Memorable Singles from March 1981

Plastics : Diamond Head

Released as a gold flexi-disc 33 1/3 rpm single, "Diamond Head" is just as fun and quirky as you would hope to hear from this Japanese new wave band. Produced by Alex Sadkin who worked on all of the Grace Jones releases this same year. A favorite single of mine from 1981

Altered Images : Dead Pop Stars

The debut single from Glasgow's Altered Images rose to UK#67. The band, coming off a tour opening for Siouxsie and the Banshees, would shed their punk influences quickly enough to record both UK#2 "Happy Birthday" and UK#7"I Could Be Happy" before the year was out. By then front woman Clare Grogan had stolen a million hearts.

Dexy's Midnight Runners : Plan B

The new Dexy's single, which sounds like it could have pulled from Searching For The Young Soul Rebels  only peaked at UK#58. Maybe fans felt they'd already heard this before. David Hepworth of Smash Hits wasn't impressed:

Teardrop Explodes : Reward

Though released in January, "Reward" spent much of the month of March in the UK Top 10. It even got the Liverpool band on Top of the Pops. In his book 'Head On', Julian Cope says the band were doing Acid, speed, booze and weed from breakfast all the way to their appearance. The drugs would take their toll on the band, which would break up by the end of 1982.

Grover Washington Jr featuring Bill Withers : Just The Two Of Us

Thanks to the US#2 hit, Grover Washington Jr's platinum album Winelight topped the US jazz charts for too many months to count. That silky electric piano sound comes courtesy of Richard Tee who also played on Paul Simon's "Slip Slidin' Away". 

Taana Gardner : Heartbeat

The 20 year old Newark singer scored a massive disco hit with "Heartbeat" which would be sampled in the basis of "Lyrics 2 the Rhythm," the song from the "New Jack City" soundtrack by The Essence, Ini Kamoze's ubiquitous 1995 summer hit "Here Comes the Hotstepper," and De La Soul's 1989 hit "B.U.D.D.Y. Remix" 

Teardrop Explodes release dreamy debut with Kilimanjaro

Teardrop Explodes : Poppies In The Field

[Purchase]

I think we're very poppy. To me pop is something you hum. What I'm trying to do is strike a balance between triteness and greatness. 

-Julian Cope

On October 10, 1980 Teardrop Explodes finally released their long-awaited debut album Kilimanjaro. The Liverpool band emerged from the same neo-psychedelic sound that gave us Echo and the Bunnymen and Wah!Heat and had already released four of the songs on the album as singles "Sleeping Gas", "Bouncing Babies", "Treason", a UK Indie #3 hit and the UK#47 "When I Dream". 

The deep cuts offer more rewards. "Poppies In The Field" even has backwards guitar sounds, an incessant Krautrock bass line and the line "I can't explain at all/ I can't explain what I feel" which seems to sum up how I feel writing about this influential album which I often plucked from the shelves at my college radio station. When you wanted your 80's college radio show to sound like an 80's college radio show Kilimanjaro was a great way to do that. And it flowed so well out of 60's psychedelia like Love, The Doors and later Byrds.

Robert Christgau gave the album a grade of B, writing

If Bunnyman Ian McCulloch favors the schlock mysterioso Jim Morrison, Droplet Julian Cope prefers the schlock heartthrob, complete with romantic authoritarianism ("Well I don't think this is real/To criticize our love" is prime hippie bullshit, no?), "Touch Me" horns, and AM potential. No, really, "Sleeping Gas" was once a very poppy indie single, and some of this stuff would probably sound pretty neat on the, er, radio is what we used to call it I guess. But why anyone who didn't acquire an addiction that way would prefer this to Blondie or the Box Tops is beyond me. I mean, Cope is a little smarter than Jay Black or Gary Lewis, but that just makes him harder to take.

 

The album spent 35 weeks on the UK charts and that's despite a muddy mix and one of the least inspired album covers of all time. Anyone paying attention to the lyrics ("The parachute's in the bag/ I'm throwing it over to you") would guess Julian Cope wasn't your typical pop star frontman. In the early 80's U2 and Duran Duran may have considered the Teardrops rivals, but Cope walked out of recording sessions for what would have been the third album to pursue a fascinating, often psychedelic drug induced musical career that only sometimes bounced back into the pop world. 

A Poison Child

The Teardrop Explodes : Bouncing Babies

[Purchase]

On May 14,1979, Teardrop Explodes recorded their second single "Bouncing Babies", which would be backed with "All I Am Is Loving You".  

The singer tells the story of how, born a bouncing baby, he has became a bouncing bomb that needs defusing. 

I'm not sure how many copies of the single Zoo Records distributed, but apparently not enough. 

In June of 1981 The Freshies would release a single called "I Can't Get 'Bouncing Babies' By The Teardrop Explodes.

Watching Rafferty Turn Into A Serial

The Teardrop Explodes : Sleeping Gas

[Purchase]

In February of 1979 the Liverpool band Teardrop Explodes released "Sleeping Gas", their debut single on their hometown's Zoo Records label. Some in the rock press would call it the Single of the Week, according to Julian Cope's website.

The band came together years after after bassist/vocalist Julian Cope has been a short-lived trio called The Crucial Three with future Echo and the Bunnymen founder Ian McCulloch and future Wah! leader Pete Wylie. A few more short-lived bands later, Cope has formed a new post-punk group with a penchant for 60's psychedelia. Just before they agree to call themselves A Shallow Madness, organ player Paul Simpson shows them a Daredevil comic he's reading.

In his memoir Head On, Cope writes

"There was this story, in a Super D.C. comic, about a battle in Central Park, involving Namur, the undersea god, and the superhero, Daredevil. The whole story comes to a climax as the sun blots out and suddenly, for no reason at all, the Teardrop Explodes. It made no sense, the story made no sense at all. We tried to figure it out and we couldn't. But it was a great name for a group. I loved it. It was like The 13th Floor Elevators or The Chocolate Watchband. And no-one had a name like that. September '78 was all short dour names. Ours was far-fucking-out."

Also far out: the psychedelic lyrics of "Sleeping Gas" with its repeated refrain "You can watch Rafferty turn into a serial/You can watch rafferty turn into a serial /You can watch rafferty turn into a serial/ Just like a cartoon by AAP/ Oh it's just like a cartoon by AAP. 

Rafferty was a Patrick "The Prisoner " McGoohan's televison thriller while AAP has the distribution rights to Mr Magoo, Popeye and Merrie Melodies cartoons.

Above : the third Teardrop Explodes performance and the very first television appearance. They're playing one of the B sides to "Sleeping Gas"on Tony Wilson's Granada Television programme 'What's On', transmitted from Manchester. By this time Bill Drummond and David Balfe are managing both Teardrop and Echo, whose first single would come out in May.

Tom Robinson's All Time Top Ten (1979)

Tom Robinson photo courtesy of Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop


[Buy it Now]

As told to Smash Hits Magazine in 1979 via Like Punk Never Happened . At the time, The Tom Robinson Band's debut album Power In the Darkness was climbing up to #4 on the UK album charts. CD reissues of the album include two of their best known singles "2-4-6-8 Motorway" and "Glad To Be Gay".


1. U2 : I Will Follow - Forget the critical bullshit. Just go see them. Great on record, staggering live.
2. Richard and Linda Thompson : I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight - Possibly the finest album of English music recorded in the 70's. Timeless and compelling.
3. The Out : Who is Innocent? - Along with Clive Pig's "Sweet Sixteen", the most underrated mini classic of '79.
4. The Cure : Boys Don't Cry - It's not what they say, it's the way they say it.
5. The Clash: White Man in Hammersmith Palais - Barely dented the Top 100 while "Tommy Gun" soared into the hit parade. Is there no justice?
6. Echo and the Bunnymen: All That Jazz - See you at the barricades babe/ See you when the lights go low, Joe.
7. Coil : Alcoholstark/ Motor Industry - Two chilling sides by sadly defunct Northampton band. Search out and listen.
8. Peter Gabriel: I Don't Remember - a personal favourite from a favourite person.
9. XTC: Roads Girdle The World - Ever since "Drums and Wires" I've been an avid fan.
10. The Teardrop Explodes: Treason - Once a good band becomes too popular ( i.e. Teardrop Explodes, Joy Division, Specials,  Police), it suddenly becomes uncool to admit you like them. Me, I love 'em all.