Re: Long Time, No Listen: Episode VII

The Flys - Waikiki Beach Refugees
I'm not sure when I got this one, but it must've been from a used bin, judging from the cutout corner. It probably was some time in the Nineties, when The Auto-No would include The Flys' song "Love and a Molotov Cocktail" in their sets. That single doesn't appear on this album, but what does appear is great modish rock 'n' roll, very favorably comparable to The Vapors. It offers a couple of change-ups ranging from Buddy Holly-ish clipped-guitar sounds to a weird take on country-blues. Definitely not front-loaded at all; indeed, in some ways, the second side is tighter than the first, with the songs coming in quick hot succession. Very cool. A serious keeper.

Corey Hart - First Offense
I married into this one. Listening to this album, I remembered the TV series Futureman and the role that Corey Hart's music played in a few of the episodes -- the portion of that goofy sci-fi series that was set in the Eighties. The album's sound is very Eighties, of course, but not on the "execrable" side ... at first. But as Side One moves along, it begins to show more and more of those elements. And after flipping it over, the music and Hart's singing affectations (like his repeated line "N-n-n-n-nooo, nooo ..." in one song) go from execrable to painful. And the songs just seem to get dumber: "Cheatin' in School" might be about a student who's cheating on classwork, or cheating on a lover; it never seems clear in the lyrics. I could dig deeper into those lyrics, if I cared enough about this song. All the worst elements are here, but without the sheer brazen bombast of Dead Or Alive, or the all-in confidence (misplaced though it may have been) of Cutting Crew. And then I remembered that the character in Futureman who appreciated Hart's music so deeply was one who literally had never heard music before. This may have been Corey's first offense, but forty-plus years later it remains pretty offensive.

The Jeff Healey Band - See the Light
I received this as a freebie from our hometown radio station. Generally, I don't get much into blues, but this album maintains much of the appeal it had when I first heard it. "Confidence Man," "Don't Let Your Chance Go By," the instrumental "Nice Problem to Have," "Someday Someway" (not the Marshall Crenshaw song) and the title track all deliver the goods. The ballads drag things down a little, the cover of ZZ Top's "Blue Jean Blues" drags things down a lot more, and the production is too Eighties for its own good (especially on the drums). But overall, it's pretty good. And I enjoyed seeing Healey and his band onstage, so this LP brings back good memories.

The Human League - Hysteria
This is one I got as a gift from a friend, back when it was a new release. She knew I liked Dare a lot (and so did she). I don't recall the two of us ever listening to this album together, but if we did, I'm sure we must've shared puzzled expressions over the drastic drop in quality from the band's preceding LP. The songs on this one seem tuneless, even amateurish -- not the sort of thing anyone would've expected from an album with Hugh Padgham and/or Chris Thomas credited as the producer. Apart from one cover, the songwriting credits are focused on the band members, without any outside help ... same as on Dare, which can't help but make one wonder where their inspiration went. It does include a couple decent songs (the ballad "Louise," the guitar-driven "The Lebanon"), but they're in such shabby company that it's impossible for those songs not to stand out. The title "Don't You Know I Want You" seems like an obvious allusion to their biggest hit; the vocal interplay hints at it too ... but the end result doesn't have anything close to that sort of staying power. And holy jeez, it takes work to make a James Brown cover ("Rock Me Again and Again ...") sound utterly neutered. This is the sort of record that gave Eighties synth-pop a bad name.

Icicle Works
Another album I married into. It opens with the ever-familiar "Whisper to a Scream," but follows it up with quite a few other good tunes. "Chop the Tree," "Factory in the Desert," "In the Cauldron of Love," "Nirvana" (which doesn't sound the least bit grungy) and "Lover's Day," rely rather strongly on the same basic elements that distinguish their big hit: urgent drumming that seems ready to eat up as much of the recording space as it can, yet never seems to do it, guitars that range from brisk strumming to chiming, Edge-y arpeggios, synths coloring the margins, and Ian McNabb's boyish, achingly earnest voice delivering his achingly earnest teenage lyrics. They might come across as a one-trick pony, but they manage to sustain the trick well for the length of an album.

My thoughts on Hysteria below. Looks like we agree that "Louise" is one of the only two decent songs on it, but we disagree on what the other one was.

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It's somewhat interesting that a few years later, a very different band from Sheffield would struggle to follow up their own career-making hit album. Like the Human League, they would go through multiple producers and move from one studio to another, trying to find the inspiration they had on their previous work. They would also endure other traumas and tribulations, until they finally came up with their own long-awaited follow-up album ... which they also called Hysteria.

Fun fact (that you probably already know). The guy from The Flys is the younger brother of Hazel O'Connor.

That Icicle Works record is indeed pretty great.

I have several thousand of my albums down in my basement where the exercise equipment is, so when I'm riding the stationary bike a couple of times a week, I'm listening to records. For years, my approach has been to work my way through the alphabet, playing an "A" album on one day, a "B" album the next time, and so on until I work my way through the alphabet and start over again. There aren't all that many "I" bands, so I end up listening to that Icicle Works record on the order of every third year!

But it also has the effect of my constantly doing a version of what you're up to now, Delvin. I'm not necessarily opting for the hype/workout music and more looking to just spin an album I haven't heard in a while. It's a good way to both reconnect with old music and remind myself what the hell I already have so I don't end up buying it again (which happens anyway with annoying frequency).

Ha… I sold most my vinyl, but Rhett that was always an issue when I collected. I bought the Del Fuego’s “the longest day” three times just because I found it cheap and wasn’t sure….

That human league’s a tough one. I’m maybe a little kinder to swill like ‘I love you too much’ because I can’t find that sound nowadays and that sound makes me nostalgic and happy (and possibly pathetic)

Cory Hart’s “it ain’t enough for you”, I recall thinking the guitar line was so similar to “every breath you take” and wasn’t positive which came out first.

By the way, I LOVE living vicariously through you guys on these threads. Great posts all around!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2026 03:23PM by Bip.

It's been years since I've played these two. I think I sort of liked them enough to hang onto them over the years.
Now, I think they're both wonderful, great albums.

Roll Ups - Low Dives for Highballs (This one got shelf promoted, right next to The Freshies)
Tex & the Horseheads - Life's so Cool (Charmed the pants right off me)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/2026 04:40PM by STEVE.

> This one got shelf promoted, right next to The Freshies ...

So what does "shelf promotion" involve? And do any of your albums ever get relegated?

Someone remembers Tex & the Horseheads! (Well, I think Mr Toland does, too.) Texacala Jones’ drunken madwoman persona, killer tunes (everybody immediately check out “Short Train”) and powerful voice should have made her as iconic as Paul Westerberg, or at least as cult-big as Jeffrey Lee Pierce. (And sorry, Paul and Jeff, but she was certainly a hell of a lot sexier than those two!) Alas, I just don’t think they stuck around long enough to sink in. At least she didn’t die.

I've still got a couple of Tex and the Horseheads albums and remember mostly liking them, though alas they don't get played very often. Maybe I too should fix that.

As to Delvin's question to STEVE about relegation, there are multiple levels of relegation in my household. I've only got room for maybe 100 albums with my main stereo in the living room, so albums routinely get relegated to the shelves of thousands of others in the basement as I obtain new ones that merit staying upstairs. However, I am also running out of room on those basement shelves, so there's a whole other system of storage boxes elsewhere (though nearby, as is the other stereo that I use while working out in the basement) that contains the third-tier albums! I am slowly and reluctantly starting to consider a Bip-like culling of many of those lower tier albums so that I don't saddle my wife and kid with a huge hassle when I get hit by a bus. I've so far sold maybe 50 over the last year, so I'm clearly not making much progress....

I have one multi-tiered shelf that holds maybe 500 vinyl albums, so I cull as time goes on and I get more stuff. With the advent of streaming, it's easier for to me to look at a vinyl LP and think, "Do I really listen to this enough, or is it important enough to me, to justify keeping a physical copy on my shelf?" I trade them in to a local record store for credit.

I have multiple bookcase-size shelves for CDs, though. Those are the ones that threaten to take over the room. They've already spilled out into the hallway, on which I installed a long shelf on each side, one for box sets and the other for oversize CDs that won't fit on a CD shelf. (Looking at you, Sub Pop.) I'm constantly culling the CD collection, and selling the cuts on Discogs. I'm also trying to be much more ruthless about CDs I get in the mail (jazz publicists still send out piles of them) as to whether or not I really need to keep them, even if I like them. There's just SO MANY.

Working in my living room today, which allows access to my LP collection:

Fairport Convention, Unhalfbricking I don't know where I got the LP but it has a woman's name signed on the LP jacket and both sides of the vinyl. Haven't listened to it in full in ages! And despite being a pretty huge Richard Thompson fan, I don't listen to the Fairport records that regularly. So a lot of the Fairport work I know I first discovered out of context, on the RT boxed set and other compilations.

Thomas Dolby, The Flat Earth I probably bought this for 99¢ back in this amazing period in the late 1990s when new wave vinyl was being dumped from record stores for next-to-free, and it's got some of my favorite Dolby compositions, including the title track. Never loved "Hyperactive!" and "Mulu the Rainforest," but there are some great winners.

Keith Jarrett, My Song Well this is weird, because I have the album My Song on vinyl, but what I pulled off the shelf was the Eyes of the Heart vinyl, which was billed as a 3-side full vinyl record. I used to grab ECM Records wherever I found them, whether or not I knew the music. Instead, what it had it was a promotional "single" from a jazz label, with a shortened version of "My Song" on side B, with "Country," on the A-side, labeled for promotional use only. I have no idea what happened to the Eyes of the Heart record(s) if I ever had them. But this is very nice regardless, even though it sounds like it might have been the title music for a bittersweet 70s romantic movie.

I remember seeing Keith Jarrett on television, some time during the '70s. To me, it just sounded like he was playing a piece of music with no beginning, middle or conclusion. He put the "bore" in keyboard.

Or do I have Keith confused with someone else?

Either way, I wasn't "equipped" yet to appreciate this sort of piano exploration. Maybe the time is here for a bit of investigation.

That's him, yes, his Köln Concert was a huge hit, an album-length live improvisation. I quite love it. Other of his albums are more compositionally driven.

Rickie Lee Jones, Pirates I have a fair amount of prime-era Rickie Lee despite not being much of a listener. I'm sure I grabbed this in a 99¢ bin somewhere. "We Belong Together" must have given Mariah Carey the title for one of her big hits, right? Of course it has no similarity other than title. I had no idea Rickie Lee was such a pop success; this record went to #5 on the Billboard charts, despite not being too poppy. I guess the audience from "Chuck E's in Love" bought a lot of records!. She leans heavily into the jazz influences, and showtunes, but there are fewer overt pop hooks. A lot of the guest artists on this are peak late-70s jazz/pop crossover names, like Randy Brecker (not brother Michael Brecker, who did so much work with Paul Simon), the Steely Dan people, David Sanborn, and others.

Paul Simon, Hearts and Bones One contender for the "most-divorced album ever," with a host of some of Simon's best compilations, including "Rene and Georgette Magritte After the War," "Train in the Distance," and the title track (which gave his compilation its title, Negotiations and Love Songs). I never heard "The Late Great Johnny Ace" but found out much later it was actually a single, which seems like a stretch. There are a few real missteps, like "Cars Are Cars," and I can see why this record didn't sell, but it's got at least a few of his most finely-wrought relationship songs.

Wire, 154 I have no idea how this came into my possession. This is a 2018... reprint? not sure. Yes, a post-punk classic, I guess, but this is chillingly distant music and not as catchy as the earlier Wire singles I might more eagerly listen to.