Right, I know - I didn't anticipate a Babys' song making its way into this space, either. But a fine gentleman by the name of John Marcher recently started following this blog, and when I was in San Francisco earlier this month I was fortunate enough to meet him in person at the Mission Bar. Prior to that, through a variety of on-line communiques, we discovered that, growing up in Southern California at the same time, we likely had attended many of the same concerts (confirming two for sure, I believe - Blue Oyster Cult, Pat Travers and Cindy Bullins (sp?) at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus in 1979 (the Cult were touring the LP Mirrors), and the "festival" I'm about to discuss), including this gem at the Coliseum in either '79 or '80, I think - Cheap Trick (I want to say the Dream Police tour); Journey; Black Sabbath (Dio on vocals); Molly Hatchet (not Danny Joe Brown on vocals but his replacement (although I think, later, DJB returned)); The Babys (Jonathan Cain had recently joined; later he moved up the food chain to Journey); and then a band named either Force 10 or Russia (they went by BOTH names for a time; not sure which banner they were flying this day). Anyway, as these things happen, this got me to thinking about the Babys, and the first couple of songs I heard by them (Isn't It Time and Broken Heart) which appeared on their second album, also called Broken Heart.
The pop hit was the aforementioned Isn't It Time, and like a good little 15 year old I went out and bought the single (the flip side was a song called Give Me Your Love, with the Audenesque opening lyric, "Give me your love/ooooo, I need that thing real bad."). Along about that time I was juggling back and forth between AM and FM, and started buying albums instead of singles. When I heard the FM song, Broken Heart (and still enjoying the single), I went ahead and bought the album. The next record, Head First, featured a monster FM "rocker" of the same name (this was around 1979 and I'd just started high school), and they really took off for a couple of years after that, releasing two more records (I think) - Union Jacks, a fairly solid pop/rock album (the AM hit was Back on My Feet Again; the FM Midnight Rendezvous), and then, finally, Over the Edge, which was just awful (sample lyric from Sweet 17 - "Blowin' bubbles in the parking lot/got her mouth full of sticky stuff". Cheers, guys!).
And, yes, that was WAY too much time to spend on the Babys - fair enough, I'm not going to argue. But give the song a listen nonetheless. It's short; you likely have not heard it; the drums send it along its way quite nicely; John Waite sounds like he actually gives a shit on this one; it doesn't overwhelm with keyboards or dumb backing vocals; it has a couple nice guitar pieces, especially behind the vocal on the chorus. And then you never have to think about it again!
Broken Heart...
IBL:mm
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Michael,
ReplyDeleteHow could you have discussed the Babys and left out "Every Time I Think of You"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AcY-OJRbxk&feature=related
Anyway, YouTube videos of the era show Waite looking like a long-lost member of Sweet- ion fact all of the Babys look like Sweet-Lite, like they got stuck on trying to update "Little Willy" for adolescent girls who had outgrown bubble gum and were getting their first "mouthfuls of sticky stuff" - but that's a topic for another post, wouldn't you say?
John - I imagine I blocked Every Time I Think of You from my mind. Thanks for getting us hooked up with the link!
ReplyDeleteLittle Willy - Becky Sanchez next door bought that single when it came out. The label was silver. Decca, maybe? Flip side? Man From Mecca. That's right, my brain has nothing better to do than remember the flip side of a 45 from 1973 THAT I DIDN'T EVEN OWN...
Re - a topic for another post. Absolutely; I hear A Beast in the Jungle might be initiating that stream...?