In the midnight hour she cried more, more, more...With a rebel yell she cried twenty four, GB24! Phil Lewis leads us into this month’s podcast with the band he formed right after his days in Girl with Phil Collen. The band was known as The New Torpedos. It was short lived, and all over by 1984 when Phil jumped ship to front the UK group Torme’ before crossing shores to Cali where he would replace Paul Black and get a second lease on his career with LA Guns. The track spotlighted here is “Midnight Alibi.”
Things get interesting when former A&R queen Vicky Hamilton phones in for a chat. If you don’t know who she is, all you need to do is look on the liner notes of some of the biggest records of the 80’s. She was a star maker, helping to launch the careers of Motley Crue, Poison, Guns ‘N Roses, and loads of others. Listen as she recounts some great stories of the early days on the Sunset Strip. “We had a thing called Borrow A Book at Licorice Pizza where you were allowed to take out 5 records a week and when you brought them back you got 5 more. Nikki (Sixx) was always hitting me up to use the Borrow A Book, but the problem was he never brought back any of the records, so he was a pain in my ass. That’s how we sorta met, the friendship started there.”
But not all were hits, she sheds light on some of the misses too, and also brings us up to speed with her current projects, including a musical of a “glam rock surfer dude” that she hopes to get on the stage this year called Glitter Beach. We take a listen to the title song as well. Visit Vicky’s website for more.
During the 80’s hey day, not all bands had the luxury of moving themselves to L.A. Some bands just stayed in their small town, yeah, like as if that was gonna do them any good. Asfalt Jungle, ok, if you’re gonna spell it like that, you’re just leaving yourself open for people to call you ASS FAULT. These guys were a band from Alabama who’s great big shot came when they opened for Dirty Looks, and (drum roll please) New Haven. We disect their tune “Here Comes Trouble,” but don’t write ‘em off completely... there’s something to be said about front man Scott Borchetta (who went by the name Scott Rage back then), many years later he would do a Clark Kent and turn into a super hero by discovering a youngin’ named Taylor Swift and heading up his own label, Big Machine Records. Now why couldn’t Ron Keel have done that?
It’s a Doucheband of the Month no-brainer this time around, with a band called Shock. Not to be confused with the 80’s L.A. band Shock & The Night And Day Horns, although I’m pretty sure there’s no great difference in just how many degrees of douche separates the two from each other anyway. Listen closely to the first douchetune, I swear the words the singer is singing are “landlord’s calling, we got the police, now we lost our lease.” Priceless. No fucking kidding you guys are homeless.
GB24 closes with the band Vicky Hamilton tells us about called The Art. Hailing from Australia, they just released a record over there which I’m sure will be no trouble finding on iTunes. The song “Step Inside” featured here brings to mind hints of Arcade Fire, Kill Hannah, and reminds me of what Babylon Zoo was trying to do 15 years ago with “Spaceman” in the midst of the Britpop explosion. It’s cool & catchy, and the singer isn’t afraid to shy away from his androgenous glam self.
Strutting like a peacock!
