The Giant Panther

I can remember being sooo into The Psychedelic Furs. I remember hearing Susan's Strange, We Fall and Sister Europe from their first album and thinking how cool these guys were. In 1981, when their second album Talk Talk Talk hit the streets, I was working as a line cook at TGI Fridays on Newbury Street in Boston. At the time there was a lot of students from Boston College and MIT working their way through school there as I was. I was getting exposed to all kinds of music at work. One guy was a David Bowie freak, but that wasn't so unusual really. Unfortunately his best work was behind him by then. The Clash was huge then, but they were nearly done by then too. The local college radio stations, which I had paid precious little attention to after having been cut from DJ tryouts at Emerson, WZBC and WMBR, were playing different sounds and my co-workers were turning me onto them daily. I still loved Van Halen and mainstream AOR radio, but I also loved the new stuff. Still do. I know it's hard to tell by this blog sometimes. Just let me get it all out of my system and you'll eventually find this to be true. I just loved The Furs sound and Richard Butler sound like absolutely no one else in rock. This group was happening back in the day and I was definitely riding the wave.

I was in love with a cocktail waitress at T.G.I. Fridays in the spring of 1981 and while I really don't think she ever knew, I was totally paralyzed by her in every way. I'm still kind of bummed to this day that she didn't catch on to my sophomoric crush on her, but that's obviously on me. In fairness she was dating someone else of course, but Love Stinks, especially at that age. Forgetting about my schoolboy crush for a moment, after every shift we used to sit down for our free pitchers of beer and talk it over with the tunes blaring. No publicly owned restaurant could ever get away with this today of course, but at least we were located in the heart of the city and the majority of us were on foot so it was relatively cool. Sometimes we'd be there until 3AM plus. The cleaning crew was working the graveyard shift so the place really never closed. My favorite thing about working there, besides the women, was that they used to let us play the house sound system loud when we setting up or closing up. In those days, bands like the Psychedelic Furs or Echo & The Bunnymen were considered avantgarde. You'd never hear stuff like that when the public was dining in the restaurant. Today stuff that was popular then like Human League's Don't You Want me and The Clash's Rock The Casbah are considered harmless elevator music, but back then it was radical. When I first heard the song Pretty in Pink by The Psychedelic Furs I just loved it. Every time I heard the song and some girl was wearing pink I'd be in some kind lovesick zone. It was quite comical actually, but the song always reminds me of my youth to this day. I'm still a big fan of The Furs.

Pretty in Pink is a song that many of you, like me, have heard over 10,000 times. When that happens it loses something. Very few songs can stand that type of repeated air play. For me there are many songs I never ever get tired of hearing, but I'd prefer to hear them less and less these days. Too many other options out there. I often think, when I hear The Who's Baba O'Reilly for instance, how great that song is to have withstood that much exposure. I reach for Talk Talk Talk more than I reach for Who's Next, but there can be no discussion about which record is greater. In fact I have a Hall of Fame full of records that I no longer really play. I know every note and lyric, but I have other music I'm interested in exploring. It's kind of funny that my jukebox software (I'm still using MusicMatch Jukebox even though it's been deleted, unsupported and absorbed by an inferior product...by the way I'm open to suggestion if anyone has found a non iTunes product that has real functionality...I can only keep using this as long as I don't upgrade my operating system...I've got three years max I figure) is sorted by artist and I just punch in a random letter and start browsing. That is how I decide what to listen to. I don't even see the artwork prior to pushing play. That was a key factor for me in the old days in deciding what to buy and or what to play when I was browsing my own collection. Great artwork created an interest in some records that wouldn't necessarily be there otherwise in some cases for me. I really miss that since the advent of the compact disc.

Getting back to The Furs I was able to see them, in the front row no less, on August 6, 1987 on Boston Common. I used to play softball in the field nearby and listen to any number of artists while I tried not to drop fly balls. The reason I mention this show is I took one of my best friends to the show (who didn't know The Furs from a hole in the wall) and Richard Butler came off the stage and stood up on a vacant chair and sang, coincidentally enough, Pretty in Pink while using my friend's shoulder for balance. Pretty cool. Too bad for the fool who thought it was a good idea to use the john huh? I'm leaving you with my absolute favorite cut on Talk Talk Talk. It's called Dumb Waiters (fitting for reliving my Fridays days I suppose). It represents some of the great urgency The Furs once had before they started hitting the ballads. I saw them maybe three times, but the last time was a reunion gig about two years ago at the old Avalon in Boston. The Alarm, The Fixx and The Furs (in that order). I had a blast. The Furs were as good as ever. Don't you just love live music? I can never get enough of it. I'm going to a show tonight in fact. More on that tomorrow.