offers up two of her catchy 60’s-influenced songs, the terrific “He Could Be The One”, with its swirling Farfisa organ and hip shaking 60’s feel, and the more novelty-oriented “Johnny Are You Queer?”  Men At Work went on to have several hits over the ensuing years but “Who Can It Be Now” is a great example of their own sax-heavy, slightly neurotic take on new wave.  And of course Ron and Russell Mael’s group Sparks contributed two songs, “Angst in my Pants”, which is on the soundtrack, and “Eaten by the Monster of Love”, which is in the film but not on the soundtrack.  Has there ever been a band who had such a different and successful second act than Sparks?  As mentioned in a previous post, Sparks started as one of the strangest, quirkiest glam/glitter rock bands, relocating to England in the mid-70’s and achieving some fame there.  But by the 80’s they’d successfully merged with the exploding new wave scene and made a handful of hits that were funny, catchy and intelligent. 

Another band featured performing in “Valley Girl” was the seminal LA powerpop band, the Plimsouls.  Their song “Million Miles Away” was a huge local hit in LA and is still one of my favorite songs to this day, even though I listened to it about a billion times back then.  But they also perform two other marvelous songs in this movie, the incredibly up-beat “Everywhere At Once” (the title song of their debut album) and the beautiful ballad “Oldest Story in the World”.  Incidentally, they perform these songs at the LA club the Central (sometimes called the Club Central), which in time morphed into Johnny Depp’s club the Viper Room (outside of which young actor River Phoenix tragically overdosed in 1993).  My favorite musical part of this movie is when punks Randy and Fred have absconded with the willing Julie and reluctant Staci and are taking them “over the hill” into Hollywood, which was taboo territory to good suburban Vals because of its crime and sleaze.  As they crest Mulholland “I La La Love You” by Pat Travers comes on, and Staci says “I hate this song” at the same time Randy says “I love this song”.  Just hearing this song even now still elicits a shiver of illicit anticipation in me.  Not too many years after this movie came out, I was a sheltered suburban geek let loose in the big city of LA when I went off to college at UCLA, and this scene evokes all of the excitement and thrill I’d feel whenever older, more knowledgeable friends would take me into the heart of Hollywood and LA to go clubbing.  A couple years later my girlfriend at the time lived in the Valley and we’d drive over the Hills and come down Highland Avenue and into Hollywood just like they do in the movie and go to clubs like English Acid, Cheetah, Power Tools, and Scream.  I love the montage scene too of all the old Hollywood haunts, too—the late lamented Seven Seas club, the Rainbow,  the Roxy, etc.  After they enter the club the Plimsouls perform “Everywhere At Once” and “Million Miles Away”, two of their best songs.  Finally the scene cuts to Randy and Julie making out in his convertible while Fred chases Staci around the car; Gary Myrick’s magnificent “Time To Win” (strangely, this song isn’t on the soundtrack though his other song, “She Talks In Stereo”, is), a wonderful slice of early 80’s new wave-inflected hard rock, plays in the background.  This to me is the musical heart of this movie—four transcendent songs that still sound wonderful and evoke a powerful sense of nostalgia for such innocent times.

Speaking of innocence, don’t be duped by any of the terrible “Valley Girl” wannabe crap that’s currently available on iTunes—none of it has any connection whatsoever to the original movie or soundtrack.  DON’T waste your money on any of it.

Speaking of Sparks, two former members of Sparks, Jim Goodwin and Bob Haag, formed the band Gleaming Spires with Leslie Bohem and David Kendrick (who later worked with Devo).  They had a minor hit with their bawdy novelty song “Are You Ready For the Sex Girls”, which was featured in the movies “Last American Virgin” and “Revenge of the Nerds”; incidentally the soundtrack to “Last American Virgin” comes a close second in terms of being representative of what my friends and I were really listening to in the early 80’s).   In a similar vein is the even raunchier “Teenage Enema Nurses In Bondage” by Arizona’s Killer Pussy, which musically sounds a lot like early B-52’s with its peppy tempo and heavy 60’s organ, but lyrically is less fascinated with 50’s kitsch and more fascinated with, well, enemas.  These two songs were, perhaps not surprisingly, big hits with me and my junior high friends.  Anyway, this song and several other cuts from their album Bikini Wax are uploaded onto YouTube.

On a much cleaner note is the Caribbean-influenced “Belly of the Whale” by Burning Sensations.  This achieved some national fame for its video on MTV and catchy calypso beat.  It’s been almost 30 years and I still absolutely love this song; the organ reminds me of the organ on Ray Davies’ beautiful song “Come Dancing”.  This was perhaps the closest America came to capturing the hugely popular ska feel of the English Beat (though I admit its more calypso or reggae-lite than ska).  It’s a great, infectious song with a fantastic chorus.  Percussionist Michael Tempo went on to form the Bonedaddys, who have played fun world beat style music for nearly 30 years now.  Alas none of their early work is available but their album Waterslide from 2007 is on iTunes and the title track was in the movie “I Love You, Man”—its upbeat, happy music with an island feel.

A strange song that I only remember from seeing the music video on the dance/video show MV3 is “Cool Nerd” by Danny Schneider, a northern California musician who moved to SoCal in the early 80’s and played in a whole host of really obscure bands, including Speedlimit, Velvet Mourning, Coda, Opus Fluke, Reap the Flax and the Headphone Fighters.  I remember this song being really catchy but I’d forgotten the artist.  A couple of years ago thanks to the magic of the internet I tracked it down.  Schneider had a couple of other minor local hits but this song is marvelous, with its Buddy-Holly-meets-David-Byrne vibe and sweet guitar strumming.  Danny’s got a great web site dedicated to his music:  http://www.dannyschneider.com/.  It’s worth checking out, this guy was really talented and has some marvelous songs, it’s a shame he never made it bigger.