My devotion to the Queen of the Beehives is well-documented. ("Just What I Always Wanted" was without question the most delightful single of the 1980s!) But as was the case with the recent Blondie box set, I can only be so excited about the upcoming Mari Wilson collection, which feels at least 20 years late. Set for release on Nov. 25, Cherry Red's "Mari Wilson: The Neasden Queen of Soul, 3CD Box Set" brings together Mari's best-loved material from her time signed to the Compact Organization spanning her classic debut, "Showpeople," and 10 single releases over the period of 1980-85.
According to the label, the set features a 24-page booklet with sleeve notes written by Mari and a U.K. discography, together with previously unseen photos. The newly designed front cover uses an iconic photograph taken by Adrian Boot.
CD 1 is centered around the 12-track debut album "Showpeople," originally released in 1983 plus four bonus tracks: the 12” mixes of the singles "Just What I Always Wanted" her 1982 top 10 hit, "Cry Me a River" a top 30 hit in 1983, "Baby It’s True" and the soul classic "Ain’t That Peculiar," the latter two of which for the first time on CD.
CD 2 features the single versions of eight A-sides, nine B-sides and five rarities, including seven non-album singles, "Love Man," "Dance Card," "Beat the Beat," "Baby It’s True," "Ain’t That Peculiar," "Let’s Make This Last" and the theme tune to the 1985 film "Dance With a Stranger": "Would You Dance With a Stranger?"
CD 3 includes eight new remixes by the original writer/producer Tot Taylor, ably assisted by Joe Dworniak using the original multi-track tapes. Tracks remixed include the A-sides "Beat the Beat" and "Baby It’s True" plus the B-sides "Glamourpuss," "Ecstasy," "Rave," "She’s Had Enough of You" and "You Look So Good."
I already own nearly everything here, save for a remix or two I'm not particularly keen to acquire. But as with Blondie's "Against the Odds," the release may add the classic Mari catalog to streaming services, which will be handy for me, and perhaps, perhaps, perhaps help expose new people to her wonderful brand of music.
Today's SOTD was the B-side to her cover of "Ain't That Peculiar," which I purchased in high school at the original Zia Records in Tempe when it was on Mill Avenue, a stone's throw from Roads to Moscow. Although Mari's cover of the classic Marvin Gaye song was a winner, I always thought the less-obvious "The Maximum Damage" had hit potential of its own. Enjoy!
UPDATE: Video was removed, so replacing with the other b-side called "Use Him," which was also a delight!
Pre-World Wide Web, it wasn't hard to miss stuff. Yet a quarter of a century into life on the internet and I'm still constantly amazed by how much "Kenneth stuff" still misses me. (Blame it on information overload.) So it's only fitting that an '80s new wave band from home town -- whom I'd never heard of despite vociferously collecting albums from the era, including Arizona bands Killer Pussy, Tone Set and Phantom Limbs and Detroit locals Figures on a Beach -- did finally land on my radar via a kind blog reader who grew up near me in Mesa.
From 1985 to 1990, the New Wave band Basic Elements played stages all over greater Phoenix, opening for bands like The Bolshoi, Gene Loves Jezebel, and even early incarnations of Gin Blossoms. In those days, the band members were high school students from the Paradise Valley area, and often, they were politely asked to leave the gigs they had just played.
“We were playing in bars with grown-ass adults and alcohol. We were 15, 16, 17 years old," says Jonathan Goldman, who plays synthesizer in the band. "We would be playing the [Mason] Jar and [owner] Franco [Gagliano] would come and say, ‘You guys gotta go now. We’re going to lose our liquor license.’ So, we would go get high in the back.”
Early MTV and an obsession with Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" set the stage for what came next.
“We were going to the ‘gear for guys’ section at Judy’s in Paradise Valley Mall, and wearing our mom’s shoulder pads and eyeliner, asking the girls at London Fog how to do our hair like the Thompson Twins, and in 1984, that meant getting our asses kicked. The lightbulb kind of went off when [bassist William Preston Bowling] and I saw 'Revenge of the Nerds.' We were like, ‘Yeah, we should start a band. That’s how we won’t get our asses kicked.’ It was a survival mechanism,” remembers Goldman.
Thirty-five years after their debut, Basic Elements in October released "Hide," the first of five original songs they recorded with producer Ed Buller (Psychedelic Furs/Pulp)
In addition to Goldman -- whose Twitter profile describes him as "Synth player for the greatest '80s band you’ve never heard of" -- Reardon reports that bassist William Preston Bowling, guitarist David Youseffi, vocalist John Denis and drummer Matt Barton got back together to record the songs in Los Angeles, where Bowling and Goldman now live. The songs were all part of the Basic Elements repertoire during its original five-year incarnation.
Which brings us to 2021, when the band just put out a lyrics video for its latest release, "New You."
I checked in with Goldman to see what projects the band has lined up for 2021 and found out they'd just shipped limited edition cassingles for "New You" to (famed) Zia Records where they will be available exclusively. (The B-side features the original archival recording of the same song.) The band will be on 93.9 FM KWSS (Zoom interview) to promote said cassingles on Feb. 11. And the third single, "Scream 4 Love," will be released on Feb. 12. (Live lyric video will be featured on DJ Jake Rudh’s Twitch on Feb. 13.) He said they hope to play live again in the near future -- perhaps in Arizona in the fall.
And below, check out two versions of the band's previous single, "Hide," one from the 1985 Arizona State Fair and the spruced-up 2020 version:
Basic Elements performed “Hide” at the Shadow Mountain High School talent show in 1985, where three of the young men attended. (They opened with a cover of U2's "New Year's Day" to soften the crowd.)
From the lass's third album -- which I had to get on import at Zia Records -- "Catch as Catch Can." This song's been stuck in my head since the beginning of 11th grade. Mainly posting to see if my friend Greg is reading as I know he's the only other person who would fully appreciate! (I bought the Cherry Pop reissue in 2009, natch!)
Although my parents now live halfway between Phoenix and Tucson, I did manage to spend a little time around my former college campus while attending the Festival of Lights parade, which featured my adorable niece, Ally, as a fairy princess. Tempe's Mill Avenue is kind of my Arizona equivalent of Chelsea's 8th Avenue, as both were once the major drag of a fun part of town before rising rents and gentrification chipped away at their identities.
Mill Avenue is where my friends Greg, Yuki, Tina, Deanna and I would ditch high school to visit, spending the day in thrift stores and record shops. (Although our lives were anything but a John Hughes film, I do recall that we may have spontaneously started to walk like Madness down the avenue once!) I've written about the demise of the boulevard of many new wave dreams before, but this time I managed to retrace my youthful steps to locate some of the former stores that once housed the Valley's coolest spots.
414 S. Mill Ave.
The Mill Avenue Shops was once the home of Roads to Moscow, the punk/new wave record store where my mom haggled with a mohawked clerk to procure a promotional light box for Debbie Harry's "Koo Koo" LP for a Christmas present for me in 1983
(It was my favorite gift ever!)
and I snagged my Killer Pussy "Teenage Enema Nurses In Bondage" EP.
Back in the day
1981
I still have my extensive collection of pins and badges!
It was also the home to the travel agency where I bought my first tickets abroad -- a trip to London with my friend Kristen followed by attending the 1987 French Open in Paris.
420 S. Mill Ave.
I'm pretty sure this Starbucks is where the original Zia Record Exchange was. (Clearly the building was demolished and rebuilt from the ground up.) My friend Greg and I would enter the store then divide and conquer -- trying to snatch up the latest import 12-inch singles from Bananarama, Mari Wilson, Kim Wilde, New Order, Depeche Mode, Marilyn and the like.
(There used to be a Lotions and Potions next door and, believe it or not, it seems to still be in the building, albeit slightly north! I'm told the store has bounced around over the years, but is proudly the oldest on Mill Avenue having opened in 1969!)
The original Zia location at 420 S. Mill Ave.
The store later moved south to 105 W. University Drive during the CD heyday, and has apparently since moved again to Mill and Broadway, which I've yet to visit. (Founder Brad Singer died in 1998. Later owner Brian Faber died in September.)
414 S. Mill Ave.
My sister and my nephew (AJ) entered a candy store on Mill that I immediately recognized as the Changing Hands Bookstore -- only it seemed smaller. Sure enough, a Google search revealed that the space along with 4 One 4 pizza next door made up the superb bookstore -- it was the staircase inside Candy Addict that gave it away! -- where I landed a used copy of "The Joy of Gay Sex" back in 1988 with my friend Greg plus Mark, Brad and JR who were in town to surprise me for my 21st birthday. (I remember being ashamed that I was getting turned on my drawings in the manual!)
Just north of the Changing Hands was the home of the Spaghetti Factory, where my family would frequently go for empty carbs and free spumoni on special occasions.
414 S. Mill Ave.
The Spaghetti Company back in the day. When I got older I discovered there was a music venue upstairs called Edcels Attic.
411 S. Mill Ave., Suite 201
What now is School of Rock was next door to where Graffiti's nightclub was, which I've noted is where I was (with my friend Chantal) the night we found out Andy Warhol had died.
Me outside Graffiti's in mid-1980s
411 S. Mill Ave., Suite 102
(It was later called Club Bongo and my sister says she thinks it -- or the space next door -- was known as 411 Club long after I'd left town.)
My friends and I went to Graffiti's because we were new wave, NOT gay!
John McCain's congressional office is seen in the building on the left of Graffiti's, circa 1985. To the right was Van Döekker's restaurant, which later became the fire-prone Stan's Metro Deli.
680 S. Mill Ave.
The famed Coffee Plantation, which was truly ahead of its time, is now a Five Guys (sigh). I used to spend hours in there studying and checking out all the hot Arizona State guys.
My friend Debra held poetry readings there, which was the artsiest thing I'd ever seen up until that point!
The Mill Avenue location was the first.
680 S. Mill Ave., Suite 101
It opened when I was in college in 1989 and closed on May 30, 2009.
509 S. Mill Ave.
About the only thing left from my heyday -- save for a Native American bookstore that I rarely set foot in -- is the Valley Art cinema, where I saw "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" with my brother Bill and my best-friend-turned-tormenter Jim back in ninth grade, and where I fell in love with indie films.
The Valley Art in 1983
701 S. Mill Ave.
And sadly, even Long Wong's is long gone. In 2015, New Times remembered the venue as the former epicenter of the Tempe scene during its glory years and the nucleus of an interconnected network of musicians, clubs, and fans. An esteemed institution that hummed with live music nightly for 16 years straight, it’s where bands wanted to be seen and heard. Although the Gin Blossoms will forever be linked to the place, they weren’t the only ones that made its tiny stage their home. The list of those who were featured at Wong’s is nearly endless: The Beat Angels. Zen Lunatics. The Pistoleros. The Refreshments. Busted Hearts. Gloritone. Revenants. Trophy Husbands. Flathead. Even the late Elvis “The Cat” Delmonte, an entertainingly eccentric artist, even got stage time. Long Wong’s ultimately was a barometer of Tempe’s music scene, rising in prominence and importance as interest in its brand of rock and pop did the same. Its closure in 2004 came as a blow and surprise to many, even after the spotlight on Mill had long since faded. And though Long Wong’s was demolished to reportedly make way for future development along Mill, its plot has remained vacant ever since, serving as an occasional parking lot and a gaping reminder of what was.
Fun fact: Before it was Long Wong's, 701 S. Mill Ave. was home to the Salad Bar, an earthy chain of "health" restaurants. (It seemed to be riding the wave of Annie Hall's move to Los Angeles!)
Of course there was also a roller skate shop in the building!
Although I count my employment at the AMC Fiesta Village as my first job, technically I washed dishes for a few weeks at the Salad Bar location in Mesa, where much to my sheltered surprise the staff all did drugs and invited me to go dancing at Hotbod's Desert Dance Palace (aka Hotbods), which I later learned was the Valley's answer to Studio 54! (I stupidly declined, in horror, but in my defense I was 16 or 17.)
721 S. Mill Ave.
On the upside: The Jack-in-the-Box where my friend Mary and I were known in the 1980s to seek 99-cent tacos at all hours of the night is still alive and well!
9 E. 5th St.
Forgot to photograph the former homes of Panic City!, Q & Brew, Stan's Metro Deli and Tower Records.
While it's true that people tend to view the past through rose-colored glasses, there's no denying that Mill Avenue isn't quite what it used to be -- which for me was like a real-life version of the Fisher-Price Village I got for Christmas in 1973.
RIP: Panic City founder Tom Frank died in 2021. Read his obituary HERE.
UPDATE in 2023:
Here are some photos of a few more Tempe favorites from the past:
310 S. Mill Ave.
I can't remember her name, but I owe my life to the woman at Rumors Hair Salon who finally rid me of my "new wave" hair at the end of 1987! She worked primarily in the salon's North Scottsdale studio, so I would drive up there if I needed a cut and her Tempe appointments were already booked for the one day a week she was by ASU. (I got my first hot boyfriend shortly thereafter LOL!)
618 S. Mill Ave.
This is the Q & Brew I knew and loved. Although this location is ancient history, apparently there's a new one at 3400 S. Mill Ave. #348
607 S. Mill Ave.
Here are the Tempe Daily News (1887-2009) and Pennysaver in better days(!)
821 S. Mill Ave.
The original Tower Records (and later Video) on the southeast corner of Mill and University where my brother Terence bought Blondie's "Dreaming" single back in 1979! (The store later moved across the parking lot, but it was the first one where I spent hours upon hours of my youth sorting through the stacks and studying the Top 40 singles, which they stocked and arranged each week.)
411 S. Mill Ave., Suite 103
Stan's Metro Deli in the pre-fire Petersen Building
414 S. Mill Ave.
My beloved Changing Hands Bookstore. Apparently before my time it had been located at 9 E. 5th St. -- which I knew as Panic City -- and these days can be found at 6428 S McClintock Drive.
Roads to Moscow fliers. The store was in the Mill Avenue Shops from Sept. 1, 1978 until April 30, 1984
Owner Steve McColgan behind the counter at Roads to Moscow
1985 magazine ad
Marlene Healey at Chaos, which was inside the store
608 S. Mill Ave.
And then Roads to Moscow relocated to a bigger space on Mill south of 6th Street, from May 1, 1984 until Sept. 1, 1987. At its peak, Roads also had stores in Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tucson.
404 S. Mill Ave.
We would go to Balboa Cafe when we were feeling fancy
This is also where the Hayden Square Amphitheater was, which hosted live shows. I'm told that the likes of They Might Be Giants, Pixies, Soul Asylum, Pretenders and Garbage appeared there after I moved to Los Angeles!
401 S. Mill Ave.
... or the Paradise Bar & Grill
640 S. Mill Ave.
One of the first attempts at "going corporate" came around 1987-89, with Z Gallerie moving in. Although it was a chain, my friends and I loved the place, dreaming of furnishing our apartments with the store's over-the-top chaise lounges and framed artwork!
I believe they moved into a bigger showroom (740 S. Mill Ave.) after I moved to Los Angeles, and stayed in business for a number of years. (As for 2023 it's a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria.)
Buffalo Exchange, where I got some of my best mod "looks"(!)
514 S. Mill Ave.
And no visit to Downtown Tempe would be complete without a visit to its most famous headshop, Happy Trails (for You) -- later shortened to Trails -- which always had the best rock posters and T-shirts!
Turns out Nicholas Holthaus and Chris Valentine released a documentary about this very subject in 2008, "Mill Avenue Inc.," which already seems kind of quaint now that even a misguided attempt at corporatization has largely gone bust (The Gap, Ruby Tuesday, Barnes & Noble, Hooters, Pizzeria Uno, Bath & Body Works and Chili's have all come and gone.). Still worth a watch, though, for its great footage and interviews, including Gayle Shanks (owner of Changing Hands Bookstore), Kimber Lanning (owner of Stinkweeds Records) and Megan Irwin (reporter for the Phoenix New Times).
With Superbowl Sunday upon us, I figured there was no better time to get this cut-throat game going. I'm sure I forgot someone --...
Fake Jan Alert
My blog is featured in Susan Olsen's tell-all about the ill-fated "Brady Bunch Variety Hour"!
Little Kenny
Growing up in Madison Heights, Mich.
Back to the Old House
The Web leads to an unexpected return to a house I grew up in.
Oceans 11
Carlsbad, Calif. (2008)
1983
Go Behind the Music of my high-school band, A La Plage
A Death in the Family
Little Larry left us too soon.
Once I Had a Love
With Debbie Harry
'Jungle' Fever
With Robert Buckley
Roger & Me
With Roger Federer
Step Brother McMullen
With Ed Burns
Headline News
With Thomas Roberts
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