VIDEO DUMP: INXS "DON'T CHANGE" (1982)

This is one of INXS' breakthrough MTV videos, one of the first to make it to the States (after "The One Thing"). I remember the first time I heard of them, when it was announced that they just won a Best New Artist award in Australia. We were shocked because, before this, the only rock band we knew from Down Under was Men at Work. We still didn't know how to pronounce their name (inks?), but they quickly became a favorite with the release of Shabooh Shoobah from whence this song came, almost 25 years ago. This video features the band jumping off a pickup truck and running into our living rooms, literally. It's not much more than a low-budget performance video filmed at a warehouse, but it showed that Michael Hutchence could really move and--wait, why is the keyboard strung up on a rack? This is the 80s, it doesn't have to make sense.

(I just found out that the band formed on August 16, 1977, so this marks their 30th anniversary, of sorts. And while we're talking milestones, happy 50th birthday to guitarist Tim Farris. There, I think that's all I've got.)

I would later play their song "What You Need" on a radio show I guested on in 1985 (WVRM 89.3 FM in Hazlet), for what I believe was the first time ever in the US. That's right, bitches, I premiered it. See, I had just bought a cut-out promo copy of the album Listen Like Thieves, which hadn't even been released yet, at a record store on 8th street in NYC. By the time we went to air I hadn't even heard the whole album, but I knew the groove and the bassline of the leadoff track could not be ignored, and chose that song to play. Later in 1986, it would end up the band's first in a string of Top 10 hits (#5) in the US. I'd like to think that I was a part of that.

INXS was one of the classiest rock bands to come out of the 80s, and their sound still holds up for the most part. I regret that I never saw them play live when Michael Hutchence was still alive (I hear there were always a lot of hot chicks at their shows). I'm going to go watch this and try to forget that whole Rock Star: INXS thing ever happened. (Don't change, my ass.)



INXS "Don't Change" (1982) [YouTube]

EIGHT TRACK MIND

A lot of people have iPods/mp3 players nowadays, and can't imagine what they did without them. The cassette and the once ubiquitous Sony Walkman are all but dead, and most would even consider CDs to be a passe and awkward design for mobile media. But how quickly we forget about one of the most popular and subsequently maligned media of the 20th century: the 8-track tape.

The 8-track was quite popular in the 1970s, yet it was probably the worst music media ever invented. It was basically an endless loop of tape inside a bulletproof plastic casing, so while it was "continuous play" you couldn't fast forward or rewind it. Instead, it took an album and split it into 4 "programs" of equal length; if you wanted to hear a particular song, you'd have to wait for it to come back around again. Sometimes, an album's songs (most recorded with the two-sided vinyl LP record in mind) couldn't be split up equally amongst the 4 programs, so occasionally a song would fade out halfway through before it switched to the next "program" and then continue after fading back in. Other times, a song would appear on the tape TWICE to fill it out. Atrocious. I distinctly remember "Dark Side Of The Moon" to be one of the worst victims of this limitation.

There remains some misplaced nostalgia about these, proving yet again that people are strange. If I had to find a silver lining, the best part was that they were nearly indestructable, making it the ideal media to carry around, or throw under the seat of the family van (we had 2 vans throughout the years). Consequently, we had a few dozen 8-tracks that we got from various places over the years: defunct stores like Two Guys and Bradlees, various yard sales, and the famous Englishtown Auction, just to name a few. This is not a complete list, but here are some titles that I recall our family used to own:

Bee Gees "Greatest"
Billy Joel "Glass Houses"
Genesis "Three Sides Live"
Paul McCartney & Wings "Back to the Egg"
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band "Stranger In Town"
Steve Miller Band "Greatest Hits"
Styx "Grand Illusion"
Supertramp "Breakfast In America"

Atlanta Rhythm Section "Champagne Jam"
Cat Stevens "Moonshadow"

Seals & Crofts?
Dave Mason?

Yikes. I recall buying a carrying case and getting a few of those as part of the package. Since you never "flipped it over" and there were no "sides", I guess the Genesis one could be called "Three Programs Live"? I know we had a bunch more, but I feel nauseous after typing those out. I have to go lie down now.

In closing: the 8-track tape was a complete piece of crap.