Out To Offend : Oingo Boingo's debut and other June 1981 releases

Oingo Boingo : Little Girls

When Oingo Boingo released their debut album Only A Lad on June 19, 1981, the NME's Robin Eggar wrote "this record will make the kind folks up at Virgin Records as sick as parrots. You see Oingo Boingo have made the album they've always wanted XTC to make. Full of fractured rhythms, pop hooks, warped humor and commercial appeal".

The album's most notorious track is "Little Girls", Danny Elfman's character study of the a type he saw  all the time. "Out here in Hollywood, you see so much of that; the older guy's in the car with some young girl who essentially asks no questions," he said. The video , directed by his brother Richard, was banned in Canada.

Some other noteworthy tracks are "Only A Lad", "Capitalism" and their cover of The Kinks' "You Really Got Me".

Killing Joke :  Follow The Leader

On the second Killing Joke album furious tribal drum beating replaced synthesizers  Yes, the songs on What's This For drone on endlessly but that's all for the master effect. Killing Joke played dark and disturbing music, but you definitely could dance to it! Reviews were mixed with Melody Maker's Adam Sweeting providing the dissenting opinion:"a tired and very noisy collection of ripoffs", and deemed the whole effort "unlistenable ... apart from the spaces between the tracks" .

T.S.O.L : Code Blue

In June of 1981 True Sounds of Liberty released their debut album Dance With Me. The band is essentially trying to come up with a fusion of hardcore and "Monster Mash". 

The highlight is "Code Blue", a song about having sex with dead women :

Never on the rag or say leave me alone

They don't scream and they don't moan 

Don't even cry if I shoot in their hair

 Lying on the table she smiles and she stares 

I actually saw TSOL play in New York City. I was so loud I never realized what they were singing about.

Three EPs from famous 80's bands

Oingo Boingo : Only  a Lad

[Purchase]

In September of 1980 the Los Angeles band/ comedy troupe  Oingo Boingo released a 10" EP on IRS Records made up of demos they recorded when they went label shopping. The eight piece band is led by Danny Elfman. There are three original songs including "Only A Lad", which got heavy airplay on the local new wave radio station KROQ-FM,  and a cover of Willie Dixon's "Violent Love" 

Wall of Voodoo : Ring of Fire

[Purchase]

At the end of the month another Los Angeles band, Wall of Voodoo, released its self titled debut EP on Index Records. The band would reach its commercial peak in 1983 with its US#58 hit "Mexican Radio".

Soft Cell : L.O.V.E Feelings

[Purchase]

Mutant Moments was the name of Soft Cell's vinyl debut on Big Frock Rekords. The band is made up of the art school duo David Ball and Marc Almond. In just 15 months they would release their infamous debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret featuring the UK#1 "Tainted Love"

The making of URGH ! A MUSIC WAR

Oingo Boingo : Ain't This The Life

[Purchase]

On the weekend of August 16 British filmmakers, working with IRS Records and FBI Booking Agency,  showed up at various Los Angeles venues to shoot performances that would appear in a 1981 concert movie called Urgh! A Music War. 

It all began on a Friday night at Santa Monica Civc Center with sets from Chelsea ("I'm On Fire") and the Dead Kennedys ("Bleed For Me"). X followed with a version of "Beyond and Black", followed by The Cramps playing "Tear It Up" with their new guitarist Julien Hechtlinger, aka Julien Grindsnatch. 

  The next night featured Stiv Bators, who didn't make the cut. Wall of Voodoo followed with "Back In Flesh". The Members("Offshore Banking Business")  were next and then came Pere Ubu with "Birdies". David Thomas looked like a junior banking executive.

Magazine followed with a version of "Model Worker". Said a reviewer from Sounds "Howard Devoto was looking like an over-intelligent lift-operator from another world dropped into a disco".

On Sunday night the filmmakers moved to the Whiskey A-Go-Go to film The Surf Punks performing "My Beach", followed by The Go-Go's with "We Got The Beat". 

The Alley Cats took the stage that night to play  "Nothing Means Nothing Anymore" and a band called Oingo Boingo with "Ain't This the Life".

In San Francisco they would catch Devo on stage. 

The following weekend the crew would be in New York City catching performances by The Fleshtones, Joan Jett and, most memorably,  Klaus Nomi performing "Total Eclipse". The movie would be released in 1981 along with a soundtrack by A+M Records which may why The Police, shot in September along with the likes of XTC and Echo and the Bunnymen, get three songs on the soundtrack. 

Both Talking Heads and The B-52's both turned down offers to appear in the movie.