1 – 7 April

This week in the 80s begins with the sad news of Marvin Gaye’s death on 1st April, 1984. He left the world a legacy of incredible motown music and, a prescription for ‘sexual healing’.

Meanwhile back at home, on the 5th April 1989, Ita Buttrose launched a controversial aids awareness campaign. Featuring an omnipresent ‘Grim Reaper’ bowling people down like pins in an alley, the advert had a high impact in Australia and helped spread the HIV/AIDS prevention message. Do you remember being scared by this?

And just so you don’t have any nightmares after watching the Grim Reaper, let’s go out with a pop song. Not just any song, but ‘Making Your Mind Up’, by the Bucks Fizz, one-hit wonders that took out the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981. I’m lost for words.

‘Acceptable in the 80s’ Part 1: Everybody Talk About Pop Music

Musing on the future of music in 1986, former Van Halen singer and 80s party dude David Lee Roth was certain of nothing, except that the art of tomorrow would be nothing like the art of today. “It won’t be like anything we’re familiar with, I know that”. So, why, now that we live in the future, does everything look and sound a bit like it’s from 1986? Has the fabric of time been altered somehow? Have we run out of new ideas? Or does our new-found fondness for synth-pop and shoulder pads have some deeper significance?

Craig Schuftan dons a pair of stupid 80s sunglasses, soups up his sports car with one of those flux capacitor things, and risks further damage to the space-time continuum by traveling back to the original point of the current crisis – the 1980s. There, he finds himself in a strange world – a world where people listen to futuristic robot-pop while spending money they don’t have on ridiculous clothes so as to take their minds off the impending apocalypse. Yes, all very strange – and yet at the same time, eerily familiar…

Everybody talk about pop music

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It used to be that when you asked your favourite artists to name their favourite artists, it was all Nick Drake, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. Now, you’re just as likely to hear names like Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Hall and Oates, and Giorgio Moroder. It seems that these days, more and more musicians are coming out of the closet, and admitting that they love… pop music.

Thanks to our friends at Triple J’s ‘The Culture Club’ for permission to republish material from the ‘Acceptable in the 80s’ series, presented by ‘The 80s Are Back’ guest curator Craig Schuftan.

25 – 31 March

This week in the 80s…

The late Michael Jackson was famous for his signature dance moves, including the ‘moonwalk’ which he performed for the very first time, on US television on 25 March, 1983 at the Motown 25.
If you’d like to pay your respects, you could always brush up on your dance skills and take part in the ‘eternal moonwalk’.

Also, on 27 March, 1985, The South African Broadcasting Corporation banned Stevie Wonder’s music in response to Wonder dedicating the Oscar he had won the night before, for ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’ to Nelson Mandela.

On 27 March, 1987, inspired by The Beatles’ 1969 rooftop concert, U2 shot a music video for the song “Where the Streets Have No Name” on a rooftop in Los Angeles, California, which was subsequently shut down by police due to security concerns.

Till next week!

‘Acceptable in the 80s’ Part 2: Machines Can Do The Work

Playing music is hard work. It’s just as hard as doing the dishes or working in a call center or welding car parts together, or any of those other boring, repetitive tasks we’ve long since outsourced to machines. So the invention of robot rock in the 80s shouldn’t have come as a surprise – but that doesn’t mean it didn’t annoy people.

Thanks to our friends at Triple J’s ‘The Culture Club’ for permission to republish material from the ‘Acceptable in the 80s’ series, presented by ‘The 80s Are Back’ guest curator Craig Schuftan.

TZU’s 80s mix-tape

TZU are an Aussie hip hop group with Joelistics, Count Bounce, Psao Bionics and Yerock. Apparently they met Michael J Fox and asked for a ride back through the space time continuum to the 80s so they could reshape the future. They told him, “In our present day, the fashionably hip illuminati are obsessed with this particular decade and yet they focus on the wrong elements”. So what do you think, did they manage to set things right?

Download the mix featuring:

1. Slice of Heaven – Dave Dobbin & Herbs
2. Me, Myself & I – De La Soul
3. Goonies Are Good Enough – Cindy Lauper
4. Sign ‘O’ The Times – Prince
5. Super Freak – Rick James
6. Rappers Delight – Sugar Hill Gang
7. Run DMC – My Adidas
8. Public Enemy No. 1 – Public Enemy
9. Beds Are Burning – Midnight Oil
10. London Calling – The Clash
11. Under The Milky Way – The Church
12. Love Is A Battlefield – Pat Benatar
13. Rocker – Herbie Hancock
14. Tainted Love – Soft Cell
15. Cars – Gary Numan
16. I’m Only Shooting Love -Time Bandits
17. I Can’t Go For That – Hall & Oates
18. Blue Monday – New Order
19. Don’t Bring Me Down – Electric Light Orchestra
20. Take On Me – A-Ha

*Please note: The track, ‘Me, Myself & I’ by De La Soul, is not available for purchase on i-Tunes, so could not be included in the i-Mix. Shame, I know!).

Gremlins (1984)

“Awwww… Isn’t Gizmo cuuuuuuuute! Oh, he’s so gorgeous, I want one, I want one!”… or words to that effect. Gizmo was the poster boy (or girl maybe, that was never entirely clear, but given that they reproduce asexually, it’s hardly relevant) for adorable little furry things that you just wanted to take home and snuggle. But watch out! If you don’t read the instructions (and/or abide by them) it’s going to get VERY messy! We’re talking about 15 hours of dismantling the household food processor to clean out the green goo, MESSY.

Gremlins is a morality tale of sorts. Basically it told us that the West is definitely not ready for the mystical spiritualism and discipline of the East. Our lovable protagonist, Billy, provides for his family whilst his scatterbrained, inventor father pushes useless products that might one day be marketed on television between the hours of 2-5am, but back in the 1980s, were merely mocked for being a waste of baby boomers’ disposable income. After hearing the irresistible Mogwai hum a few bars, like a sailor to a siren song, Billy’s dad will not take ‘no’ for an answer when he offers to buy Gizmo as a Christmas present for his son. A basement-bound sage finally relents, however this exchange occurs bound by a strict caveat:

1. Never get the Mogwai wet. (It causes them to reproduce asexually.)
2. Do not expose the Mogwai to bright light, especially sunlight (it will kill them).
3. And absolutely never, EVER, feed them after dark. (If you do this, they will spin a cocoon and undergo a metamorphosis which causes them to become an entirely hostile, antisocial and not at all cute and cuddly monster).

I have to say, that Gremlins was a pretty scary film to see as a 10-year old. Thank goodness my parents never paid attention to ratings and took me to see films like Poltergeist when I was ill-equipped to process them (to this day, I cannot sleep if there is anything resembling a clown in our house), and hence the tense horror scenes in the film were able to be digested. However, it’s nice to see that the racists, classists and random extras (“it’s funny because I don’t know ‘em”) meet an end by the hands of the metamorphosed creatures. Like I was saying, MORALITY TALE!

17 – 24 March

This week in our 80s flashback, we revisit the wedding of all time with Scott and Charlene tying the knot, Princess Diana, and her Prince of course, impress the locals when they visit Australia for the first time and Madonna does a great job of stirring up controversy with her ‘Like A Prayer’ filmclip.

On the 18th March, 1985, ‘Neighbours’ began on the Seven Network only to be later dropped that year, leaving Channel 10 to pick up the pieces. They gave it a fresh youthful focus by bringing in some of the most popular characters of all time, including Jason Donovan & Kylie Minogue as Scott and Charlene respectively. Whilst the wedding was the big moment, who could forget the clothes, the haircuts and the very suburban proposal? Younger fans of Kylie today are sure to get a giggle out of this…

What is now considered the ‘Princess Diana phenomenon’ was in full force on 20 March 1983 when the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived in Alice Springs. The young Diana struck a chord with the populace and gave a boost to the flagging popularity of the royals in Australia (and worldwide).
Click here to see a photograph of the shy Diana with baby Prince William in Alice Springs.

Meanwhile, on 21 March 1989, Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” music video, taped in late December 1988 attracted criticism for its use of Catholic iconography and for the use of cross burning imagery, but also garnered praise for its interpretation of discrimination, rape, and faith. Pepsi dropped Madonna as a spokesperson out of fear the video will cause religious groups to boycott the company.

Tim West – Frozen Doberman

Frozen Doberman formed in 1988, smack-bang in the middle of the halcyon days of the Sydney thrash/hardcore punk scene. Originally from the Central Coast of NSW, Frozen Doberman quickly became favourites on the Sydney live metal scene, playing regularly with thrash and punk stalwarts Mortal Sin, Addictive, Cromok, Hard Ons, Armoured Angel, White Trash and Detriment. Frozen Doberman were no sneaker-staring band. Their shows raised the energy levels of already highly charged gigs. Doberman released three albums – all independently – and were featured on five compilation albums. They also supported Motorhead and Sepultura on their Aussie tours. Tim West, ‘Westy’, was a founding member and bass player of the still highly regarded Sydney metal band.

What were you doing in the 1980s (your job/where you were living, etc)?

I left school in 87…my first job was an assistant boat builder. Up to my neck in fibreglass and resin and they were pretty woeful conditions in the factory, it was on the Central Coast of NSW, Gosford, where we grew up. Access to the music we listened to was very limited and we wore our music like a badge. In fact, it was a badge, lots of them, on denim jackets. The Central Coast was a emerging satellite city of Sydney and lots of teenagers were surfers or into rugby league, being a bit of both with long hair, metal shirts and punk jackets. We attracted a fair share of attention.

What are your strongest impressions of the 1980s?

That I didn’t like a lot of the mainstream music and the celebrated, but woeful fashion, the New Romantic movement and the androgynous pop music/fashion. To me it a lot of it seemed to have zero substance. Electronic music was new and clunky, its an important development in modern music, I just didn’t want to hear it. In the music we listened to there were a lot of apocalyptic themes, not just music, movies and books. I remember the 80s and the nuclear threat that seemed to hang over like a cloud it left a strong impression. I kinda remember thinking it seemed a relief to get to the 90′s. I was attracted to the darker elements.

What historical event of the 1980s has most resonance for you? Why?

More a vivid TV memory I distinctly remember the first Space Shuttle disaster and watching the first televised tragedy for NASA, and the seven astronauts dying. We were on holidays and a family member had passed away the day before and my father had to fly home for a few days. It intertwined the two events, and it’s a clear memory all in the surreal surroundings of Surfers Paradise. We also started our band, Frozen Doberman in 1988.

What was an event/party/gig of the 80s that stands out?

Seeing Iron Maiden in 1985. It was at the end of their ‘World Slavery Tour’ and the crowd before they came on, and during, was electric. I have seen them a few times since and they always generate this great electricity in the crowd. Also Metallica in 1989, after the previous ‘Master Of Puppets’ Tour got canceled due to the death of bass player, Cliff Burton, finally they arrived and locals ‘Mortal Sin’ were playing with them.

Any memories (fond or foul) of what you were wearing in the 1980s?

Denim jackets that we painted and drew on when we couldn’t get, or afford, real ones. Buying studs and badges and totally ‘designing’ your jacket. They are referred to as ‘Battle Jackets’ which is pretty funny in hindsight. Black jeans and white high-top sneakers. Shirts were almost always black and had a band logo or design. Tour t-shirts were the most sought after.

What movies/TV engaged you in the 1980s (and did you takes sides on VHS versus Betamax), and now?

Star Wars was the single biggest influence in that regard. It changed everything. It was 77 when it was out here and the sequels were in the 80s. I am still amazed how it stands up but also set such a high bar for classic sci-fi movies. VHS all the way.

What were you listening to – and was it on a Walkman?

Iron Maiden, Kiss, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Deep Purple, Midnight Oil, Metallica, Death Angel, Slayer, Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols, DRI, Suicidal Tendencies, The Bad Brains..lots of metal and punk. San Francisco Bay area thrash tetal and Californian and Washington DC Punk…and I loved Sydney’s The Hard-ons and Massappeal, Mortals when we were seeing bands live.

I had a Walkman but it never represented good value buying all those batteries when you could buy a new album and listen in bedrooms. We all had boom boxes of various sizes and I proudly absconded with the folks turntable when they upgraded to a new Teac double tape deck stereo in an 80s style glass cabinet.

What did you do for entertainment/leisure then and now? (Did it include computer games or the Rubik’s Cube?)

We spent a lot of time listening to music and reading magazines. We got guitars when we were 15 so organising band practices and literally carrying amps to friends houses took time and effort. I can’t believe that I lugged amps up hills across to the other side of the suburb. We never had an Atari but we had that ‘pong’ TV game that had the gun connected with a cord to shoot skeet targets. I did have a Rubick’s cube for a short time, but lost interest. Surfing took a great deal of time in the late teens, often greeted with ‘headbangers can’t surf!’

What event (personal or public) in the 1980s would you either revisit or undo if you could?
Corporations running out of control.

Check out Frozen Doberman’s ‘Frozen Once More’ album on iTunes.

Corey Haim – A Tribute

RIP Corey Haim 23 December 1971 – 10 March 2010

Why is it that we don’t ever hear about the successful child stars? Or is it that we just forget where they came from as they feed the wallets of Hollywood big wigs? After all, Leonardo Di Caprio is a child star graduate – remember him as the last gasp of breath ‘Growing Pains’ took when it became clear that it was just too creepy to pimp a 22-year old Kirk Cameron out to teenage girls? It’s easy to forget that Kirsten Dunst and Jodie Foster are former child stars too, since their records are unblemished.

But gossip columns love a good cliché and relentlessly cover the life of some poor schmuck that feeds the stereotype of child actors meeting with tragic ends, very often by their own hand. It’s not that difficult to understand how the stresses of worldwide stardom can have a detrimental effect on anyone, let alone a child. Somehow the normal rules of childhood no longer apply once you have a best selling film under your belt at age 6, as Drew Barrymore colourfully demonstrated throughout the 1980s.

Losing Corey Haim is sad, and call me cynical if you will, I have a terrible feeling that there are people employed by world wide media conglomerates whose sole job it is to write obituaries for ‘at risk’ personalities whilst they’re still alive so that they can be uploaded whilst the body is still warm and the news has filtered out of the Emergency room. Stars, however far they may have fallen, are front page news once they’re not around to stand up for themselves, not that they even need to, because once rigamortis sets in, suddenly everyone has a sycophantic Tweet and a personal anecdote to propel their own stardom further. Since The Haimster’s demise, I’ve noticed Todd Bridges getting a few more column inches. I’m just saying, is all…

Corey Haim’s death is heartbreaking, as heartbreaking as the loss of any 38-year old is. The difference is that his death and the painful lead up to it, was public. Even more demoralising is the timing. Had it happened only 2 or 3 days earlier, he would have made it to the most prominent position on the ‘Oscars Montage of Death’, usurping Patrick Swayze from the top spot. As they say in Hollywood, you’re only as good as your last film and there was no chance Haim’s family would be collecting a posthumous Oscar for his role in 2009’s American Sunset.

What is saddest of all is that Corey just didn’t leave on a high note. Plagued by drug addiction since allegedly being introduced to marijuana on filmsets around the time his career was taking off, Haim’s momentum of stardom gradually petered out as the 80s wrapped up. How ironic that as the decade the VCR emerged and came to an end, Haim went all post-modern on us and started to make films that went straight-to-video.

The Lost Boys was the film that brought together Coreys Feldman and Haim. The concept of the ‘Two Coreys’ was a symbiotic, synergistic and, some would say, co-enabling relationship. This was ‘bromance’ decades before we’d even coined the term. This formula told us that 2 x Corey ≠ Corey², equalled some incredible megaforce that made us all think that they made scores of films together. To be honest though, they really only made three of note and merit (The Lost Boys, Licence to Drive and Dream a Little Dream) with a handful of others that never made it to mainstream consciousness, plus some cameos in the likes of ‘Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star’ where they obviously take a dig at themselves. There was, of course, the (ahem) reality show, ‘The Two Coreys’ which only lasted two seasons because fellow recovering addict Feldman allegedly couldn’t handle Haim’s drug use and brought it to an end in 2008.

Whilst watching a tribute to Haim on The Daily 10, Catt Sandler described him as “THE Rob Pattinson of HIS day”. Clearly an attempt by a girl too young to know what she was talking about to give today’s teens and tweens some sort of context of the magnitude of Haim’s stardom. After all, had Haim died in the 80s, he would have been revered the same way River Phoenix is. Who is to say that Phoenix, who died of a recreational drug overdose publicly on the front steps of The Viper Room in the early 90s, wouldn’t have gone down the same road as Haim?

But let us focus on the good times. I don’t want to keep harping on about it, but ‘The Lost Boys’ was a defining film for Gen X. Sure, kids today have ‘Twilight’, but ‘The Lost Boys’ was marketed to teenage boys and girls differently. For the blokes, with the exception of the uber-hot Jamie Gertz, it was pretty much the appeal of a teen-focused action/horror flick on motorbikes. But for the young girls…where does one start? Not since the 1983 spunkfest that was ‘The Outsiders’ had heterosexual teenage girls had such a smorgasbord of hot young Hollywood hunks to feast upon.

A much maligned silent star of the film was Haim’s wardrobe. Whilst we all idolised him onscreen as Sam Emerson, the upbeat, wise-cracking younger brother of Jason Patric’s moody Michael, I just know that if a guy had rocked up to a party wearing anything like Corey’s knee-length, festively-printed shirts in the late 80s he would have been the subject of ridicule that would no doubt have scarred him for life. Somehow though, the Haimster had the charisma to get away with it, the male equivalent of being able to wear a Hessian sack and still look amazing.

Vampire films have traditionally been allegories for repressed sexuality and adolescents struggling with the trials of puberty. Whilst ‘The Lost Boys’ doesn’t dismiss this entirely, it addresses other relevant and timeless issues such as peer pressure, assimilation and non-conformist ideas of the concept of ‘family’.

The Lost Boys was very much a film of its time and by that I mean, you had to be there, you had to see it when it was relevant. If you were to watch it for the first time today, it might look as dated as a 60s Hammer Horror vampire film did back in 1987. It captured bad hair (when is the flat-top going to make a revival?), bad fashion, bad sax solos and just a hint of watered down Goth-pop culture and somehow turned it into a late 80s zeitgeist, forever remembered by children and teens of the 80s. We can only hope that as time passes, the image of the bloated, incoherent former child star Corey Haim fades away and the magnetic, self assured on-screen embodiment of Sam Emerson endures.

Thanks for the memories, Corey!

Ray Ahn from The Hard-ons

Ray Ahn, bass player from the Hard Ons once said to Sydney punk fanzine ‘B-Side’, “being misunderstood is half the fun. It’s such a shit stir. I mean, calling a band The Hard-Ons. When you think about a hard on you think of big macho men with bulging muscles and a big hard on between their legs. We’re not a macho band. We like taking the piss out of macho people. In Punchbowl, where we come from, every second dude’s got a Ford Falcon with mag wheels and burns up and down the street impressing the girls…We’re not like them. We’re puny migrant kids into punk.”

What were you doing in the 1980s (your job/where you were living, etc)?

I went to school at Punchbowl Boys’ High then to The University of Sydney from 84-87. I joined Hard-ons at the end of 1981 and that band played right throughout the 80s. I did not have any job for the whole of the 80s, I relied on money made from the Hard-ons to live.

What are your strongest impressions of the 1980s?

The absolutely shithouse drum sounds on most records and the moronic dress sense and haircuts. Acid wash…what the hell is that?

What historical event of the 1980s has most resonance for you? Why?

To me, nothing beats the Dead Kennedys’ tour of Australia in 1983. I loved their records but seeing them live was something else.

What was an event/party/gig of the 80s that stands out?

See above.

Any memories (fond or foul) of what you were wearing in the 1980s?

I used to like stretch black jeans, a lot of kids into heavy metal were wearing them. Also white basketball shoes by Nike. Then I discovered that Nike used slave labour. So I switched to Vans as they were made in USA at the time and although they were hard to find they were very durable (at the time) so were worth looking for. We toured USA in 1988 and 1989 so I stocked up when we got there.

What music/movies/TV engaged you in the 1980s (and did you take sides on VHS versus Betamax), and now?

TV: I liked Married With Children.
Movies: Everything.
Music: I liked thrash metal, speed metal, power metal, some hair metal and most hard-core and punk. I hated a lot of indie pop. The things in the charts sickened me, except Debbie Gibson.

What were you listening to – and was it on a Walkman?

I had a Walkman and I listened to all the things mentioned above, as well as 60s psychedelic rock, acid rock, classic rock, 70s punk, folk-rock etc.

What did you do for entertainment/leisure then and now? (Did it include computer games or the Rubik’s Cube?)

I never had anything to do with Rubik’s cubes or computer games. I loved pin-ball machines, and mainly, watching live bands, shopping for second-hand records. We spent many months on tour so that took a lot of my time.

What do you think are the main differences between the 80s and how the world and/or your life is today?

80s were completely carefree for me. Not a worry in the world.

What event (personal or public) in the 1980s would you either revisit or undo if you could?

We played Europe and USA in 1988 and 1989 and met Hard-ons fans from other countries, for the first time in person. It was a great humbling experience and made me realise how universal rock n roll music is. I’d like to relive those tours.

Anything else you’d like to share with us about your 1980s?

Parramatta Eels 1981, 82, 83, 86.

Check out The Hard-ons on iTunes.

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