Worth Another Listen - Dweezil & Moon Unit Zappa

Not content with being a very good-looking man as well as the son of music legend Frank Zappa, Dweezil Zappa certainly put in plenty of time working on the craft of guitar playing, as well as working on TV, hosting shows both solo and with his brother, Ahmet. In the summer of 1986, Dweezil released his first full-length album, Havin' A Bad Day. It included the song he recorded with sister Moon Unit, who had already had some success when she recorded a song with her father, Frank Zappa, called Valley Girl, which she recorded when she was just 14 years old. When they released Let's Talk About It, Dweezil was just 17, and seasoned veteran Moon Unit was 19. Here they are together, with the nominal hit they worked on together.



For those who need a reminder, the following is the hit she had with her late father, Valley Girl. It was the sole Top 40 hit for the Legendary Frank Zappa, scoring #32 on the Billboard Hot 100.



Dweezil is still making music today, although I was surprised when I read he was 41 years old. How time flies! But it turns out he was a very good guitarist, and has been featured on many different recordings, including on Don Johnson's Heartbeat - where his work was the best thing on the single! I have a couple of his albums, but, oddly, not his first. Maybe I will find it out there somewhere. He will tour on occasion with Zappa Plays Zappa, with other young musicians who are taking the opportunity to expose a younger generation to the music of Frank Zappa. You can find out more about Dweezil on his official website, here. And in case you haven't figured it out, I still am kinda crushing on him all these years later!

Worth Another Listen - The Plimsouls

Screaming off the soundtrack to a favorite movie of mine - Valley Girl - the Plimsouls just about forced me to go out and buy the album. Once I heard A Million Miles Away, I was sold as a fan. It was 1983,and this indy movie just rocked me, including the unknown star, Nicolas Cage. As much as I loved the movie, the soundtrack was a killer. I had already loved Modern English, and their I Melt With You played a prominent part of the movie. But there was also Men At Work, the Psychedelic Furs, Bananarama, Culture Club, Payola and Josie Cotton. In fact, both the Plimsouls and Josie appear in the movie and play live. It captured so much of the edgy New Wave music, it was a must-see movie.



The Plimsouls formed in 1978, and were singer, guitarist and songwriter Peter Case (who had previously fronted early new wave band The Nerves), guitarist Eddie Munoz, bassist David Pahoa and drummer Lou Ramirez. They rocked hard, with a dense electric guitar sound. They burned bright, but by the mid-80s, the band went their separate ways. They have occasionally reunited, but not for much more than a few shows and a new song. And it never lived up to my favorite song, A Million Miles Away.



In the Hollywood club, the Plimsouls performed live as Randy & Julie discovered more about one another, and the song they played was Oldest Story In The World. It tied in nicely with the updated Romeo and Juliet theme of the movie. It is followed by the title song from their album Everywhere At Once.



For those that haven't seen Valley Girl or don't know about it, here is the trailer for the movie. If you haven't seen it, and love 80s music, buy or rent it now! In fact, you can purchase the DVD from Amazon.com here for just $13.49. That is such a bargain!

Worth Another Listen - Modern English REPOST

To complete my series on the soundtrack for Valley Girl, this post for Modern English was originally posted Nov 23, 2009.




Despite producing perhaps the best song of the 80s, Modern English never got the respect it deserved as a band. Formed in 1979, the British band started with singer Robbie Grey, guitarist Gary McDowell, and bassist Michael Conroy, and soon drummer Richard Brown and keyboardist Stephen Walker completed the group. They had the distinct sound of New Wave, with a hard-edged romanticism that defied the punk roots. New Wave bands like them took the beat of the punk music and the feel of the post-punk music like Joy Division, and their own new romantic movement to create the a new sound and feel.



In 1981, they released their first album, Mesh And Lace. The debut was a bit more punk than New Wave, but it certainly helped map out the direction to come. The following year, they released After The Snow, a breakthrough both in sound and recognition. The second single, I Melt With You, scored with listeners both in the US and the UK. It was helped by the use of the song in the soundtrack to the movie Valley Girl, an independent feature starring a young Nicholas Cage.



After The Snow delivered with a different sound, with the songs of love and lust lending to a more keyboard-driven mainstream pop sound. Next out was Ricochet Days, the 1984 release. This veered more toward the pop sound, and hit with resistance by both critics and fans. But it did produce the single Hands Across The Sea, which met with some success.



The 1986 release, Stop Start, on Sire Records, their first big label effort. But it was met with critical disdain, for the band moved to an even greater pop sound, and the production was slicker and quite smooth. I didn't mind it at all, and in fact the album had one of my favorite songs on it, Ink And Paper.



Soon after Stop Start, the band broke up and went their separate ways, only to regroup to put out more music that met with little success. They finally broke up for good in the late 90s. Later, singer Robbie Grey went out on tour with a new band, and is said to be working on new songs to release at some point. I can't, however, find them on the web to give a link. But I will always have I Melt With You, perhaps the finest song from a very fertile decade.

Worth Another Listen - Valley Girl

After doing the post on Monday morning, I thought it only fair to bring out a couple of other songs from the soundtrack that were also memorable, and pretty damn good, too.




Top to bottom: Soundtrack CD, the Payola$, Sparks, Bonnie Hayes, and The Flirts.

The Payola$ were a new wave band out of Vancouver, Canada, in 1978, and stayed together till 1988. They had several successful songs on the Canadian charts, and reunited in 2003 until once again calling it quits in 2008. But their success in Canada did not equal success in the US. It did, however, enable them to have a song on the soundtrack to Valley Girl. That song was Eyes of a Stranger.



Brothers Ron and Russell Mael are the core of Sparks, a band together since 1970 and known for their quirky and eccentric music, parted with biting lyrics. Although the Americans hardly made a dent in the US charts, they did score hits in both the UK and Germany. They did score two songs in the soundtrack, Angst In My Pants and the next video, Eaten By The Monster Of Love.



Bonnie Hayes was something of a forerunner, for her particular take on Punk/Pop with a girls edge set the tables for bands like the GoGos, the Bangles and Bananarama, and even on to No Doubt and Gwen Stefani. Like many artists to be on the cutting edge, Hayes saw no real commercial success, although went on to earn a living as a songwriter, and even teaching the craft to others. She is the sister to Chris Hayes, former lead guitarist of Huey Lewis and the News, and Kevin Hayes, drummer with the Robert Cray Band. Here is her song from the soundtrack, Girls Like Me.



While Hayes was on the cutting edge, The Flirts were much more of a classic act, the girl group with a catchy pop sound. The Flirts combined the classic 50s/60s girl group sound with the edge of contemporary sound of the day, punk. This song could just have easily been sung by the Ronettes as by the Flirts. That said, it is a great fun song, telling the typical story of love gone wrong. The song featured in the soundtrack was Jukebox (Don't Put Another Dime).



Again, the soundtrack for the day covered the spectrum of the early 80s sound, from the Punk-influenced rock of the Plimsouls and the Payola$, to the art/pop of Sparks, the Punk/Pop of Bonnie Hayes, and the pop of the Flirts. Add the Psychedelic Furs, Modern English and Culture Club, and you one the best soundtracks of the 80s. You can pick up the soundtrack here for $12.99 from Amazon or here for the $9.99 purchase from CD Universe.

Worth Another Listen - Plimsouls

Screaming off the soundtrack to a favorite movie of mine - Valley Girl - the Plimsouls just about forced me to go out and buy the album. Once I heard A Million Miles Away, I was sold as a fan. It was 1983,and this indy movie just rocked me, including the unknown star, Nicolas Cage. As much as I loved the movie, the soundtrack was a killer. I had already loved Modern English, and their I Melt With You played a prominent part of the movie. But there was also Men At Work, the Psychedelic Furs, Bananarama, Culture Club, Payola and Josie Cotton. In fact, both the Plimsouls and Josie appear in the movie and play live. It captured so much of the edgy New Wave music, it was a must-see movie.



The Plimsouls formed in 1978, and were singer, guitarist and songwriter Peter Case (who had previously fronted early new wave band The Nerves), guitarist Eddie Munoz, bassist David Pahoa and drummer Lou Ramirez. They rocked hard, with a dense electric guitar sound. They burned bright, but by the mid-80s, the band went their separate ways. They have occasionally reunited, but not for much more than a few shows and a new song. And it never lived up to my favorite song, A Million Miles Away.



In the Hollywood club, the Plimsouls performed live as Randy & Julie discovered more about one another, and the song they played was Oldest Story In The World. It tied in nicely with the updated Romeo and Juliet theme of the movie. It is followed by the title song from their album Everywhere At Once.



For those that haven't seen Valley Girl or don't know about it, here is the trailer for the movie. If you haven't seen it, and love 80s music, buy or rent it now! In fact, you can purchase the DVD from Amazon.com here for just $13.49. That is such a bargain!