4t
S
w w
T
_W
-W
w W,
V S S
terr
I
The '70s
(Continued from Page 4)
work in a more business-like man-
ner-the times of the big (record
company) parties are over.
Nowadays, there is much more co-
operation between the artists and
the labels. Before (during the '70s),
te record company was looked on as
the enemy."
As to the band's second album and
its weak material Bergstein said, "It
took Fieger 10 years to write one
album." According to him, Get the
Knack was the product of countless
demos and live performances. The
second record had to be cranked out
within a year.
Since the demise of The Knack,
Doug Fieger went on to form Doug
Fieger's Taking Chances. He also
sang two songs on the Was (Not
Was) album, Born to Laugh at Tor-
nados. Prescott Niles (bassist),
drummer Bruce Gary, and guitarist
Berton Averre are currently rehear-
sing some new material with actor
Steven Bauer.
with "Hot Child in the City," selling
two million copies. The single came
from his album, City Nights (his
second)-a record laden with cool
observations on the underground
and teenage life on the loose in the
big city.
"I'm intrigued by sex," Gilder
told Rolling Stone that year. "It's so
much a part of everything we do and
we don't completely understand why
we're doing it."
Gilder went on to record Frequen-
cy on Chrysalis Records. However,
business arrangements began to
take a turn for the worse and the
young artist switched to Neil
Bogart's Boardwalk Records in 1980.
Shortly after the release of his Rock
America, Gilder's new record label
folded.
Gilder continued writing, and has
worked on pieces for Pat Benetar.
Bette Midler, and Suzi Quatro. In
1984, he had, at last, another huge hit
with "The Warrior"-a song he co-
wrote with Holly Knight that was
performed by Scandal.
Gilder has just released his first
album on RCA, entitled Nick Gilder.
Sometimes when we touch/the
honesty's too much/and Ihave to
close my eyes and hide...
Canadian songwriter Dan Hill is
best remembered (in the U.S. at
least) for his 1976 single,
"Sometimes When We Touch." Co-
written with Barry Mann, this ballad
about deep feelings in a relationship
earned Hill a Grammy nomination
that year (which he lost to Barry
Manilow). Other laurels included a
number-one single simultaneously
on the Canadian and Australian
charts.
Hill's first hit was actually "You
Make Me Wanna Be," which earned
him a strong Canadian following, and
eventually led to his signing in the
U.S. with 20th Century Records.
Since the success of
"Sometimes...," Hill has remained
musically active, releasing four
albums. He co-wrote the title track
of George Benson's In Your Eyes,
and has been performing scattered
concerts in this native Canada. He
also written a novel, entitled
Comeback, based in part on his own
experiences as a performer and
writer.
The Danoffs were former cohorts of
John Denver, having sung on his
records and co-written "Country
Roads."
These four performers from
Washington D.C. got together as an
experiment so that Bill Danoff could
try out some of his vocal harmony
theories. "Afternoon Delight" clim-
bed straight up the charts after its
release in 1976, hitting a number-one
position, contributing to the group's
success with Gramny's that year,
when they won "Best Artist of the
Year and "Best Arrangement for
Vocals."
Success proved short-lived for the
Vocal Band; they broke up in 1979
after the release of their third LP.
Presently, the band members are
all residing in their native D.C. and
all still actively writing music.
That's the way, uh-huh uh-huh,
Ilike it, uh-huh uh-huh.
< < VERYONE GIVES him
credit for inventing disco,"
says Sherry Smith of Sunshine
Sound. Of course, Smith is speaking
of "K.C." Casey-- the mastermind
behind K.C. and the Sunshine Band.
The Sunshine Band began as the
collaboration of H.W. Casey and
Richard Finch, both at the time em-
ployees of Tone Distributers in
Miami, Florida. They began
songwriting as K.C. and the
Junkanoo Band (Junkanoo is a style
of percussion-oriented music from
the Bahamas) and released their
first single, "Blow Your Whistle" in
1973. The record caught on and
reached number 27 on the R&B char-
ts. The Duo's follow-up, "Sound
Your Funky Horn," the first song
released as K.C. and the Sunshine
Band, hit number 21 in 1974.
Pretty soon, the Sunshine Band
had expanded to nine members and
were recording such disco hits as
"That's the Way (I Like It),"
"(Shake, Shake, Shake,) Shake
Your Booty," and "Get Down
Tonight." These songs were number
one on both the pop and R&B charts
that year, making the Sunshine
Band the first group to have three
number-one hits in a year since the
Beatles. Disco was firmly
established, and the Sunshine Band
was the king of this sound as they
kept pouring out the hits with "I'm
Your Boogie Man" and "Keep it
Coming Love." After a brief slow
period, they enjoyed a healthy
comeback with "Please Don't Go"
and "Yes I'm Ready" in 1978.
K.C. has just come back from
three weeks of sellouts in Australia.
K.C. is presently involved in
producing a record by the Sunshine
Band featuring Thomas Vernon on
vocals. He is also considering a solo
release. When asked if the "end" of
disco could spell slower times for
K.C., Sherry Smith says, "Dance
never really goes away. He has had
success with both his ballads and his
commercial songs ... A hit record's a
hit record."
On the
road
By Hobey Echlin
Green on Red
Enigma recording artists
The Blind Pig
208 S. First
Monday night, $5
A MERICA'S ALWAYS had an
almost too-ready acceptance for
the dispossessed. From Kerouac's
Japhy Rider to the Vietnam vet,
America has found a kind of hero in its
disenfranchised misfit. A sense of
respect mixed with a distant awe is
given the outcast who pursues his own
course removed from society.
Green On Red like to think of them-
selves as not necessarily in, but damn
close to Jack Kerouac's footsteps, as
sort of patron saints of the hopeful
drifter. The L.A. quintet wastes no
time, energy, and what's more, in-
tegrity in getting this across.
Their last album, Gas Food
Lodging, was nothing short of a con-
cept album, the kind critics love to
hate as selfish expressions of the
band's too-inner thoughts. But com-
mercialism and cynic critics be dam-
ned, Dave Stuart led his band into the
studio last winter to record his own
version of "On the Road."
Other songs showed the eerier,
more demented side of the wayfaring
examining imagination. "The Drif-
ter" tells of the exploits of a mass
murderer in a sort of Jack Nicholson-
melancholy perversion of the Long
Ranger hero.
Stuart was careful of the almost
inevitable naivete of the self-styled
neo-anything revivalists. And so came
"Black River," a sort of updating of
the beat generation, wary that the
comparisons as well as the context
were vastly different. Stuart seemed
to be saying that there was no real
legacy being carried on in our time of
the pre-60s sense of dispossession that
Kerouac and Cassady aired. Rather, a
common base to the simplicity and, at
the same time, depth in what you see
and how you see it.
And hear it as well. The album's
fine instrumental side provided the
aural punctuation to Stuart's already
powerful lyrics. New lead guitarist
Chris Prophet IV gave "That's What
Dreams" the exclamation-point
guitar it needed to reach truly an-
themic volume. More guitar meant
less Doorsy dominant keyboards from
Chris Cavacas, giving him the
freedom necessary to provide the
essential but delicate backdrop of
piano accompaniment to Stuart's
bluntly emotional love song "This I
Know."
The musicM1 and emotional syn-
thesis climaxed with the album's
finale, a cover of "We Shall Over-
come," the '60s civil rights anthem.
But cover isn't the right word.
Stuart's Dylan-esque vocals and
Prophet's jangly country guitar in-
tern,
disti
thei
inhe
muc
visi
inte
Thu
mo'
whi
fire
qua
and
styl
T
and
rev
tour
clud
in S
T
rec
con
one
but
Sla:
sec
Wh
Doc
to C
Thi
unc
G
this
con
sign
Foo
wit
pro
We
Ste
wei
Skyrockets in flight/Afternoon
delight...
Hot child in the city/running
wild and looking pretty.
NINETEEN-SEVENTY-
EIGHT was Nick Gilder's big
year. He scored a number-one hit
IF THE '70s' were the years of
America's sexual revolution, The
Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon
Delight" is clearly an example of
how the times were reflected in the
music.
The Starland Vocal Band was
made up of Margot Chapman (for-
merly of Fat City), Jonathan
Carroll, and Bill and Taffy Danoff.
And something clicked, from inside
and outside as well. The appeal lay
not so much in the aesthetics, but in
the realism of an overweaned
idealism, the same frustrating but
honest feeling you get with about 10
miles to go when you suddenly realize
you're out of gas.
Songs like "That's What Dreams"
told it all with blunt but infinite per-
ception:
It seems that no one has any
faith anymore/Well isn't that what
we invented heroes for?/I was told
at ten 1 was all through/Still a
youngman, I know that ain't
true... /That's what dreams were
made for.
Just ask Dave
Feeble study habits? Here's eight ways to motivate
SQUEEZE
COSI FAN TUTTI FRUTTI
about those great
stereo sounds from
.f ^ 4 Inc
- ~
MR. ROCK &
_ROLL!
VE
R.E.M u
Fables of the Reconstruction
C
SUA
The Three O'Clock
Arrive Without Travelling
The Truth
Playground
YZ
j ,Y ( .
b
^S~v , -
THE BLUENLE
Q,
A WALK ACROSS THE ROOFTOPS
AJ
DARYL JOHN
HALL & OATES LI\
a
HOT I
R.E.M.
Reckoning
SUN. 12-8
"The best
selection at
the best price"
523 E. LIBERTY
994-8031
THE DREAM OF THE BLUE TURTLES
AM
FleshtoneS
live in Paris'85
w
±fi
LR.S.
R.E.M.
Murmur
Chr
523 E. LIBERTY
994-8031
SUN. 1.
MON.-1
FRI. &
WITH DAVID RUFFIN & EDDIE KENDRICK
3
~~I -- I
MON.-THUR. 10-9
FR I. & SAT. 10-9:30
8 Weekend/Friday, September 20, 1985
Weeker