THE TRUTH - PLAYGROUND - Dennis Greives

THE TRUTH - PLAYGROUND - On IRS Records

This is an another clip of a previous post on THE TRUTH, (Dennis Greives from Nine Below Zero). In the previous post it came with a somewhat unwanted extra of X singing BURNING HOUSE OF LOVE which I didn't particulary like.

I like the IRS tag in the beginning of the song. Here is what is interesting about this clip. Sure on one hand it is a total WHO rip off because its thrashy power chords with crashing drum rolls. But it works. THE TRUTH released this in 1985 and it is literally out of print.

I think its the most brilliant thing they ever did. The other albums they put out weren't as gripping as this. I also liked Grievsies later releases with Nine Below Zero but he really takes the R and B thing to a sleeping lull. Sometimes its amazing and sometimes its very subtle.

I liked the Townsend jump in the beginning. Its almost as if the UK kids had to come over here and show us how to do rock music. This really stuck in my head for years. The album - should you find it - is extremely expensive now and rare. I remember it being absolutely amazing in just about every way.

You really needed an album label like IRS back in the day. There was a lot of drivel going around with the devil and 666 stuff in the high schools. I was bored with it. I wanted something exciting. The edits are all equal length here for the most part. Its got a tempo to it.

Funny how you start to notice those sort of things when you actually do editing. Back in the 80's a lot of this stuff was done by hand before digital desktop editing....

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The only computers we had in 85' were those crappy Macs that were the size of a bowling ball.

The opening is from Back Porch Video. The Smartest kids in my neighborhood. I grew up in the same town as they did and used to watch this show growing up in Ann Arbor. They were the only kids that understood what I wanted to see and what mattered most. It wasn't rap music which at the time was not widely accepted as being a serious musical form. The things that captured my attention was bands like these.

Posted by Cantu on Oct. 20, 2007 at 9:02 AM

PAUL SHAFFER - DRESS COOL - DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW

I remember seeing this but for some reason it stayed stuck in my head. After seeing it again I am not convinced that this was a comedy piece. I think Paul Shaffer was trying to be serious in this rock(?) video because the song is somewhat...... real?

Look for the guy who dresses up in christmas tinsel. I remember that scene. There is a lot of production that went behind this with stop motion animation and so on.

This was recorded in the mid-80's when David Letterman was really picking up a lot of fans. I would put this in 1985 - 1986. The whole period of 1984 - 1986 was sort of a high moment for the show because it was somewhat unpredictable and fun to watch. 1987 brought on a lot of attention to some of the things I took for granted like the TOP TEN list. When that segment rolled out in the 87' season they had monster CGI graphics and I really thought the production was trying too hard. I sort of lost interest in the show after that.

When it moved to CBS it had a whole different vibe to it. Remember too that in 1986 Eddie Van Halen used to play with Shaffer in the band. That was kind of weird to see since Eddie was always considered somewhat of a cult hero.

This clip picks up on the eccentricities of the 80's and how fun the early shows of Letterman used to be before they went big budget.

Posted by Cantu on Oct. 20, 2007 at 8:43 AM

Posted by Cantu on Oct. 20, 2007 at 8:39 AM