Thursday, April 24, 2008

'70s one-hit wonders: cinematic wonderment

I was super-thrilled to reconnect with this 1979 ditty, which has been playing in my mental jukebox now for the past three decades. The promo clip (that's what they used to call videos) is pretty ridiculously dippy, but the song still kicks ass, and features the best movie-music interlude I've heard in rock outside the work of the great Alice Cooper Group, as produced by Bob Ezrin. This single had it all: the filtered voice, a call-and-response chorus, a mega-dramatic melody, and lyrics that ya just can't forget. "I just been down to New York town/done my time in hell...!"

In researching the guys who recorded this, who named themselves (in a flash of sheer prescience) Flash & the Pan, I discovered that they were the Australian duo, Harry Vanda and George Young, who were behind the PERFECTLY immortal "Friday on My Mind" as the Easybeats back in 1966. Worthy of a major Funhouse salute.

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