A show poster for Motörhead’s headlining gig at Bingley Hall in Stafford, England on July 26th, 1980.
 
At the age of sixteen, Lemmy Kilmister saw the Beatles perform in Liverpool. This event would play a considerable role in Kilmister’s desire to pursue a career in music. Of course, the image of girls frantically throwing themselves at John, Paul, George, and Ringo (as young Lemmy undoubtedly witnessed firsthand) probably didn’t hurt either. While I’d like nothing better than to keep talking about Lemmy’s early days, nobody has done that better than Lemmy himself in his 2002 autobiography White Line Fever. Let’s jump forward to the glorious year of 1980, so we might pinpoint the reason Lemmy passed out backstage at Bingley Hall in Stafford, England on July 26th, 1980—allegedly for receiving one too many blowjobs from amorous female fans before the show.

During 1980, Motörhead would, among other things, become known for trashing their hotel rooms. Drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor enjoyed a good hotel room thrashing and broke his hand on more than one occasion teaching random hotel rooms a lesson. In fact, Taylor’s time with Motörhead was full of broken bones. On another occasion that same year (following a show in Belfast, Ireland), an obliterated Phil was hoisted into the air by an equally obliterated, and very large, Irish fan. Taylor’s new pal was so drunk that after he lifted Taylor into the air, he moved back to see how high he had lifted the Motörhead drummer. Gravity did its thing, and Phil ended up with a broken neck. Just before the release of their fourth album, Ace of Spades, Motörhead headlined a gig at Bingley Hall with Angel Witch, Mythra, Vardis, White Spirit and approximately 10,000 highly intoxicated fans. At this point, Lemmy had been on a strict 72-hour regimen of sex, drugs, booze, and no sleep. When it was time to play Bingley Hall Lemmy was such a mess that guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke, an epic connoisseur of vice in his own right, told Kilmister that he was “drinking too much.”
 

The cover of the very rare collectible “The Overwhelming Motörhead in Rock Commando” written by Klaus Blum and distributed at the Bingley Hall gig.
 
After going full-gonzo for three days, Lemmy made it to the stage and, for a change, Clark and Taylor were relatively sober despite the excessive amount of cocaine blowing around backstage. According to Lemmy, after leaving the stage prior to the band’s encore, he collapsed and had to be revived. Clark and Phil were pissed at the seemingly indestructible Kilmister calling him a “motherfucker” because they were suddenly concerned about how the incident would affect their careers. Ultimately, (and since this is Lemmy Kilmister), he would return to the stage and finish the encore. Though it remains somewhat unclear how many people witnessed Lemmy’s collapse, the band was concerned enough about the incident that Lemmy chose to downplay his unplanned backstage nap, blaming it instead on three blowjobs he received prior to the show.

Here’s more from Lemmy on that (from White Line Fever):

“After the gig, I told the papers that I’d collapsed because I’d had three blow jobs that afternoon. The part about getting the blowjobs was true, actually. There were chicks all over the place, and there was this really cute Indian bird—she was two of them. There was this room in the hall that was full of cushions and shawls hanging down. It was like some Maltese fucking dream. So I locked myself in there with her and wouldn’t come out.”

So, according to Lemmy, it wasn’t three days’ worth of Lemmy-sized booze, drugs, and sex that caused his collapse at Bingley Hall, it was too many blowjobs! So my friends, the next time “Steak and a Blowjob Day” rolls around, don’t be like Lemmy (it’s impossible anyway) and know your fellatio limits. Footage of Motörhead performing their 1977 jam “Motorhead” live on German television in 1980 follows.
 

Motörhead live on German television performing “Motorhead” from their debut album of the same name. Kind of like Lemmy’s three-day binge, the band recorded the record in two-days fueled by speed and no sleep.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Lemmy Kilmister gets ambushed by three of his ex’s on TV in the late 90s
Motörhead trash a hotel room
Wild early UFO footage featuring Larry Wallis from Pink Fairies and Motörhead
Oral: The mysterious all-girl heavy metal band and their (maybe) connection to Lemmy Kilmister

DEVO.

“Everybody writes about the same things in their songs—sex and death—and we just present it with a different viewpoint.”

—Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO

Here’s yet another reminder to anyone still clinging to the disinformation that the 80s were a terrible decade for music: in 1980, DEVO unleashed their third record, Freedom of Choice which yielded the monster hit (and their only gold-certified single) “Whip It.” Along with the positive reception of the first single from the album “Girl U Want,” and the title track, “Freedom of Choice,” the album put DEVO and their energy dome hats on the mainstream map. DEVO would make numerous television appearances following the May release of Freedom of Choice and the video for “Whip It” was wildly popular, though it did generate some controversy due to its content. According to DEVO bassist Gerald Casale, the band lost a booking for what Casale recalls was on the Midnight Special in 1981 due to the video for “Whip It.” Apparently, host Lily Tomlin saw the video which, as you may recall, features a woman having her clothing “whipped” off by whip-wielding Mark Mothersbaugh. Tomlin allegedly told producers to “Get rid of those guys!” which they did. So, yeah, not everybody “got” DEVO or “Whip It” (Mark Mothersbaugh has gone on the record saying the song was a kind of “pep talk” for Jimmy Carter who was running for President against Ronald Reagan in 1980 as well as a knock at Reagan being an actor).

But this didn’t stop the band from trying to enlighten the public and their fans about what made them tick. This brings us to the point of this post—a fantastic interview with both Mark Mothersbaugh and drummer Alan Myers published in Record Review magazine in December of 1980.

The interview, conducted by long-running journalist and author Jeff Tamarkin, occurred prior to Carter’s defeat in the November 1980 presidential race, and both Mothersbaugh and Myers weighed in about their thoughts on politics—and many other things, including demystifying their songs. Here are some of the highlights from the four-page interview, which does not disappoint:

On the political climate in 1980:

Tamarkin: Is there political significance behind the title of (the album) Freedom of Choice?

Alan Myers: Yes, there is. The significance is that people are being asked to use their freedom of choice in the presidential election. But it’s really ludicrous. It’s like a non-choice.

Tamarkin: Will you be voting in November?

Mark Mothersbaugh: We might be voting for Ronald McDonald. We’re going to put on blindfolds and just walk in, waving our arms.

Tamarkin: Do you find that your concepts keep proving themselves?

Mark Mothersbaugh: Yeah, look at the Republican Convention.

Alan Myers: It’s really true, though. Every time we come to New York, it’s filthier than the last time we were here.

Tamarkin: On the subject of nuclear power, if you were asked to do a benefit like the MUSE (the Musicians United for Safe Energy formed in 1979) shows which were filmed for No Nukes, would you do it?

Mark Mothersbaugh: I would do a pro-everybody that has anything to do with the nuclear power plant, as far as corporate structure and the people that govern it, being made to live within one mile of the nuclear site benefit. If they can get all those smart missiles together and they can’t even make nuclear power plants…that’s the worst end of capitalistic values. It’s perverse.

On Groupies (yes, DEVO had groupies):

Tamarkin: Does DEVO have groupies?

Mark Mothersbaugh: I don’t think you can call them groupies. If you mean do we have fans…

Tamarkin: No, regular groupies.

Mark Mothersbaugh: The kind of girls that are interested in DEVO and that we are interested in, are not your typical girls who take drugs and get as much out of you as they can and trade it in for a suck.

On why nobody seems to understand “their potato”:

Alan Myers: A few people do, though.

Mark Mothersbaugh: We’re misunderstood, that’s true. But we’re holding on, and we keep restarting the case.

Alan Myers: We keep trying to say things in more common terms. We always thought we spoke in common terms, but people think…

Mark Mothersbaugh: that we’re too bizarre and oblique.

Alan Myers: In their private conversations and things, people are capable of applying irony and interpreting things. But once you become a mass object of investigation, then people don’t take things past the first level of comprehension. So we’re learning how to communicate exactly what we want to say.

 

A photo of the legendary Spud/Spudocaster guitar.
 

On the future of Booji Boy:

Mark Mothersbaugh: Probably future mutations.

Alan Myers: Marriage, family. Nine-to-five job.

Following the release of Freedom of Choice DEVO hit the road in a big way and embarked on a tour with 77 stops across the world—recording two shows which were released as a DVD in 2005, DEVO Live in 1980. The back cover of the double-disc includes a quote from Gerald Casale who accurately sums up the impact DEVO made 39 years ago:

“This lone artifact offers indisputable evidence that in 1980 Devo had reached a turning point. We were no longer just art monsters, we were mainstream performers too.”

Footage of DEVO broadcast on the French comedy television show ‘The Collaro Show’ (air date June 18th, 1980) performing “Girl U Want” somewhere on the streets of Paris while Mark Mothersbaugh licks an ice-cream cone.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Are We Not Men?’ The Devo Documentary
‘Devotees’: Beautiful mutants create insane DEVO tribute album, 1979
Attention all spuds: Devo in concert 1980
Booji Boy: When DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh was guest DJ on ‘The Doctor Demento Show,’ 1980
DEVO meet William Burroughs: ‘David Bowie would never make an audience shit their pants. We would.’

A poster for the concert film ‘Black & Blue’ (note producer!) which captured performances from both Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Hempstead, New York on October 17th, 1980.
 

“We wanted to give a lot for you, but not our blood. If you don’t want to enjoy it, then tough shit!”

—A pissed-off Ronnie James Dio’s parting words to their Black Sabbath’s Milwaukee fans before a massive riot broke out at the MECCA on October 9th, 1980.

It should have been a gig for the ages—a co-headling show between two musical juggernauts, Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult. BÖC and Sabbath had been touring pretty steadily together since July (along with a bunch of other bands like Molly Hatchet, Journey, and Cheap Trick) and by all accounts, the dream bill was something to behold. With Ronnie James Dio at the helm, Sabbath had just released Heaven and Hell to much acclaim from their fans and music critics. BÖC also had a new record to promote, their seventh, Cultösaurus Erectus. It is estimated that 1.5 million people were lucky enough to witness one of the many shows the two bands did together—though one stop on the tour at Milwaukee’s MECCA (the Milwaukee Exposition Convention Center Arena) on October 9th, 1980 didn’t go exactly as planned…

Accounts of how the gig devolved into a riot, vary. Some say Blue Öyster Cult played too long leading fans to get restless for Black Sabbath. Other reports say the hour wait between the two sets got under the audience’s skin making them edgy. Whatever it was or wasn’t, the 9,000 plus, near-capacity crowd in attendance at the MECCA was fired up when Black Sabbath took the stage a few ticks before 9:30. The band kicked off their set with “War Pigs” followed by “Neon Knights.” Then, as the lights were purposefully dimmed as Dio introduced their third song, “N.I.B.”, someone hummed a bottle at the stage which struck Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler in the head, knocking him unconscious. Here are Butler’s recollections of the fateful night:

“It’s all a big misunderstanding, really, The lights were down, first of all, so unless the fellow was some sort of incredible quarterback, I don’t know how he could have hit me on purpose. But I was knocked out, and the band was busy getting me off the stage and to a hospital. When the lights came back up, there was no band on stage. And of course, the crowd freaked out. Someone should have gone out and explained—the promoter or someone. I mean, the band was worrying about getting me to the hospital, you know? So the crowd freaked out because there was suddenly no band on stage, and things got worse from there.”

 

. A shot of Buck Dharma of BÖC on stage at the MECCA.
 
Things had yet to get completely out of hand but did shortly after Dio came out and told the rowdy crowd to suck it (Dio’s actual quote appears at the top of this post). Then, Black Sabbath’s tour manager, Andrew Truman took the still darkened stage (as noted in Billboard magazine, October 25th, 1980) as did Sabbath’s production manager, Huw Price. Both Price and Truman took turns admonishing the crowd, telling them the show would not go on saying the band wanted to play Milwaukee but “didn’t appreciate being hit by unidentified flying objects.” Price was allegedly the one who got the job to tell the crowd “just cool out,” as Sabbath wouldn’t be “coming back on stage as the bass player (Butler) is too hurt.” It was now around 11:15—nearly two hours after Sabbath’s unplanned two-song set and in response to Price’s speech, they started shouting in unison “We want Sabbath! We want Sabbath!” The lights went on, and the crowd turned its rage towards the MECCA itself.

Chairs were thrown, smashed and hurled into a growing pile in the center of the floor. Fans ripped out the handrails in the balcony, and one guy tried to light a pile of wooden chairs on fire because of course, he had his handy BIC lighter with him. Pay phones (remember them?) were ripped from the walls, and random bare-knuckle brawls broke out in the crowd who were now tossing chairs at the stage and smashing windows. Once large numbers of Milwaukee’s finest moved in, all decked out in riot gear, they started indiscriminately beating the shit out of people with their billy clubs, something they would repeat a few months later on the face of Plasmatics vocalist Wendy O. Williams. The riot continued outside the MECCA where angry fans took their aggression out on police cars, private property and even the cops themselves. 160 people ended up spending the night in jail for various crimes including a large number of drug-related arrests. The next day, Milwaukee Police Chief Harold Breier announced there would be no further rock concerts at the MECCA as well as no more beer served at the concessions stands. What a buzz-kill. Thankfully, the restrictions didn’t last and in 1981 rock and roll (and BEER!) returned to the MECCA as did AC/DC and Van Halen.

I’ve posted audio of the show below where Butler gets his block rocked by a bottle as well as some visual artifacts of the riot and its aftermath.
 

Fans exiting a broken down door at the MECCA (Milwaukee Exposition Convention Center Arena) during riot that followed a Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult’s show on October 9th, 1980. All photos from the show and the aftermath are via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
 

 

 

He seems nice.
 
Much more after the jump…

Rob Halford and Freddie Mercury.
 

“I’ve always found it ironic that a certain aspect of gay culture has also chosen to dress this way. I’m not into that kind of thing though. I guess it’s whatever floats your boat y’know? I’m what you’d call a very vanilla kind of gay guy.”

—Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford on his fashion choices.

Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford is known for many things. Aside from being one of the greatest metal vocalists of all time, Halford’s cultivated image of head-to-toe leather and spikes is synonymous with heavy metal itself. In fact, when the band performed on Top of the Pops on January 25th, 1979, Halford’s badass bondage-style getup spread like wildfire across the world and would soon become the go-to look for headbangers. Another thing Halford is widely known for is his love of motorcycles and if you’ve seen Priest live, then perhaps you’ve been lucky enough to see Halford ride out on stage on one. Which brings me to another mythical story involving Halford and a man he refers to as his “ultimate hero,” Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury.
 

Rob Halford circa 1979/1980.
 
The year was 1980 and Queen had just released their eighth record The Game in June. Audiences went completely bananas for the album and showed a particular affinity for two songs you likely know all the words to, “Another One Bites the Dust,” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” The band would later earn a reputation for releasing unique videos for their songs, and the video for “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” is no exception. In the video, Mercury is dressed up like an outlaw biker in a stage production of the 1961 film West Side Story complete with an authentic but stationary motorcycle which Mercury straddles along with his blonde video girlfriend. And Rob Halford was having none of it.

According to Halford, after he saw the video he went on BBC Radio 1 and challenged Mercury to a real “motorbike race.” I know I’m not going out on a limb saying if the event had actually transpired, it would have been one of the greatest moments in TV history. Sadly, Mercury never responded to Rob’s challenge. Here’s more from the Metal God who walks among us on that:

“I never heard back from him. Freddie is my ultimate hero. The closest I ever got to Freddie was in a gay bar in Athens on the way to Mykonos with some friends from London. We kind of glared at each other across the bar, in a kind of smiling, winking way. When we got to Mykonos, I was determined to track him down, but I couldn’t because he’d rented this huge yacht. It was festooned in pink balloons and it just kept sailing around the island.”

More after the jump…

The opening sequence of ‘The Donna Summer Special’ January 27th, 1980.
 
When I first saw The Donna Summer Special in 1980, I was excited to see that actor Robert Guillaume—the star of the popular television series Benson—was scheduled to appear along with Boston-born disco queen Donna Summer. Sadly, I was too young then to grasp the fact that legendary Andy Warhol/Halston muse Pat Ast and model/actress/cultural icon Twiggy were also a part of the special. Honestly, my pre-teen mind could simply NOT handle all that went down on the show which originally aired on January 27th, 1980. Even now my adult mind still can’t handle it—though at least now I can properly appreciate it.

The show was part live-performance showcase for the then 32-year-old Summer and part autobiographical variety show as it tells an abbreviated story of Summer’s life, how she became the “Queen of Disco” and one of the biggest musical stars of the 1970s. For the live musical segments, we get to see Summer strutting her hot stuff at the Hollywood Bowl in all her sequined glory. The other musical interludes are (mostly) not live but presented as short music video-style pieces—and that’s where things get weird, and also magically wonderful. As I mentioned previously, the show included several interesting casting choices—an unexpected highlight being a vocal performance by Robert Guillaume. Many people are unaware that Guillaume spent decades on Broadway showing off his impressive musical skills early in his long career. Of his many stage credits, Guillaume is also noted to be the very first black actor to ever portray The Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s longrunning musical The Phantom of the Opera. The choice to place Guillaume in the role resulted in a fair amount of controversy causing some racist-ass ticket holders to return their tickets, outraged that he would replace long-time Phantom, Michael Crawford.
 

A vintage newspaper ad for ‘The Donna Summer Special.’
 
Getting back to The Donna Summer Special one of the live musical segments included Summer banging out a version of her 1979 Grammy Award-nominated single for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance “Bad Girls” produced by Italian disco shaman Giorgio Moroder and English songwriter Pete Bellotte. The song (which was co-written by Summer and her often collaborators, Brooklyn disco band The Brooklyn Dreams) spawned a music video which the show reproduced as a live number on a soundstage with an audience in attendance. According to folklore, the song was allegedly inspired by a real-life incident involving a member of her staff. Here’s Summer on that:

“I was in my office in the old Casablanca building, and I sent my secretary to do something, and the police stopped her on Sunset Boulevard. She was dressed in business attire, but they were trying to pick her up. That ticked me off. I pondered why that would happen to innocent people—and then I developed compassion for the girls, working on the street.”

If you’ve completely forgotten the epic video (or were a tad too young to process it like I was), it is a fantastic disco adventure featuring Summer looking like a futuristic streetwalker flanked by her Bad Girls—Twiggy, Pat Ast, actress Debralee Scott (who famously played “Hotsi” Totsi on Welcome Back Kotter and the younger sister on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman), and a cast of other characters. The Donna Summer Special does not disappoint nearly 40 years later and as a more enlightened viewer, it is all the more fun to watch. I’ve posted the one-hour show below and highly recommend you watch it as soon as possible to ensure your New Year gets off on the good foot.
 
Take a look, after the jump…

AC/DC vocalist Bon Scott showing us all what it’s like to be a real rock and roll singer back in the day.
 
Though it wouldn’t start out that way, February of 1980 was almost the beginning of the end for Austrailian juggernauts, AC/DC. The band had started the year laying the groundwork for their next studio album, Back in Black. But as we all know, the hard-partying antics of vocalist Bon Scott would catch up with the 33-year-old, and after yet another night of blackout boozing (as well as possibly dabbling in heroin), Scott was found dead inside his Renault 5 in the street by his South London residence on February 19th, 1980. There has always been a fair amount of speculation regarding Bon’s death, new details of which have been painstakingly researched by author Jesse Fink in his 2017 book about Scott, Bon: The Last Highway. 

Bon would perform his final live gig with AC/DC on January 27th, 1980 in Southampton, U.K. The band was no longer just a sensation in their native Australia but was finally breaking through to U.S. audiences after the Mutt Lange-produced smash, Highway to Hell penetrated the Billboard Top 200. The record would eventually smash through to the top twenty where it would peak at #17. Following the Southampton gig, AC/DC would appear on Top of the Pop’s on February 7th lipsynching to “Touch Too Much.” Three days later the band was in Madrid for an appearance on Aplauso, a popular Spanish television music program. This time AC/DC ripped through “Beating Around the Bush” (whose opening lick borrows a bit of fire from Fleetwood Mac’s 1969 single, “Oh Well”), with an unbridled lipsynching fury so hot that it’s hard to tell they aren’t actually playing “live” at times. Here’s a rough translation of the Spanish host introducing AC/DC for what would be the band’s very first show of any kind in Spain, and their final appearance with Bon:

“Today on TV Aplauso we receive a new group in Spain: AC/DC. They’re Australian and are considered as one of the best rock bands of the last generation without submitting themselves to the New-Wave or Punk. They’ve got a lot of fans in England and today for the first time in Spain, AC/DC!”

The studio audience in attendance for Aplauso is comprised of people who look like they about get a free car from Oprah...

More after the jump…

Graduate, with Tears for Fears founders Roland Orzabal (pictured bottom left) and Curt Smith (at the top left).
 
If you are a child of the 80s the English band Tears for Fears and the slew of monster hits that they put out during the decade probably still randomly get stuck in your head from time to time. I mean the minute you hear the twinkling notes that open 1985’s “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” your mind is probably transported back to images of the video for the song that was seemingly on infinite repeat on MTV. Even if 80s cable TV wasn’t the stomping ground of your youth, the likelihood that you know a few numbers from the Tears for Fears catalog is still highly probable. However, what if I told you that before Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal ruled the world by way of ridiculously catchy pop music, they were in a new wave ska band called Graduate with Orzabal on vocals? I’m pretty sure most people would have a deep, contemplative moment of “huh?” and then would want to see and hear proof. And if that’s what you want then today is your lucky day, rude boys and girls because I’ve got footage of Graduate performing on a Spanish television show in 1980 about a year before the duo became Tears for Fears.

Below is footage of Graduate performing three different songs, “Acting My Age,” “Bad Dreams,” and the insanely catchy “Elvis Should Play Ska” which is a bouncy homage to Elvis Costello, not the American guy. The band would put out only one album in 1980 with Pye Records (which was home to The Kinks and Status Quo in the 60s and early 70s), Acting My Age. A second record was shelved after both Orzabal and Smith left the band, but everything the band did during their short time together can be found on a remaster of Acting My Age from 2001 that also includes other rarities. I have to say that whenever Orzabal and the band get going with their special brand of “skanking,” I don’t ever want it to stop. Vinyl copies of Graduate’s debut record are rare and even a sealed compact disc of Acting My Age I found on eBay was listed at $199.99, just in case you were curious. Lastly, if you never got to see Tears for Fears back in the day, the band is currently on tour with Hall and Oates.
 

The fantastic cover of ‘Acting My Age.’
 

“Elvis Should Play Ska.”
 
More after the jump…

 
So today I have for you something that I quite frankly live for when it comes to rock and roll nostalgia—a one-off pay-TV special that aired in 1980 featuring the mighty Queen and their fearless frontman Freddie Mercury—sans-stache—sounding and looking god-like.

The Queen Special featured live footage during its 50 minute broadcast which was apparently shot at the last show of Queen’s “Crazy Tour” at the end of December in 1979. It also contains other material, including their electrifying performance during the Rock For Kampuchea concert (that also aired on television in 1980) and brief campy appearances from various celebrities such as Twiggy, John Cleese, Ringo Starr and his wife Bond girl Barbara Bach, and veteran British actor Roy Kinnear that you will most likely remember from his role as “Henry Salt” in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

And since I’m a bit of a Queen nerd I feel compelled to also talk about the appearance of Queen’s legendary gigantic stage lighting rig called the “Pizza Oven” in this vintage footage.
 

 
The Pizza Oven utilized 320 blindingly hot lights on its main truss. The audience couldn’t really see the huge lighting apparatus until the show started at which time it would slowly ascend amid high volumes of the rock and roll staples, dry ice and smoke. At the conclusion of the gig the Pizza Oven would come out somewhat over the stage illuminating the band as they bid their farewells. If you need a further visual for that, just take a look at the cover of Queen’s 1977 album Live Killers and you’ll see what I’m jawing about. I’d also like to point out since I mentioned at the beginning of this post that Mercury isn’t sporting his famous mustache, owever you will see said ‘stache in a segment for the show that features the band performing “Flash’s Theme” from Queen’s ninth-studio record, the original soundtrack for the 1980 film Flash Gordon. Here Freddie’s famous facial hair is intact. While confusing, if you do the math Mercury’s mustache officially made its return to his mug during the recording of the Flash score and the clip ended up making its way into The Queen Special to help further promote that (recent) release.

Watch ‘The Queen Special’ after the jump…

The Cure circa 1980s.
 
Sadly I was too young to have had hung out at the mythical Allston, Massachusetts club “Allston Underground” back when it was open for a blink of an eye from 1980-1981. Had I been born five or six years earlier I would have been able to tell stories about seeing bands like Bauhaus, Mission of Burma, New Order and The Cure who all played a gig at The Underground during their first U.S tours.

The Cure made their way to The Underground on April 20th, 1980 mere hours before Robert Smith was about to celebrate his 21st birthday. And since you only turn 21 once Smith decided to rearrange part of the lyrics to “Seventeen Seconds” from “seventeen years/a measure in life’ to “21 years/a measure of life” which he then dedicated to Boston punks Mission of Burma with whom they were sharing the bill. When it comes to musical folklore I have to say that this little insight sent my brain off to conjure up images of what the rest of the night was like offstage for a newly legal drinking age Robert Smith on the loose with his Imaginary Boys and Mission of Burma on the streets of my beloved hometown. Another interesting twist to this story that made my day is that according to the meticulous Cure-focused site The Cure: The Multimedia Experience parts of the show were shot by a few local Boston art students. Which during my research for the story turned out to include omnipresent Boston videographer Jan Cocker. If (like me) you think this enviable story sounds like a page out of a die-hard Cure fan’s dream diary then I’m with you. And getting into a dreamy kind of mood is great preparation when it comes to the footage you’re about to see.

The videos include some editing and special effects which I actually found added another layer of mystique to this early moment and in The Cure’s long career. And for the record—Smith sounds absolutely incredible especially during the track “Secrets” from the band’s album Seventeen Seconds which was set for release the day after Smith’s birthday on April 22nd, 1980. I’m going to go out on a big fat limb here and say it’s safe to assume it was great to be Robert Smith during those three days. I’ve got footage of The Cure performing four songs at The Underground—“Grinding Halt,” “Subway Song,” “Accuracy” and “Secrets.” I highly recommend watching a few other videos shot at the show here as it includes a show-stopping version of “Killing an Arab” as it must be seen.
 

The Cure hanging out at the wood-paneled Boston, Massachusetts club ‘The Underground,’ April 20th, 1980.
 

A ticket for the April 20th, 1980 show at ‘The Underground’ in Allston, Massachusetts for The Cure and Mission of Burma.
 

‘Grinding Halt’ live on April 20th, 1980 at ‘The Underground’ in Allston, Massachusetts.
 
More Cure after the jump…

Peter Murphy putting on his makeup before their first Chicago gig at ‘Space Place’ in 1980. Photo by Brian Shanley.
 
Chicago-based photographer Brian Shanley was on the scene when Bauhaus landed in Chicago for the first time (a staggering 36-years ago this month) and was was able to get up close and personal with the band during their gig at Space Place, an industrial-looking nightclub in Chicago’s meatpacking district.
 

 
According to Shanley he was allowed to photograph Bauhaus during candid moments and even got close enough to capture the Godfather of Goth, vocalist Peter Murphy, putting on his makeup. After the show Shanley partied with Bauhaus which included a rather life-defining moment in which he watched a VHS copy of John Water’s Pink Flamingos with the band, which they had never seen before. Damn.

It’s also worth mentioning that Murphy was a mere 23 years old at the time and the band had yet to release their debut album In the Flat Field. Their first single, goth blueprint “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (you can hear a live recording of the number at Space Place, here) was already deeply implanted in their fans’ brains. If you’re a fan of Bauhaus, Shanley has a large array of gorgeous black and white photos for sale.

And since we are speaking of Bauhaus, the group’s drummer Kevin Haskins is about to publish a coffee table book titled Bauhaus - The Archives. Haskins has amassed a huge collection of Bauhaus artifacts since the late 70s including vintage setlists, fan club fodder and handwritten lyrics—most of which have never seen the light of day, like the photographs in this post. Pre-orders for Haskins’ book are going on now with an expected ship date sometimes in November, 2016.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

Siouxsie & The Banshees, 1980

On September 13th and 14th, 1980, the second installment of “The Futurama Festival” was held in Leeds, a city in the English county of Yorkshire. This year the lineup included a cavalcade of incredible acts like Echo and the Bunnymen (fronted by a 21-year-old Ian McCulloch), The Psychedelic Furs, Athletico Spizz 80, U2, Wasted Youth and Siouxsie & The Banshees, headed up by a then 23-year-old Siouxsie Sioux. Apparently this was also one of the very earliest Soft Cell performances.
 

The lineup for The Futurama Festival, September 13th and 14th, 1980

Despite the handwritten fliers claims that the festival was being “immortalized on film,” footage of any quality from early Futurama gigs is almost non-existent on YouTube, but I did find this clip that someone recorded on VHS from a television broadcast of the festival.

While the video isn’t up to today’s high definition standards, it is still quite good. The seven-minute clip captures the band on top of their game performing two songs, “Paradise Place” from the 1980 album Kaleidoscope and “Eve White/Eve Black” which was released in 1980 as the B-side to the band’s “Christine” single.
 

Siouxsie & The Banshees performing at the Futurama Festival, Saturday, September 13th, 1980
 
Bonus clip of high energy punks Athletico Spizz 80 at the 1980 Futurama Festival, after the jump…