Today's Blind Items - 80's Bands
Last week I saw that tickets were still on sale for a show from this 80's Welsh band. They liked to consider themselves punk. I guess they were. Definitely 120 Minutes was their sweet spot but that was not really punk. Anyway, for the last 25 years or so they found a new way to pick up women. They were tired of playing shows and then only seeing the same groupies night after night getting back stage. They didn't trust their roadies to find attractive women, so they figured out a novel plan. Before they played a show they would have a meet and greet with everyone who was there at a certain time. Someone would keep track of all the woman found attractive and those women would be invited on stage at some point during the show and then shuttled off to backstage after a quick grind. The road manager would then ask if the women were interested in partying with the band backstage and in the bus and their hotel rooms. If the woman said yes, they got a backstage pass. If she said no, she was escorted back out front. The band still does it the same way now. They make it seem more high and mighty than a meet and greet, but it is the same long con they have been running for decades. It looks like they had one top 40 record in the US and shockingly enough they look to have had more success in the US rather than in their home country. They were part of the foundation of my history in music but they still are a bunch of pretentious f**ks to be doing the same thing on tour this year as they did back in the day. Come to think of it, they were pretentious back in the day too.
48 comments:
Manic Street Preachers
manic street preachers
The Alarm?
You go Elle B! and hey ya Trainrides--your Toronto sista friend is luvin ya---Didn't their original lead singer commit suicide? I listened to them when I traveled to England like in 99?
I am just waiting for someone to guess Michelle Williams...
The Alarm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_IFHYzk0rY
When you run out of relevant blinds, amirite Enty?
So unoriginal. As a former roadie, I've seen Michael Bolton pull the same s@#t. Super high ick factor.
Hey ya, D! You're referring to Richey Edwards. He's presumed dead. His wiki page is interesting.
The Alarm may be the correct answer-never heard of em-but KoolKat Enty wants to play today
BRANG IT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIZcQ3k-Ano
Well done Sandy.... they were great albeit briefly--/ very early U2 vibe. Saw them live- awesome performers
90's band, never big in the US but sold millions in europe. One dead member, two married and never had a rep as partiers. this is the alarm.
and then he threw her off his lap---the only thing Chris Martin did right in life...
Simple Minds
nevermind, Simple Minds are from Scotland.....
68 guns!
oooohhh I use to love that song...and Yeah the lead singer would need to put someting in a drink...
I think the Alarm as they were always on 120 minutes, I barely heard of Manic Street Preachers, but surprisingly, both are doing shows. This pickup method is lame, but as long as they aren't beating them and drugging them , it's not really news.
I threw a bottle at the Psychedelic Furs head a couple of years ago---does THAT give me street-cred?
*the lead singer--cause I was pissed OFF Juliana Hatfield was not performing with The Lemonheads. And NO I did not get in trouble.
Bring back The Bangles!~
@Derek Harvey,the Alarm were big on MTV, ripped off U2 and the Clash, not bad, but they seemed to think they were in the same league and they sure weren't.
"I ,IIII love to feel the rain in the Summertime....."(I do,actually)
I'm listening to Madonna -the Madonna album--shhh dont tell anyone
It sounds like it should be the Alarm, but the Alarm never had a Top 40 hit in the US - their biggest song "68 Guns" only got to #50 on the Billboard charts.
@Derek Harvey, if you mean the singer from Simple Minds, he did good for himself, married Chrissie Hynde and Actress Patsy Kinset, no drugging necessary!
Gene Loves Jezebel and the Sterophonics are Welsh according to Wiki.
I meant Simply Red---lollll *lost in Translation*
ya but they suck....
I remember my friend at the time-got Stereophonics confused with STEREOLAB. And she got got us tickets---trust made Naomi look like the Dali Lamam
I'll be sad if it's The Alarm. Met two of them in Toronto before they became famous. They were putting up posters for their gig that night and they begged me to come. It was the middle of the week, so I didn't. I wish I had, but I didn't.
@hothotheat- Sterophonic are early 90's-with 1 hit that's true(Maybe Tomorrow)-- but really nice guys(my sisters ex roomie road managed them)really humble. Not sure about GLJ(Desire was a great song)...
hence ME --I had a BITCH fit
uh NO they are late 90s
@Salaam, they had a top forty album, he doesn't say single,so I think we have a winner.
Echo and the Funnymen did the same thing at a show I saw back in the 80s. They had a meet and greet, but with no men allowed backstage. I was there to do an interview with them for work, but it did not happen. They were too busy picking out women to entertain them.
I loooved Simply Red. Mick Hucknall - "Do the Right Thing." Reminds me of Squeeze, another great band from that era. And this blind reminds me of the guy in Bridget Jones's Diary who found that one hit in the eighties was enough to get him laid for most of the nineties.
Simply Red are awesome"sunrise/European mix " and "wanna be starting something " are my picks- his voice is tremendous and soulful
I met one of the Gene Loves Jezebel guys backstage at the Palace in LA in the late 1990s. Nice guy. Very down-to-earth and friendly. He seemed kinda lonely, actually, so we had a nice chat over a beer with a couple other people. He didn't seem douchy at all.
Also, they were definitely NOT punk.
The Alarm gets my vote.
This is total BS. First, Mike Peters has toured almost exclusively for the last 10+ years (and probably longer) as a solo performer. He does the Alarm reunion shows only occasionally -- what he calls "the Gathering" which is essentially a convention for fans. Second, he's had cancer at least three times and spends a portion of each show getting people to sign up for the bone marrow registry. As for his "roadies", don't make me laugh. He had one scraggly looking dude helping him set up his guitars. I know, I saw him a few month ago and he travels light. After the show, he posed for photos with every fan that wanted to stop and say hello. You couldn't ask for a nicer guy. Salt of the earth. He is revered for the way he treats his fans. It ain't him.
@JoeMama, you are right, when looking them up ,I read one person after another praising Mike.but if someone crossed Enty 30 years ago, he doesn't forget. All the clues lead to the Alarm, but maybe not the facts. He has done this with other acts who crossed his path years ago when he was a concert promoter.
I'm going a different direction and saying Gene Loves Jezebel as they fit the MTV 120 Minutes vibe more than The Alarm (definitely were on it more than The Alarm), even if I think this probably is The Alarm.
They did have a #1 single on US Alt-Rock lists in 1990 (Jealous), but never had a #1 hit in the UK. They still announce meet and greets on their Twitter account and Web Site, too.
The Alarm were an awesome band, their songs were great!!
- The Stand
- Sold Me Down The River
- 68 Guns
- Rain In The Summertime
They should have been a lot bigger than they were, but like Trucia said, they had a U2 kind of sound, so maybe that worked against them in a "we already have one of these types of bands" way. But their Greatest Hits album is fantastic.
Oops, Tricia. Sorry, cell keyboard is so teeny and fingers are so chubby!
Duran Duran.
So, if you have ever seen the U2 concert video "Under a Blood Red Sky", the opening acts for the show were supposed to be "The Alarm" and "Divinyls", but the weather threatened cancelling the show. Fans who were already at Red Rocks Amphitheater were told that they should go home, U2 would play the next night at the Univ. of Colorado basketball arena complete with opening acts and all tickets would be honored. The fans there refused to leave, and U2 and the concert promoter, Barry Fey decided to play, mostly because the fans wouldn't leave, and also because the cameras were already in place to record the show. The resulting show is still considered one of the top 5 concerts in Colorado history, along with the first Rolling Stones show in the US, Springsteen on the Rocks in the rain,
Gene Loves Jezebel, just to be different.
Post a Comment