The 1981 Listening Post - Bad Manners - Gosh...It's Bad Manners

 Bad Manners - Gosh...It's Bad Manners

#394

By Timmy Daniels

September 1 1981

Bad Manners

Gosh it’s...Bad Manners 

Genre: Goofball rock (Ed.)

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Tim’s Rating: 1 out of 5

This album hit #18 on the charts, just as a placeholder.

With the trumpet player and saxophone, it’s easy to lump this in as a bad version of Blues Brothers, but I dug deeper. And then I listened to the Blues Brothers instead and was happier.

“Walking in the Sunshine” — My first thought is that I’m listening to a theme song from a 1970s TV NYC show that failed.  No idea why that pops into my head.  Maybe it’s the aged sound, saxophone, & attempt to be ska by a British Band.  Man, once I got “this was probably the theme song for a failed pilot” in my head, that wouldn’t leave.  It even has that feeling you get when you hear the long “real” version of the tv show theme and realize: Nope, the shorter version is better.  All anyone needs of this song can be wrapped up in 60 seconds.  It’s not awful, but I’m not gonna sing it in the shower either.  Someone called them a third rate UB40 in the initial reviews and I wouldn’t fight them.

“Dansetta" — This sounds like the music that brings you back into a late night show, then stops as the host starts speaking.  Again, that’s about all we need of it. 10 seconds.  Maybe I just needed to hear it in a warm and fun environment.  Again, it’s not awful, but I don’t see why it would be memorable to anyone unless they heard it during a special time in their life.

"Can Can” — I can’t imagine why someone heard: "Galop infernal" by French composer Jacques Offenbach and thought: This needs to be updated... in Ska.  My face made that form it often takes when I’m wondering why someone would own a dog in New York.  Please pick up your poop: Bad Manners.

"Weeping and Walking" - Besides this being a summary of how I walked in general, last year… let’s see…  This has a James Bond-y feel to it. That song you hear and never think: “ll go buy this on vinyl.” But so far it’s the best song on the album.  And you know what, it’s growing on me.  Hell, I may use this as a perk me up.  The next time I myself am weeping & walking.  They screwed the pooch on a song-name miss: Weep Walker.  Thank you, I’m here all night.

“Casablanca" - This has a bit of an Argentina Tango feel to it at one point.  I’m not sure how I feel about it.  There’s a couple keyboard rifts that were borrowed and there were some odd changes.  Maybe I need to smoke more weed.  I’ll leave this one alone.  But it’s not getting a replay.

"Don’t Be Angry (Live)" - Don’t laugh at the brutality of this statement, but my first thought was: "Someone went to see them live?”  

I probably just hurt someone’s feelings.  I didn’t mean to; honesty can get the best of me.  Don’t worry, I love songs you hate.  Ever heard Alabama 3’s "You Dont Dans to Techo?" Love it.  Listen to it and send me a note; we’re even now.  

Okay.. now the good news: It’s got a really fun 1950s feel to it, birth of Rock & Roll, back when people still knew R&R was slang for sex.  The saxophone really shines in this one and the keyboard: yeah, tickle those ivories.  Maybe they were a just good live band.  I didn’t hate it.

"Runaway" Feels like what happened to this song.  They started with “something," and it ran away.  It’s what would happen if a band with a saxophone and keyboard suddenly tried ska for their first time.  It’s a little strange.  It almost feels like self-mockery in the way that punk can be at times, which isn’t off-putting to me.  I just didn’t enjoy it.  Which can be off-putting.  I prefer to enjoy songs; I’m weird like that.

"Never Will Change" is another song where I’m wondering if the whole “ska” thing was a tongue-in-cheek move.  It doesn’t feel like a serious song, this one feels more like something running through one’s mind in a mental institution.  Part of it has a Rocky Horror Picture show feel to it.  I do imagine this band would have been better served writing a cult musical instead.  "The new one" would be right after intermission.  "No respect" would be the villain intro song (think: Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors).  The ending song would be "Buona Sera," as all of the characters who fought the whole time come out and do a little dance number.  Villains and Heroes… Dancing together… Mass Hysteria!  

Curtain!

The rest of the songs are just your run-of-the-mill 80s Ska, not sure there’s much more to say about it.  I feel like this band needed to go through something brutally real, awfully honest, and then write about it. I like lyrics and songs that capture a moment, that dig deep.  Maybe that’s also what I like about doing stand up comedy.  It’s a lot more like good lyric writing and capturing the moment in my opinion.  Whereas this album is more about me wanting to flush my head in a toilet.  

Okay, that was a cheap shot.  If this is your number one pick, consider the source: I often listen to the Weird Al version of a song and think: “this is better than the original."

https://open.spotify.com/album/7hj9olHsogggH66RRuLxwc?si=-L24nIybQg-y6BQdvvb3bA

The 1981 Listening Post - Electric Light Orchestra - Time

 Electric Light Orchestra - Time

#322

July 2 1981

By Timmy Daniels

Electric Light Orchestra

Time

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Timmy’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

The Way Life‘s Meant To Be

Hold On Tight      Gotta place warning ahead of time that I’m a romantic, a dreamer and a solid fool.  So I’m probably like any other music lover; ha.  Not just hearing  what is, but what could be — mixed in with what is & current context.  And also imagination, moment, experience, and emotion all tend to flood my album views like wearing a pair of blue tinted glasses.  I can’t avoid it.  I feel like that’s a necessary warning.

This isn’t so much an album as a journey.  And it’s hard to take that journey outside the context of a massive need to get away from 2020 in any way... the longing for a simpler time that catapulted Stranger Things into the consciousness of our National nostalgia.

And if “Twilight” is the time machine, “Yours Truly” is that point when the subway reminds you with a sudden jerk that the rails sit on a a 100 years old system. I’m reminded of when I got a new cd and was so grateful to no longer have to fast forward a song.  Oh glorious skip song.  But I endured.  Like the jerks of the subway.

“Ticket to the moon” feels like it could have been written yesterday.  God how I wish they had never made Yours Truly, how much more David Bowie floating in space this experience would have been.  It’s not worthy of the Bowie name to be sure, but outside such lofty comparison and taken alone as its own journey, it’s a nice float away from today.  It’s the dream where you are flying.  Just a drift away tune.

“The way life’s meant to be” - oh yeah, this one.  Love it.  It’s a dramatic slow walking dance into a door-kicked-open cha-cha journey in a nice Mexican cantina ...meets Elvis... meets evening becoming night and he or she dances with you... under the all year Christmas Lights.  Now get up and dance! Oh yeah. 

I’ve earmarked it as my favorite song on the album.  It’s the first tune that feels like a song.  It’s a “rock back and forth, crack a beer and say fuck it” number.  Yeah.  This is why I embraced this process, this group. To have a moment like this.

Another Heart breaks is ELO channeling Roger Waters and failing at it.  But not so bad that it’s unlistenable, but such that you don’t particularly long for it again.

Rain is Falling then becomes a Beatles Channeling.  Which also fails.  The Harmony, drum stop changes and Morning & weather themes just feels Beatle like to me.  And I could be limited in music knowledge & experience but that’s just how it felt to me.  There are a couple nice changes on the keyboard which redeems this a little.

“From the end of the world” feels like an exercise tape gone wrong.  It’s got a light Eurythmics flavor to it I feel.  Honestly I got used to this song and played it again, which I didn’t think I would do at first.  My best compliment to it: hey, it’s not horrible.  I think.

The lights go down feels like I should drink some red red wine and sit by the pool, wishing I wasn’t so fat.  Hoping a tan might help.  Thinking positive.  

I don’t hate it.  It’s a little catchy, familiar.  There’s a piece of crimson and clover in there, some red wine, some guitar upstrokes.  It’s okay, I’ll listen.

I didn’t care for “Here’s the News”. I also don’t care for News.

21st Century Man gets the album back on theme.  Which at this point, hey; why not.  It feels like a B side you would listen to and tell yourself you might like it, might even listen again.  But you won’t.  I probably won’t either; I’m with you.

Then again maybe it could appear in a show starring Brian Cranston and make me like it.

“Hold on Tight” was the first song I recognized.  Yeah.  I like this piano jamming Windows Down on the freeway next to the ocean number.  Yeah.  Well alright.

“Epilogue” wasn’t necessary.  But okay.  It’s there.  And this is my review.  It’s here.

Hahaha.  Honestly I’m not sure how this fits into the ongoing experiment but on this week this was one of the funnest things I did, and I’m thankful to skip alerts and news to just listen.  Thanks for this welcome relief!  I’ll Hang on tight.

The 1981 Listening Post - ZZ Top - El Loco

ZZ Top - El Loco 

#316

By Timothy Daniels

July 1981

ZZ Top 

El Loco 

Genre: ZZ Top Boogie Rock

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Timothy’s Rating: 2 out of 5

Tube Snake Boogie:  Ohhhh yeaaahhh.  Boogie boogie.  Boogie Boogie.  I mean if someone can’t move a little to this song I don’t trust where their sole is from.  It’s long hair, pickup trucks made entirely of chrome and yellow for some reason, driving past a ten foot tall guitar in Vegas.  It’s about as ZZtop as it gets.  Which is to say there might as well be no lyrics at all, they are meaningless basic gibberish, and the guitar is good.  That’s ZZtop.  It reached number four on the charts and that sounds about right.

I Wanna Drive You Home is a little slow and reminds me of something you ignore just after your song plays on the jukebox.  You would skip it if you could.  At some point I did just that.

Same with Ten Foot Pole.  After hearing the last two songs I’m quite convinced that they make decent music on the guitar, and then at the last minute think of a catchy phrase and just keep repeating it along with some gibberish and call it a song.  Their guitar solos are always fun, their lyrics could have been written by my niece.  She can’t speak yet.

Leila is another background song but it’s got a real night out on the town in Tampa with your girl feel to it.  It went to #77 on the charts. That sounds about right.

Don’t Tease Me sounds like The title of a really good Rolling Stone song. It’s too bad that it’s not. Instead it’s a song that I couldn’t listen to in entirety.

It’s so hard is a nice quiet jam.  Yeah.  I’m okay with this mood song.  It’s not special but it’s not awful

Pearl Necklace was the only song I recognized immediately.  This kind of reminds me of the early MTV days, I was really young but I remember falling in love with videos and watching them all of the time and my parents hated it.  I had to start doing it with an old tv in the basement.  I hooked up some cable wirespliiter thing which was how you got cable on two televisions for free illegally I think: and boom, my quintessential basement room was born.

Groovy Little Hippie Pad is a synth song that’s definitely a period piece.

Heaven, Hell or Houston is a strange song.  It sounds like it was Magic Mike from the Beastie Boys first project when he was 10.  You can hear a couple interesting things but it’s not ready to be heard on an album.  I stuck it out, because as always the ZZtop brilliancy of guitar suddenly appears to really save the day.  Damn those boys can burst out a solo.  Too bad it’s in the middle of this mess because it’s otherwise good.

Party on the Patio sounds like something I made up when I wanted to be in a band, like all comedians as they say.  It sounds about as good as something I would have done.  It’s of course saved by what?  A guitar.  Sorta.

This album would have been better served by picking the 2 best songs and having a good song and a B side.  Tube Snake Boogie with ... I don’t even know.

1 star.  Okay... 2.  That’s just because I love ZZ Top‘s smooth guitar.  And their other albums.

https://open.spotify.com/album/3arG8ypefLVEmDBzFVCsyR?si=7XswduusTUi2rSY_SgEIrw