Quick health update first. I’m recovering well from last week’s surgery, and the pain is getting much better. I’m still laid up, though, which means no audio version again this week. I have a post-op follow-up next week, and I’m hoping to get the okay to move around the building a little more freely so I can get back to recording these.
In the meantime, the written version carries on. Today we wrap up the list with the final five of my 15 Albums in 15 Minutes: Until December, Skinny Puppy, Ministry, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, and Tom Jones. If you’ve been following along, you know the drill. No ranking, just the stories behind why each one stuck. Let’s get to it.
Until December – Until December
Birthday party in the 80s. The local punk band Duh-Z’s is playing in the living room of a friend’s apartment, and I’m handed a gift: Until December by Until December. This was another “this doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before” moment. Up to that point I’d been into rock, new wave, punk, and synths, and this record blended them all in one place, along with disco and an arpeggiated bass. I really haven’t heard another band morph genres into a sound of their own better than they did. It was their only album, but it’s one of my favorites.
Years later, I was playing in a band and we opened for another band called Consolidated. We were doing sound check, playing “No Gift Refused” by Until December, when out comes Adam Sherburne, lead singer of Consolidated… and of Until December. He was jamming right along. At the time, we didn’t know he was from Until December. We were just fans who liked the song. It spawned a private recording, some funny stuff, and a tape trade with them. I’d love to know where those cassettes wound up… Favorite tracks, aside from No Gift Refused, are: Forgive & Still Forget, Free Again, and Heaven.
VIVIsectVI – Skinny Puppy
Now take all those musical rules and throw them completely out the window. Continuing on my electronic journey, I discovered Skinny Puppy. They put on an intense stage show, even today. But back to the music. It is music, really, you just have to uncover it sometimes. I prefer their later CDs like Last Rights and The Greater Wrong of the Right, but this was the first of theirs I really enjoyed. “Testure” and “Dogsh*t” (aka “Censor”) are electronic masterpieces in my book. This was back before DJs “made” music, and it took some serious skills to pull off.
What Skinny Puppy showed me is that it’s okay to play the sounds you hear in your head and tweak them into something new. It’s more like building a soundscape, or a soundtrack to the story you’re telling, where the sounds create a mood or a feeling rather than a catchy musical pattern. Look at what I’m doing now. I’m releasing music that doesn’t sound anything like Skinny Puppy but runs on the same ethic. A current example is “Beware the Great Pumpkin,” from my EP that just came out.
The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste – Ministry
Again, this one is a merging of musical styles I liked. Al Jourgensen merged hardcore punk with keyboards, and it worked. This album is more a favorite for sentimental reasons, though. That scene was a great time in my life and it opened a lot of doors. It was a cool time for them, too. Jourgensen pulled in members of every hot industrial band around, mixed it all up, and spit it back at you live on stage. Yum, it was actually quite a good thing to taste after all.
For a few years, Ministry was a perfect combination of punk, hard rock, and technology. The key thing I learned from them, on the tour for this album, is that they solved the problem of synth bands just standing around on stage. He presented an energy-driven show that hit hard, and it satisfied exactly what I was craving at the time: high-energy rock. It shaped how I presented some shows of my own in the years that followed.
Unfortunately, I also consider this album the death of industrial music. After that, the metal heads took over and killed the party. But, Thieves, Burning Inside and live opener Breathe sure where fun in getting us there.
Sexplosion! – My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
What can I tell you that won’t get me in too much trouble? Let’s just say that when this album came out, my life changed. TKK are kindred souls. My band at the time connected with them on some road shows in support of this album and others, and we just clicked. Same sense of humor, same sense of general “stuff.” It’s not every day you can quote John Waters back and forth, word for word, with a group of people for days.
Musically, this album is another one of those merges I keep talking about liking. They mashed together industrial with disco, lounge, sleaze, and punk, shook it up in a cocktail shaker, and poured out an excellent album. The whole thing is great, so it’s hard to pick standouts, but “Sex on Wheelz” comes first. I was still DJing when that song came out, and it was pure fun on the dance floor. “A Martini Built for Two” is a favorite because I think Groovie was meant to be a lounge singer, and Buzz nails the music on every track, matching the sound and groove to the theme. “The International Sin Set” is near perfection at capturing that 50s and 60s lounge culture vibe and coolness. Oh, and Dream Baby. I sing it all the time but always forget at it when recommending songs from this album. It’ll make ya boogie and has an infectious chorus.
If you’ve never heard it, buy it. If you don’t like it, you can send it to me.
Reload – Tom Jones
Why this album, right? Why not? And that’s the point. This album taught me to loosen up and have fun. If you read up on it, you’ll find that Tom was looking for his next “something” to revive his career. His son suggested covering some modern songs. Tom fought it at first, then embraced it and gained a whole new generation of fans. Every time I listen to this album, I smile, dance, and laugh. I hope I always keep my career open to something new. Ever wondered how I actually got into recording Christmas music? This album had a lot to do with that decision.
My favorite song on the album is “Sexbomb.” How can anyone not love that song? Beyond that, you have to turn off your knowledge of the original versions and let the “Tom” version take you. At first listen, you’re like, “WHAT is that?” Then you play it again. “What IS that?” And it grows. Eventually, you like the cover more than the original. That’s my relationship with “Burning Down the House.” Same with his duet with Robbie Williams on “Are You Gonna Go My Way.” Then there’s the super fun version of “Lust for Life” with Chrissie Hynde. I like Iggy’s better, for different reasons, but this version is more fun, for sure.
So that’s all fifteen. As you can probably tell from reading these, music means a lot to me. I form relationships with songs, and I hope you do too. It’s a gift to put on a song 20 or 30 years later and instantly float back to a different place and time.
I’d love to hear what’s on your list, whether it’s your first five, all fifteen, or the Shaun Cassidy records you’re still hiding. Tell me in the comments.
As for next week, who the heck knows! This week I had a new Halloween EP come out, One Halloween (you’ve bought your copy, right? lol), and I did quite a bit of work on a non-music, non-story publishing project covering four books. Now that I’m closing out the One Halloween project, I can get back to our story and return to San Antonio, not to mention the book I’ve been working on all year. We’ll find something decent to talk about next week. I’m just not sure what yet.
Until then, more road.
Jeff
Listen to the “What Was That Song?” playlist, featuring music mentioned on Jeff Elder Isn’t Real:
And I’m back for round two… well, in spirit anyway. I had planned surgery on Thursday to repair the meniscus in my left knee. There were a few unexpected twists and turns, and as a result, I’m stuck in a recliner/bed for the next two weeks. So I’m not able to get into my office to record the audio portion this week. Probably not next week either. We’ll see. For now, we’re going to barrel ahead with the written version and make the best of it. Heck, if I get another burst of energy this weekend, I may knock out the final 5 as well and just wrap this little list up. Again, we’ll see. For now, let’s get to those 5-10 of 15, shall we?
Last week I dug into the first five of my 15 Albums in 15 Minutes list, Cheap Trick, the Rolling Stones, the Monkees, Blondie, Duran Duran. This week we explore: Gary Numan, Bowie, N.O.T.A., Black Flag, and Joe Christ. Same deal as before, no ranking, just the stories behind why each one stuck. Let’s get into it.
Gary Numan – Telekon
I’d heard “Cars” and was growing more and more curious about synthesizers. I think I got this album in the spring, though I could be wrong on that. But it blew my mind. This album broke every rule I’d known about music up to that point. Listen to “Aircrash Bureau,” “This Wreckage,” “I Die You Die,” you probably haven’t heard anything presented as pop music quite like this before. After this album, and more Duran Duran, I firmly decided I wanted to play synthesizer over guitar or drums.
My favorite tracks are “This Wreckage,” “Aircrash Bureau,” “Remind Me to Smile,” and “I Die You Die.” Past the intro build-up on “This Wreckage,” the lyrics force you to ask yourself questions. “And what if God’s dead?” “We must have done something wrong.” “Aircrash Bureau” takes me to another place altogether, a lonely place, at that point in my life. Then the beat picks up a little with “Remind Me to Smile.” At that point in life, I really did need to remind myself to smile.
There’s a parallel to this album that’s going to show up in my next book. It’s a significant record for more reasons than the music itself, and it holds a very special place in my mind.
The album also has some really nice quiet moments. “Remember I Was Vapour” and “Please Push No More” are both beautifully captured moods, easy to overlook next to the bigger singles, but worth sitting with.
“I Die You Die” is a missed hit, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t remember ever hearing it on the radio or anywhere else, but it’s genuinely catchy and I love the lyrics.
David Bowie – Scary Monsters
This was an odd time in my life. My parents had divorced, and it seemed like a lot of my aunts and uncles were doing the same. Music was changing a lot and no one really knew where it was going to go. I’d always kind of liked Bowie and Iggy, but this one bonded with me during my increasing withdrawal from “normal” people. Some cool keyboards and guitars too, huh? I really liked, still like, the sound of this album.
As with most Bowie albums, I don’t like the whole thing. But what I do like, I like a lot. On the whole, the imagery and the audio combined into a wonderful package for me.
My favorite songs are “Scary Monsters,” “Ashes to Ashes,” and “Fashion.” “Fashion” is one of my favorite Bowie songs, period. It captured a moment in time perfectly. I’ve always thought it’d be fun to cover it, but Bowie covers usually suck, regardless of who does them, so I’ve never pursued it.
“Ashes to Ashes”, what a great song. When I listen to it, I can see the room I’m sitting in and what the weather was like when it was popular. To me, that’s what a great song does, it lets you capture your whole environment in a single audio memory. I hope I can do that for someone with one of my own songs someday.
And finally, the title track, “Scary Monsters.” It’s a masterpiece of “things I like,” I love Carlos Alomar’s guitar work on this album and this track especially. The song is almost pre-industrial. I love it when English guys sing and over-accentuate their accents, and this song has that too. It’s a mishmash of so many favorite elements of music and madness that I love.
I mention not loving the whole album, but that’s just me. There’s a certain “Bowie” I like. When he hits that spot, I like it a lot. When he doesn’t, I can live without it. But those three songs alone make this album a must-have for anyone’s record collection, regardless of which Bowie you like best.
N.O.T.A. – None of the Above
Hands down, my favorite album of the teenage years, and I still listen to it often. Those of you who were in the punk scene probably know this record, and those of you who lived in Tulsa in the 80s surely saw their logo spray painted everywhere. For everyone else, N.O.T.A. was a punk band out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who “did it.” They made records. They toured. They kicked ass and were the real deal.
My favorite songs are “I Should Kill You,” “Takin’ Away Your Rights,” “Sick Society,” and “Nightstick Justice.” These songs were really my first exposure to lyrics about real things. “I Should Kill You” is about your boss. “Takin’ Away Your Rights” is self explanatory. “Sick Society” lines up very closely with my own thoughts on American society. And “Nightstick Justice” is about police brutality, which we kids saw live and in person at their shows. Cops would harass kids just because they had funky hair and weren’t rich kids from the other side of town.
I wish this album was available to stream. I’m going to post a few live versions and songs they’ve remastered and reissued that I found on Spotify, but they don’t really do the songs justice. This one was produced by Spot, of SST/Black Flag fame, and you can hear it, he captured their energy perfectly. If you’re into hardcore punk and ever see this one in the wild, buy it. You won’t regret it.
There are so many things that run through my mind with this album and their earlier EPs, but one of my fondest memories is a summer afternoon around ’85-ish. I remember walking with some friends from 11th and Sheridan down to 424, a club at 424 S. Elgin in downtown Tulsa. Not a short walk. But hey, young, stupid, and capable, no big deal, we made a day of it. We showed up early. No power at 424 that day, so we helped Larry and the band build a stage out back, and had a show. In my crazy head, I think back on that day like I’m watching The Outsiders. It was one of the best days, or nights, of my life, and I’ll never forget it. It was gold.
Slip It In — Black Flag
I chose Slip It In because I wanted to pick only one title. If the album creation were up to me, it’d be called Family Man Slip’s It In. I consider those two, Family Man and Slip It In, to be basically one album to me, so similar musically and in mood. While Henry is Henry and I take him as he is, I identified with his lyrics, and they backed up how I felt about the world at the time. I’d listened to Black Flag before, but the musical shift on these two is what really made me a fan. I don’t really consider these two, or the ones that followed, to be punk albums, more like brutal rock. Good stuff for a Saturday morning. Greg Ginn has a musically warped mind and I love it. If you ever saw this band live, wow. They channeled something dark and beautiful. Black Flag also turned me on to the whole SST world, Saccharine Trust, Meat Puppets, and the rest.
The lyrics were angry, but often sarcastic too. I’ve always had a tendency toward a sharp tongue myself, not too far off from Rollins’ idea of “humor” on this record and others. I keep it under control these days. But if you could hear the stuff running through my head most of the time, you’d understand why I like Black Flag’s lyrics so much.
Beyond the title track, “Black Coffee” is one I could fully identify with. As a teen I didn’t really do drugs or drink, but I drank coffee like a mofo, and in high enough amounts it really can mess with your head. Paranoia mixed with a little angry edge. That song captures exactly how I feel when I’m jacked up on a coffee trip, which still happens regularly, I love coffee. “Wound Up” is another great mood capture, what a one-way crush feels like: “I get so wound up, and feel so let down.” Another track I really like is “The Bars.” Great guitars, great beat, and I don’t even care what the song’s actually about, I just love the music. I’m like that a lot, lyrics aren’t a big driver in what I buy. I like being able to sing along, sure, but the actual message? Eh, I usually don’t care.
For the record, this lineup is my favorite Black Flag lineup: Greg, Henry, Bill, and Kira. I still get tensed up just listening to it now. Good times.
Joe Christ – Essential Christ
I chose this “album” because it’s a compilation of Joe Christ’s work. Before that, it was all 45s and EPs, so Essential Christ works. Joe Christ was a musician who really influenced how I do what I do, musically. I was first turned on to him in Tulsa in the early 80s, saw him play live for the first time as “Joe Danger” with Los Reactors. I remember my dad and I at Cain’s Ballroom watching them open for Bow Wow Wow. Fun night, and another eye-opener for me. Joe was indie before indie was cool. Over the years he went from Los Reactors to G-Spot, then from Joe Danger to Joe Christ and the Healing Faith, ran for Governor of Texas, all of it. He’s the one who exposed me to just doing it yourself, whatever “it” might be. I never would have found A&R in Dallas, or realized how easy it actually is to put out a record, if it weren’t for Joe. Unfortunately, Joe passed away recently. I wrote a full post about his influence on me not too long ago, [link], if you want the longer version of that story.
I wish there was a better compilation out there. This one doesn’t include any Los Reactors songs, and those were a big part of his musical journey. So I’m going to include a couple of them in the Spotify list, though good luck finding Joe on Spotify at all, he passed away before streaming really took off, and his catalog is still in a bit of limbo. My favorite Joe-related songs: “Dead in the Suburbs,” “Pregnant Girls,” and “Be a Zombie” by Los Reactors, “Poor Little Rich Girl” by G-Spot, “Wonderful Life” by Joe Christ & the Healing Faith, and “All Dressed Up” and “Time” by Joe Christ & Bigger Than God.
His sense of humor and mine were always very similar, and songs like “Pregnant Girls” and “Poor Little Rich Girl” capture that well. Same with “Dead in the Suburbs,” and the music on that one is classic too, from the singalong chorus to the solo. “Be a Zombie”, hey, there are those thoughts I have about the corporate world showing up again. The Joe Christ-branded songs bring back fun memories of the movies he made, and it cracks me up matching the songs to the scenes. He really wrote catchy, happy-sounding songs, it was the context and subject matter that made them so “wrong.”
I miss Joe. We need more people like him in entertainment.
That’s five more down, and if you’re noticing a theme, yeah, this batch got a little darker, a little louder, and a lot more “make it yourself” than round one. Numan, Bowie, N.O.T.A., Black Flag, Joe, they all pushed me somewhere different, and looking back, I don’t think it’s a coincidence they landed together.
You guys have a good weekend. I’ll be back to post the final 5 soon.
I hinted last week that I kind of missed when social media was more fun. Stupid games and stupid pictures. Sometimes it’s just nice to take a breather from politics, problems, and disengage and play for a minute.
What started me thinking about this was a Facebook “memory” from 2010, where I’d been tagged by a friend for 15 Albums in 15 Minutes. As a lifelong record collector, I thought it was fun, and I really enjoyed seeing everyone’s lists, especially when they added some notes about why they chose a particular album. Right now seemed like a good time to bring that old list back (before I have to get into music promo mode in my real life). So that’s what I’m doing.
Only difference for me is that, since I tend to babble, I’m going a little deeper than I did originally. My list remains the same, nothing’s changed since 2010, lol. But I thought I’d include the how’s and why’s of how the list came to be. Since this has the potential to go long (did I mention I tend to babble when talking about records?), I’m breaking it into three posts, five at a time. So, here goes.
Note: no particular order on these albums, I couldn’t rank them if I wanted to. I love them all 🙂
At Budokan — Cheap Trick
The first live show I ever saw was Cheap Trick, in support of their All Shook Up album. The tickets were a birthday gift from my aunt and uncle, and I went with my mother. This show exposed me to rock and roll, back when it was still fun, and it probably had the largest impact on my life and what I like to think I did for a living most of my life.
The times were different. I remember fliers from the local speed dealer left on car windows. I remember people smoking pot all over the auditorium. I remember not having enough money for a tour shirt (it was my first show, I didn’t even know they had tour shirts). I remember my ears ringing for hours after, and I remember being at school the next day thinking, “I’m doing THAT, and I don’t need to be HERE anymore.” It was truly life changing, and when you listen to Live at Budokan, you’ll hear most of what I heard that night, minus the coolest intro ever (the show opened with “Stop This Game”). Over the years, my Cheap Trick relationship kept growing, at least one show a year for the past 30 years, and yes, I usually met my mother there. I made a point of staying in touch with the band, mostly because my mom liked to remind me that someday Robin Zander was going to be my stepfather. Enough said?
Everything in that original memory still holds up today. This isn’t my favorite Cheap Trick album (that’s Dream Police, no contest, that whole record is perfect, with All Shook Up a close second), but Budokan is probably the most relevant one, and the best entry point if you’re curious about the band. You have to see them live to really understand their magnetism, and this is the closest you can get to their heyday now. They’re still good live, but they’re in their 70s, so things have slowed down some.
Three songs off this record do a lot of work for me. “Hello There” opens most of their sets to this day, and the backstory is pure Cheap Trick logic: they used to play a lot of crappy gigs with no sound check, so they wrote a song specifically to test their levels while playing. It’s the perfect way to greet a crowd and it’s practical. “Ain’t That a Shame” gives me goosebumps, not because it’s my favorite song on the record, but because it’s tied directly to a memory, the 1980 American Music Awards, where Cheap Trick really arrived on the American music scene. I can still see every move of that performance. And you’ll find the best versions of “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender” here, period. Early on, producers couldn’t capture the band’s energy in the studio; go listen to the original album versions and you’ll hear why neither song was a hit until this live record came out. Live, they’re infectious, fun, sincere, and loud. Everything you’d want out of a rock and roll song.
I still catch them when they roll through town. My mom passed away since those years of meeting up at shows, and it stings a little seeing them without her now. But I think going is part of how I work through that. Everybody processes grief differently. This is one of mine.
Seeing Cheap Trick live is what made me decide I wanted to do music with my life. This album captured that feeling, and decades later, it still makes me want to get up on a stage and do it again.
Oh, yeah, did I ever tell you all about that night I got to hang out with Robin and the crew at a karaoke hotel bar? Maybe that’s a story for another time…
Emotional Rescue — The Rolling Stones
In the late 70s, flea markets were all the rage in Tulsa. My parents went most Saturdays and took me along, my aunt and uncle usually came too. My parents would hand me a dollar and say knock yourself out. My mom had an extensive 45 collection from the 60s, so I already knew and liked the Rolling Stones going in. At the flea market I’d blindly buy 45s and albums by the Stones and by the Monkees (who I watched after school on TV). That’s what turned me on to the Stones’ 1970s material. I rarely spent more than a quarter on a record, so I built up a nice little collection fast, and I’d spend the rest of the afternoon in my room playing these gems on my Disney record player as loud as it would go, dancing around and imagining I was Mick Jagger.
My first memory of something “new” by the Stones was Some Girls. The song “Shattered”, I love that song. It had this element of wrong and dangerous to it that pulled me in.
Back then, radio stations would play whole new albums on the air at night. One night they played Emotional Rescue before it came out. I think I fell asleep during it, school night, but I remember hearing “Let Me Go” on the radio the next day and it felt like hearing a song I’d written myself. I knew that song from somewhere, but it was brand new. This album had the coolest poster sleeve ever, cooler than the zipper on Sticky Fingers, and I probably still have that poster somewhere. Musically, I first remember hearing the title track on the radio and thinking, “oh, that’s different.” I liked it and quickly owned the 45. After that, “She’s So Cold.” But it was “Let Me Go” that really sucked me in and made me a Rolling Stones fan. I felt like I’d had a psychic experience with that one, singing it before I’d ever heard it, and then hearing it on the album and thinking I’d written it myself. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. My best guess now that I’m older is that it played on the radio while I was dozing off that night, so, yeah, I really did know the song. But at the time it opened my eyes to the idea that I might be able to write, and the album’s lyrics raised a lot of questions in my mind about life in general, about a darker underground world being out there.
When “Emotional Rescue” came out as a single, oh man, I knew I had to have the album. I immediately bought the 45 with my allowance money at Oertle’s (a local department store) and played it over and over. It was so different. I still get chills thinking about it as I type this. I loved how they could do super fun songs like “Where the Boys Go” and “She’s So Cold” and then turn around and do something completely different sounding. I think that’s where my craving for bands who sound unique got planted. Almost every band I’ve ever gotten into sounds like no one but themselves, and I’ve strived for that in my own music over the years too.
I still follow the Rolling Stones, and I finally got to see them at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas a few years ago. It was rainy and cold. Skinny old Mick and the gang didn’t let the rain bother them one bit. It was a perfect experience I’ll cherish forever.
The Monkees — The Monkees
Hey, hey, I was a Monkee fan. I chose this one out of all their albums because, overall, it’s one of the more cohesive listens, I like nearly every song on it. By the time I found the TV show and the music, the Monkees had already come and gone, so I got to absorb all the albums around the same period, which basically let me build my own greatest hits list. If I had to pick just one, this is it, though “Pleasant Valley Sunday” off Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. sums up a lot of my thoughts on the world and is an all-time favorite regardless of album.
Let me try to put the why and how into perspective. I was only eight or ten when I found the Monkees, and as I’ve mentioned before, I was pretty much an only child up to that point. Their songs helped me deal with loneliness and figure out life in general. “This Just Doesn’t Seem to Be My Day” made me understand that people have bad days, while “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day” got me through that bad day to another one. “Let’s Dance On”, hey, just dance on. “Saturday’s Child” fed my desire to have friends. It’s hard to put exactly into words, but they were like my make-believe friends. I’d listen to their records in my room and fantasize about my world and what it could be, imagining I was in a band and famous.
While their music may not have been critically acclaimed, it was fun, and I loved playing the 45s in my room and singing along. This album exposed me to teen hysteria, screaming girls and all that, that was new to me, and the whole “pop star” concept fascinated me. Later in life, revisiting it, it also exposed me to how well media and marketing teams can do their jobs.
In the late 80s the Monkees reformed and toured, and I caught that tour. I loved it. It was exactly what I needed in my life at that point, it made me happy. Years later, I saw Davy Jones play a solo show at a casino, not long before he passed away. Such great memories, and I still have a soft spot for all four of them.
On a good day, you might still find me sitting on a beach singing “I Wanna Be Free” from this album. Thanks, Davy.
Parallel Lines — Blondie
This album came out right around the time my own awareness of being a musician, and what “rock stars” even were, was coming into full bloom. It’s a perfect album start to finish. What really grabs at my heartstrings is that Debbie Harry still had innocence and insecurity in the delivery of the lyrics at this point. She hadn’t been trampled by the chaos of fame yet. They weren’t famous yet. They had a hit overseas but really weren’t anyone in America aside from New York. You can hear that in her voice on this album more than any other.
Everyone knows “Heart of Glass” and “One Way or Another,” but my favorites from this record are “Hanging on the Telephone,” “11:59,” “Picture This,” and “Will Anything Happen.” That chorus on “Will Anything Happen” just tugged at me and made me fall in love with the band. I played this album so much I literally wore it out. I bought it and re-bought it many times. Many of the songs are a perfect mix of new wave, rock, and oldies mashed into something new, and the Debbie Harry/Chris Stein writing team are still favorites of mine to this day. Her voice, I’d kill for it.
And I say “band” because I wasn’t just into Debbie’s look and voice. I thought Clem Burke was pretty damned cool too. I was wanting to play drums myself around that time, sitting in my room, dreaming of being in a band, and Clem was an incredible drummer to listen to.
I always fantasized about being friends with Debbie and Clem. A few years later, when I found out she’d done the music for John Waters’ Polyester, the fantasy grew even more. I would’ve loved to spend Friday nights with Debbie and John, all of us smoking cigarettes and being cool while John got drunk, like he always liked to do on Fridays. I love that the two of them are still friends today. Hmm, maybe there’s still a chance for me.
Years later, we saw Blondie play a show in Rhode Island. One of my best concert memories, hands down. During “Atomic,” I was front row singing along, “oh, your hair is beautiful,” and Debbie turned to me and said, “why, thank you.” She interacted with the crowd all night. I was locked on Clem most of the time though, and at the end of the show, everyone was jumping around waiting for him to toss out his sticks like he’s always known to do. He worked his way over, pushed some people out of the way, looked right at me and said, “you.” Then handed me his sticks. I guess he’d noticed I’d been paying attention to him all night. I was in heaven.
I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Blondie and Debbie Harry solo quite a few times over the years, and I’m so glad I did, especially since Clem Burke passed away recently. That broke my heart. I don’t know that I could see Blondie again without him. Debbie Harry solo, yes. Blondie, no. He really was the heart of that band.
This album holds an incredibly special place in my heart. It takes me right back to 78th Street in Tulsa, and it brings back good memories, bad memories, and everything in between, just like a perfect album should.
Duran Duran — Duran Duran
Yes, those of you who know me well are probably surprised this whole list isn’t Duran Duran. Ha, yeah. I could write a chronicle of Duran albums versus my own life, but this isn’t that list. Today we’re exploring the debut.
Picture it: a hot summer day in 1981. I’m on summer break, watching this new channel on cable called MTV. “Planet Earth” caught my eye. So, bright and early one morning, after mowing lawns the days before to make some money, I roller-skated my way over to Starship Records & Tapes. I bought the 12″ of “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell and the 12″ of “Planet Earth” by Duran Duran, both imported from England. How cool was I? This song didn’t sound like anything else I’d heard before, and the synthesizers made my ears and mind work. The beat was good too, I could dance to it, gave it a ten. That day also kicked off my obsession with record collecting. Roller-skating four miles each way was only the beginning of that habit.
A few things really drew me in about this band. Obviously, Nick Rhodes and the synths, though at this point I didn’t think he looked as cool as he’d eventually get in the Rio era and beyond. It was the sound that got me. He had this flanged pad sound, you can hear it in “Girls on Film,” “Anyone Out There” (a really good example), “Rio,” and beyond. It was kind of his signature back then and I loved it. I wasn’t new to synthesizers, I’d already heard Gary Numan and Devo, but I’d never heard them used this way inside a rock band. Contrary to popular bashing, they weren’t a “keyboard band,” they just happened to have a keyboard player, which wasn’t all that common at the time. They also had a really dark undertone that most people who only heard the radio singles never picked up on. Listen to “Waiting for the Nightboat” for a good example, one of my favorites. “Girls on Film” I could live with or without, though it’s great fun live. “Careless Memories” is another one I never cared much for until I saw them live, and now it’s one of the standout tracks on the album, but not until I heard it that way. Might be the same thing I mentioned with the Cheap Trick recordings, the engineers of the era just couldn’t fully capture that live energy on tape. I like the lyrics too.
My favorite song on the album is, obviously, “Planet Earth,” because it’s the one that turned me on to the band in the first place, and it just didn’t sound like anything else out there. Heavy keyboards, but still a driving rock song. I liked that energy, and honestly, that’s still something I chase in new music today. Mainly though, they didn’t sound like anyone else. They still don’t. Most every band I’ve ever liked and stuck with over the years doesn’t sound like anyone else, they only sound like themselves. That’s one thing I miss about 80s music. Now everyone tries to sound like everyone else, and that’s kind of sad. In the 80s you didn’t want to sound like anyone else. For what it’s worth, that’s been a driving force in my own music too, not sounding like someone else. If you sound like someone else, why not just go listen to that someone else instead?
This album opened up a whole world of discovery for me. After “Planet Earth,” I wanted to know more about synthesizers. I wanted to play one. I wanted to be a keyboard player. And I became one.
Funny side note, sticking with the Blondie thread from earlier: Duran Duran opened for Blondie after this album came out. Years later, Nick and Warren produced a song for Blondie called “Pop Trash Movie” when Blondie was trying for a comeback in the 90s. It didn’t make the album, but I have a demo of it with Debbie singing. It got released later as a Duran Duran song instead, with Simon singing. Having heard both versions, I have a genuine, deep desire for those two to duet someday. There’s a real similarity in tone between their voices, and I’d kill to hear what they’d sound like together.
So, that’s my first 5 of 15. I’ve included, I think, all of the tracks I mentioned in the Spotify player at the bottom of this page. Well, I included it if it exists on Spotify. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed eavesdropping on my musical tastes and how they played a role in my life. Again, I love talking about records. So I’d love to hear what your first 5 (or all 15) are, and whether you had any of the same records as me. What did those records mean to you? I’m in the mood for a laugh, tell me about all those Shaun Cassidy records. I’ll be waiting.
Until then, more road (and another 5) next week. Have a great weekend!
Jeff
Audio credits: Intro: Damone (Fast Times At Ridgemont High) / Surrender (Live) by Cheap Trick, Outro: Goodnight (Live) by Cheap Trick.
Listen to the “What Was That Song?” playlist, featuring music mentioned on Jeff Elder Isn’t Real:
Last time I mentioned finally making the call to shut down Frustrated Housewives. Once I did that, I honestly didn’t know what came next. At that point I had no friends in San Antonio, just Mike. So, I took a job managing a Mailboxes Etc, mostly because it was close to the house and because I had no idea yet what I actually wanted to do for work down there. It brought in some money while I figured things out, and it turned out to be a genuinely interesting experience too.
The store sat right across the highway from The Dominion, a very high dollar gated community. George Strait had a house there. So did players from the San Antonio Spurs, other sports stars, musicians, mobsters, and Alice from The Brady Bunch, among others. They’d come into the store to ship things, and some of them kept mailboxes there. I think part of why they liked us was that nobody made a fuss over them.
I remember the first time I saw Tim Duncan (from the Spurs) in person. The door opened, and I watched this enormous man duck down just to get through the front door. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone that tall standing right in front of me before.
Another time, I was shooting passport photos for a guy and his family. He had on a ball cap and looked vaguely familiar, though I didn’t think much of it. I had him take the cap off for the photo and thought, man, I know this guy from somewhere. I finished up the pictures and ran his credit card. The name on the card said George Strait. I was working alone that morning. When my coworker showed up an hour later and I told her, she about died, she was a huge fan and missed meeting him by an hour.
Another day, I saw this burly guy wrestling with the door, trying to haul in some big chair by himself. We were a shipping store, so a big item wasn’t unusual, but a guy walking up with a seat over his head, then struggling to carry it in alone, was a different story. I went to help him out. Turned out it was a stadium chair from UT that he’d bought for a friend and needed shipped. He was nice, and kind of shy in a way I found charming. People in the store were starting to make a commotion – I could tell he must be “someone.” So, per standard “famous protocol” I took him to the back room to handle the paperwork and figure out how we were even going to ship the thing. I had no idea who he was. He just introduced himself as Steve and thanked me for pulling him out of the crowd. We finished the transaction, and it wasn’t until after he left that I found out he was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Wrestling wasn’t my scene at all. I knew the name, but I had no real sense of how big he actually was. I think he liked that about me, because he kept coming back to me specifically after that.
I remember one Christmas he came in visibly embarrassed, hauling a big box of stuff to ship. We went to the back and started pulling everything out, and it turned out to be a stack of Stone Cold Steve Austin action figures. He turned beet red, looked at me, and said, “They’re for my kids. They give them to their friends.” His kids were living in the UK at the time, and we got them set up with a nice round of Christmas gifts. Good times.
I was working there on 9/11. I remember that morning well. The owner of the store never closed, regardless of the reason. The attacks had already happened by the time we opened. We did not have a single customer that day. It was so eerie. The streets were empty. So were the skies. Someday I will try to better capture what that day felt like, maybe in a song. For now, I will keep it to myself and just say that I do think it forever changed me and the world we live in.
While working there was entertaining, I needed insurance and more money, so I took a job at a call center until something better came along. Beyond the whole talking on the phone thing I’ve already told you about a few weeks ago, another thing that soured me on “regular” office life was the questions people ask when you’re the new hire. Are you married? Oh, you and your wife? Do you have kids? Harmless enough sounding questions on the surface. But back then you could still get fired from a job just for being gay. It was mostly women asking, either out of genuine nosiness or because they didn’t have anything else to talk about, or both, instead of just sticking to work. It always made me deeply uncomfortable, because whether they realized it or not, they were basically outing you to the whole company. I learned to keep my answers short and never go into detail.
I hated that job. It was at a large insurance company, doing customer service. I was old enough this time to understand how corrupt some of these large companies really are. It paid okay, but I was miserable. About a week in, I decided it wasn’t for me and kicked my job search back into high gear.
While I was at IPA in Fort Smith, we used a software program called CuteFTP to move website files here and there. One day I was doing some kind of work on a band website and noticed the company’s address was in San Antonio. I looked up their site, poked around, and found they had a tech support role open. There was a test involved, so I bought a quick book on FTP protocol, studied up, and applied a few weeks later.
The interview itself was weird. Very casual, and honestly the guy interviewing me seemed more nervous than I was. Eventually he brought in this very young guy to ask me a few questions. He grilled me pretty hard and could tell I didn’t have experience working on the back side of software. But I never claimed I did, so that was fine by him. He could tell I was capable of learning, had the right attitude and personality, and clearly wanted out of whatever job I was currently stuck in. He asked how soon I could start if they offered me the job. I told him today. The last question he asked was whether I hated my current job. I kind of laughed and said something like, well, I don’t love it.
A few days later they offered me the job, and I started at GlobalSCAPE Software. That place felt so unique to me at the time. I’d later learn the vibe wasn’t really specific to them so much as the software industry in general, but it was full of people with odd quirks, nerds, antisocial types, outcasts almost like me, and the office itself was cool. We kept the lights off. Soda fountain and video games in the break room. It was a very creative environment. Oh, and nobody asked if I had a wife. Nobody cared one bit about my life outside the office. It was great.
As I learned more, I moved into a kind of tech and sales support hybrid role, and also got to help with new software development and documentation. If I’d still been in San Antonio working there today, I’d be making some serious money. But as usual, we moved a couple years later for Mike’s next job. Over time I made a few genuinely good friends there. It was a small office, maybe fifteen to twenty employees total, so bonds formed easily. I’m still in touch with a few of them today, nearly twenty years later.
Since I still didn’t have an active music thing going, I leaned into whatever fun the city had to offer to keep my mind busy. Very transient area, again, which we already know I like. San Antonio is a tourism town, plain and simple. There isn’t a whole lot more to it than that. If you actually live there, you start to notice a vibe similar to Las Vegas, where the locals genuinely don’t care about you or your problems unless you’re family or a very close friend. They’ll make you feel like the most important person in the world right up until they’ve got your money, and then you’ll never see them again.
I should mention GlobalSCAPE had a Las Vegas connection, and as an employee I ended up going there often. That encouraged my addiction to the place, and we started making several non-work trips each year on top of it. Anyway, my point about actually living in a tourism town is that you get burnt out on service people not caring, and eventually you just get numb to it. It’s a shame. You drop off some clothes at the cleaners and they lose a piece or two. “Oh, you didn’t give us that many shirts.” It’s right there on my receipt. “No, that’s not correct. It must have been written down wrong.” And that’s the end of it. You’re dismissed, and you stop expecting anything different.
Beyond that, the food was great. That’s really where I learned to appreciate Mexican food. I also made a couple of genuinely good non-work friends there. A few people who worked with Mike hit it off with us, and I remember the first night we all met up for bowling. It was a blast. They drank like we drank, ate junk food like we ate, some of them liked the same music, and it was just fun. We started hanging out more and more, and eventually they brought us into their “family” world. Hispanic culture there runs so deep on family, and once you’re in, you’ve got an instant lifeline. They called us their “white friends.” We enjoyed their company enough that we eventually moved into the same neighborhood, over by Sea World. Still in touch with most of them today.
Around that same time, I really started getting the itch to do something musically again. I’d always been a fan of crooners like Dean Martin and Bing Crosby, but once I became a regular in Las Vegas, I developed a real appreciation for that whole scene, Elvis and Liberace, too. I still wasn’t ready to go full on crooner myself, though.
I think the thing that finally sold me on doing something new was seeing Tom Jones live one night in Las Vegas. We were front row, and the show was just intoxicating. I loved every second of it. You could tell he was completely in on the joke and was having a blast. All those crooners were, and still are, in on it. It floored me. How had I never picked up on that before? I remember staring at his shoes the whole time. Shiny black shoes lined with diamonds. I remember thinking, okay, I’m doing something when I get back to San Antonio. I don’t know what yet, but something.
Around that same time, I was getting to the age where keeping the weight off was becoming an actual challenge. So I bought a little exercise machine, one of those ski machine glider things. I tried it a few times and found it unbelievably boring. So I hooked an old laptop up to a speaker and loaded it with crooner karaoke tracks. Every weekday morning I’d get on that machine and sing for thirty minutes to an hour. In the process I started picking up a proper breathing technique for singing, and I started finding my own style, and it almost sounded good. Still not good enough to release anything, though.
So I came up with a comedy persona called N’Elvis. I built out a whole backstory, how this poor kid’s parents lived down the road from Elvis’s parents. N’Elvis was born a year later. They were huge Elvis fans already and named him N’Elvis specifically to remind him that he was not Elvis and never would be. He was an unplanned child who ruined his parents’ life by not being born Elvis. Oh, the shame. Over time, in the mythology I made up around him, N’Elvis ran away to North Korea and became a superstar there. I hear he still is. I recorded a few tracks of N’Elvis singing some of those karaoke songs and passed them around to friends, and every single one of them thought it was hilarious. I knew I was onto something. I still had a ways to go in actually finding my own crooner voice, but I was on a track.
Then, right as it was almost together, Mike got offered a transfer to Dallas, and we moved. It felt almost like a step back to square one, but at least I had a spark of an idea of where I was headed musically next. Plus, since I wasn’t involving a band, it wasn’t really that much of a setback. More of a distraction. N’Elvis got shelved once we landed in Dallas. But a bigger, more refined version built off that same N’Elvis persona would emerge soon enough.
Overall, I’d say San Antonio was a good experience. I’ve got some fond memories of the place, and I think I could live there again someday. That said, the adventures keep rolling, and we’re headed to a bigger city next: Dallas. We’ll get into that in a few weeks, after I give this life story stuff a rest so it doesn’t get too boring for you all.
A funny thing I’ve noticed lately is that with all the crazy politics and noise going on in the world right now, I find myself missing some of the fun, goofy stuff from the early social media days. Remember the ice bucket challenges, or those lists people used to post? I do, and I actually stumbled across an old one of mine the other day called 15 Albums in 15 Minutes. Remember that one? I found it genuinely interesting rereading the list I’d made back then. So I think I’m going to do something fun with it next week, maybe a deeper dive into that same 15 in 15 with more detail on the why behind each pick. Maybe you all can play along too. That’s your hint to start putting on your thinking caps.
Anyway, just something fun for a breather, nothing related to politics. I don’t know about you all, but I will be genuinely glad when all these election ads are over and we can get back to watching quality entertainment, like Naked and Afraid, in peace. Can you imagine all the good that could be done with the money political parties waste on ads? I hate to say it, but most of us have already made up our minds who we are and aren’t voting for. The ads are just overkill at this point. Oh well, I’ll shut up.
More road ahead next week. Try to make yours a good one.
Jeff
Audio credits: Intro/Outro music: Intro – Proud Mary by N’Elvis, Outro – The Name Game by N’Elvis.
Listen to the “What Was That Song?” playlist, featuring music mentioned on Jeff Elder Isn’t Real:
“A Little Salt Air Never Hurt Anybody” — episode 25 of his ongoing memoir. Jeff returns to Rhode Island for the first time in fifteen years for a friend’s celebration of life, and finds the trip stirring up more than he expected: the smell of home, a Newport afternoon with a solo guitarist, and a surprising new thought about where “home” might actually be.
Also available in audio format on your favorite podcast providers.
Jeff Elder Isn’t Real is a Substack by writer and musician Jeff Elder, a place where the curtain is half open. Part memoir, part creative process, part cultural observation. Warm, honest, and a little strange. Just like life.
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