80s Leftovers Newsletter Back Issue #5

80's Leftovers
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Welcome to the monthly newsletter about the eighties.

Brought to you by: "ChuckyG's" http://www.worcestermass.com/80s/

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April 1999, Issue #5
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 0. Introduction
 1. Upcoming Eighties Events
 2. What's New at ChuckyG's?
 3. Favorite Misheard Lyrics This Month
 4. Favorite Top Ten List
 5. Review Of The Month
 6. Trivia Quiz
 7. Featured Web Site This Month

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 0. Introduction
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I welcome any comments you may have at: chuck@worcestermass.com. This
newsletter comes out once a month, or however often I get a chance to
put one together.

This is not spam, you asked to be subscribed! To unsubscribe, send a
message to eighties-unsubscribe@makelist.com.

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 1. Upcoming Eighties Events
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Jennifer Grey from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and more noticeably
"Dirty Dancing" is going to be starring as herself on a new sitcom
this month called "It's Like, You Know" on Wednesday's at 8:30pm. It
might be a difficult to spot her at first, she's had a nose job. Her
voice is a bit changed as a result, and she looks like an entirely
different person. I thought she looked fine before, but she
definitely looks good now.

The J. Geils Band reunion is a definite go, 17 cities planned.
2 shows at Great Woods (or Tweeter whatever they call it now). Dates
aren't confirmed yet.  I hope to get a list together this month of
the summer tours coming up. If you can help me out in that endeavor
(as in, where I can point people for tour dates) drop me a line.

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 2. What's New at ChuckyG's?
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I'm contemplating a name change! I originally chose "ChuckyG's 80s"
as a working title until I could think of something more fitting,
that was 4 years ago! Well, I wanted to register a second domain name
that is a little more inline with what I do here (Worcester, Mass is
fine for a local site, but I probably won't do as much with it as I
wanted originally). I've come up with "Living in the 80s" as the
possible successor (Stuck in the 80s is taken), send me email, post
to the messageboard, let me know what you think. I'll also need a new
logo, since the current one is based on my initials, so any thoughts
or submissions are welcome as well.

Well, even after sending out a correction last month, I still got
the URL wrong, so once again here it is, and I double checked it this
time: http://www.worcestermass.com/80s/funsong.html Sorry for the
inconvenience.  I didn't want to send out a third email to the whole
list.

I added about 1000 new links to the links section of the site, all
devoted to TV shows and movies from the 80s. This brings the total
amount of links to over 3000. I also revamped the TV section of the
site by going through the list of TV shows and separating out
mini-series and made for TV movies. I also added the years that the
shows were originally shown during (before being re-run). I also
split up the movies pages so that each movie has it's own page.
Hopefully this will make it quicker for those pages to load, and may
help encourage people to send in a brief synopsis of each movie and
TV show.

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 3. Favorite Misheard Lyrics This Month
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Phil Collins's "Against All Odds"

Misheard Lyrics:
"You're the OBIWAN, who really knew me at all..."

Correct Lyrics:
"You're the only one, who really knew me at all..."

In honor of the new Star Wars movie due out soon

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 4. Favorite Top Ten List
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By Kristen A. Hudak

10. The Jam, "Absolute Beginners"
The Jam continued the Mod tradition started with bands like The Who.
They proved that rock was NOT dead in the 1980's.

9. Elvis Costello, "(What's So Funny 'bout) Peace, Love, & ..."
The fact that Costello was featured prominently in the new film "200
Cigarettes" SHOWS how important he was to the 1980's.

8. Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the USA"
An anti-patriotic song used by the Republican party as a patriotic
theme.  Go figure!

7. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "The Message"
The rap song that started it all...

6. Human League, "Don't You Want Me?"
A classic that is synonymous with 1980's.

5. Missing Persons, "Mental Hopscotch"
A band filled with brilliant musicians (from Frank Zappa's band,
nonetheless!) making perfect new wave pop.

4. XTC, "Senses Working Overtime"
Pure pop that still sounds great today. Just TRY playing the bass
line in this one!!

3. Psychedelic Furs, "Pretty in Pink (original version)"
The original version is a hell of a lot better than the cheesy remake
for the cheesy movie.

2. The  Clash, "(This is) Radio Clash"
Another very influential band of the '80's.  This song was played by
R&B stations 'cause the song sounded "funky" enough!!

1. The Pretenders, "Talk of the Town "
Without Chrissie Hynde and band, a lot of the 90's female rockers
wouldn't be around. Hynde is the quintessential female rocker, and
she did it a decade before Alanis, Courtney, Liz Phair and company.

I should have had Michael Jackson on this list, but I couldn't bear
to knock out one of my all-time faves for him -- even though he was
immensely influential.  Also, I neglected the Specials...they should
be at #11.

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 5. Review Of The Month
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I was recently watching a favorite movie of mine, "Better Off Dead."
There's a few parts in the movie that just have this great music in
it, so I waited to the end of the movie to see who it was, and saw a
name I didn't recognize, Rupert Hine. I grabbed all my 80s music
references that are good at ferreting out somewhat lesser known
names, and came up with a blank.  So I bought the CD from CD-Now,
which I was shocked to see still had it in stock (this movie is, after
all, nearing 15 years of age).

After playing it, I was just in love with two songs, both Rupert Hine
tunes, "Shine," which is from the ski scene with the French foreign
exchange student and the song that closes the movie, "With One Look
(The Wildest Dream)". These are actually the songs that prompted me
into hunting down the disc in the first place. He also shows up as
the writer or producer of almost every song on the disc except two.
So I used the power of the Internet to see who the heck this guy is.

Rupert Hine is a singer, songwriter, producer and has worked with the
Fixx, Robert Palmer, Chris de Burgh, Power Station, Tina Turner,
Howard Jones, Bob Geldof, the Thompson Twins, Kate Bush, Stevie
Nicks, and Rush.  That's just in the 80s! His web site:
http://www.ruperthine.com/index/index.htm has a very extensive
biography, which shows what he's done.

The soundtrack in Rupert Hine's words (from his website): This was my
first experiment at working within the "Hollywood system", the
previous film score for The Shout being very much an English
production. Director "Savage" Steve Holland had a background in
animation and ultimately this showed in the rather two dimensional
characters in Better Off Dead. However, John Cusack's portrayal of a
heartbroken college kid who kept attempting suicide and bungling it
(his first starring role) made this film a cult classic on video. The
soundtrack album features several of my songs and performances. This
was the first appearance of Rupert Hine under the Thinkman guise.

Are there other tracks you're asking at this point? Heck yeah!
There's "Dancing in Isolation" which features Terri Nunn of Berlin!
It's a pretty cool track, which is the only place it is available.
Berlin incidently, is currently on tour in California.

E.G. Daily, who is known for her role in another big 80s classic
movie, Valley Girl, is also featured in two songs. These are both
performed at the school dance.  The song "One Way Love (Better Off
Dead)" is not really that great in my opinion, and really detract
from the rest of the soundtrack. Her other song, which is barely
heard in the movie, "A Little Luck" is much better, it's a totally
different tempo, and seems to fit her singing style much better.
These are also the two tracks that aren't produced by Rupert Hine,
which may be why they don't fit as well here.

The only real disappointment with the soundtrack, is the absence of
"Like to Get to Know You Well" by Howard Jones.  This is actually a
little puzzling since Rupert Hine has worked with Howard Jones at
this time.  If I would have to guess (and I do) it would be that it
was licensing problems, especially since the song does appear on
Howard's "Dream Into Action" album (which I also recommend if you
like Howard). The other noticeable absence is the lack of "Everybody
Wants Some" by Van Halen. Again, probably licensing, but it is
definitely the most memorable song of the movie.

 1. With One Look - Rupert Hine/Cy Curin
 2. Arrested By You - Rupert Hine
 3. Shine - Martin Ansell
 4. Better Off Dub (Tittle Music) - Rupert Hine
 5. Dancing In Isolation - Teri Nunn
 6. Come To Your Rescue - Thinkman
 7. A Little Luck - E.G. Daily
 8. The Falcon Beat (Inst) - Rupert Hine
 9. One Way Love (Better Off Dead) - E.G. Daily
10. Race The K-12 (Inst) - Rupert Hine

I give this album a 4 out 5, and a 5 out of 5 for being a lot better
than I would have ever guessed it could be. If you like the movie, and
remember the music at all, then I would suggest picking it up (while
it's still possible, I doubt it will stay in print forever). Below are
two links to the soundtrack on CD-Now and Amazon.Com.

http://cdnow.com/switch/from=sr-20029/target=buyweb_products/album.html/ArtistID=FRN-BETTER+OFF+DEAD+(SOUNDTRACK)/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002GGX/chuckygs80swebpa

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 6. Trivia Quiz -=- Music & Movie Quotes
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This Month's Quiz
5. "She drove a Plymouth Satellite
    Faster than the speed of light"
4. "Illinois Nazis.  I Hate Illinois Nazis."
3. "Well, it feels so right when you squeezed it tight,
    when you reach the end do it over again."
2. "I've got a trig mid-term tomorrow, and I'm being chased by Guido
    the killer pimp"
1. "Why don't we call it a day
    No one can stop us, nothing is in the way"

Answers to last month's Quiz
5. "...three, four, better lock your door, five six..."
(A) Nightmare on Elm Street
4. "and I'm just high on the world
come on and take a low ride with me girl"
(A) "Tunnel of Love" by Dire Straits
3. "I was born in a house with the television always on"
(A) "Love For Sale" by the Talking Heads
2. "We can't afford to be innocent, stand up and face the enemy"
(A) "Invincible" Pat Benatar (Theme from Billie Jean)
1. "We're all very different people. We're not Watusi, we're not
Spartans, we're Americans! With a capital "A," huh? And you know what
that means? Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out
of every decent country in the world!"
(A) Bill Murray in "Stripes"

Check your answers in next month's newsletter.
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 7. Featured Web Site This Month
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Different Strokes
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/diffrentstrokes.html

I've been combing the net for the last month in order to beef up my
links section of 80s TV programs, a truly thankless task. There
are so few pages devoted to TV programs, and even less that are worth
the time to peruse. This one however is pretty up to date and has
favorite quotes, lists of guest stars, etc. It's pretty cool, though
there are some broken links that need to be fixed.

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