The 1980 Listening Post - Danny Spanos - Danny Spanos

 Reviewed by Rod Brogan

Released: 1980 Danny Spanos Danny Spanos Genre: AOR Rating: 1 out of 5 Track Highlights: Queen Of The Boulevard Danny Spanos' Rolodex in the late '70s must have read like a greatest hits of the rock and drugs scene. He drummed for Sly and the Family Stone, was produced by Zeppelin and Stones engineer Andy Johns, and claimed to have been threatened with a recording contract or else by both Spencer Proffer of Quiet Riot infamy, and Sharon Osbourne's London gangster father Don. His video ramblings about his coke-fueled exploits are still up on YouTube, and quite frankly are more entertaining than his listless self-titled 1980 offering. Released on John Denver's RCA sub-label Windsong Records, the soupy, schmaltzy keyboard laden production sometimes gives way to legitimate rockers like Queen Of The Boulevard and the Smoke On The Water like riff of Under My Skin, but for the most part doesn't know if it wants to be Billy Squier or 52nd Street era Billy Joel. Album closer Rock Me, Shock Me decides to do neither of those things, with cloying fake handclaps on the chorus, when applause should have waited until it was mercifully over. Spanos had great AOR pipes, like a Stan Bush clone, and never gives less than an energetic performance. Curiously, for a drummer turned singer, he never gets behind the kit for his own album. Ross Salamon and A.J. Mayday capably handle the simple beats and fills, while Earl Slick of Bowie/John Lennon/Robert Smith fame steals the show when he is allowed. Three years later, Spanos finally started rocking out in earnest for Epic, and recorded Hot Cherie, which became a minor hit both for him that year and in 1992 for Neal Schonn's post-Journey band Hardline. He also recorded one soundtrack song each on the Tim Matheson comedy Up the Creek and Tom Cruise's All the Right Moves. By 1984, his coke addiction had rendered him impossible to work with. He was arrested for disturbing the peace and being a public nuisance after giving an impromptu record listening party to "industry executives and friends" at a Mojave Desert motel, as one does. After his arrest and tepid sales of that year's aptly titled Looks Like Trouble, even the gangster managers and producers gave up on him. Spanos descended into obscurity, and passed away in 2022. Most of his songs don't live on, but thankfully his video reminiscing does.