Back in the late nineties the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature build an exhibit called "Get Back" as history of rock n' roll. In a series of concerts, the museum chose the Bonaduces to represent the eighties, despite the band's nineties origins. Perhaps someone in the museum's hierarchy detected the band leader's love of the post-Brill Building song-writing assembly line work of Stock, Aitken and Waterman and such. For the concert, the Bonaduces covered Prince ("Purple Rain"), Alan Parsons Project ("Eye in the Sky") and Flesh for Lulu ("I Go Crazy") and a whole lot more.
That show helped to inspire this 1998 compilation from endearing records which pitted bands from all over the map against the musical curating skills of John Hughes. The indie-pop bands herein all add a twist or two to these eighties synth-pop standards from Flesh For Lulu, Echo and The Bunnymen, The Psychedelic Furs, The Thompson Twins and Simple Minds. Winnipeg, reflecting the local biases of the compiler, start and end with the two best contributions. Be'hl strip the Bowie affectations from "Don't You Forget About Me" and turn int into a campfire-ish pop song. The Bonaduces rough up "I Go Crazy" by amping up the guitars and losing the synth but without disrespecting the song itself.
Endearing Records honcho Blair Purda adds:
"The idea for this comp actually came from Simon of the Vancouver band Speedbuggy. He was planning a heart shaped pink 12" I believe and asked if a few Endearing bands could contribute to what was mostly going to be a Vancouver based compilation. The Bonaduces and B'ehl recorded songs and we waited, waited and waited for the other bands to finish their songs and the record to be released.
When none of the Vancouver band's got songs in, we finally just said, WTF, let's put it out ourselves and we asked a few other Endearing artists (California's Ciao Bella and Australia's Ninety Nine) if they could bang off covers. They did, we had enough songs to put out an EP and Pretty in Pop was launched at the West End Cultural centre with performances by some of the artists, screenings of the films and pop corn."
Download Pretty in Pop CD
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Ninety Nine's "Bring On The Dancing Horses" is sooooo beautiful.
ReplyDeleteFavorite moment in The Bonaduces "I Go Crazy": Doug yelling "A car goes by!" at you from across the room.
I never even knew that was a Doug moment (and it is a good 'un).
ReplyDeleteHi there, just found this post and thought I'd comment.
ReplyDeleteThe idea for this comp actually came from Simon of the Vancouver band Speedbuggy. He was planning a heart shaped pink 12" I believe and asked if a few Endearing bands could contribute to what was mostly going to be a Vancouver based compilation. The Bonaduces and B'ehl recorded songs and we waited, waited and waited for the other bands to finish their songs and the record to be released.
When none of the Vancouver band's got songs in, we finally just said, WTF, let's put it out ourselves and we asked a few other Endearing artists (California's Ciao Bella and Australia's Ninety Nine) if they could bang off covers. They did, we had enough songs to put out an EP and Pretty in Pop was launched at the West End Cultural centre with performances by some of the artists, screenings of the films and pop corn.
Blair
ReplyDeleteNice filling in of all the details, I should had you write the post (or at least finish it).
Thanks for leaving some words and for all the good work that endearing has done over the years (is it fifteen now?)