I am so tired of being bummed out.
I've been sitting here for about an hour now, staring at this blank page, trying to find an "in" for this week's featured album. Even though this is a dinky little column that gets a tiny amount of notice out there in the wilds of the Interwebs, I put a lot of effort into crafting these four-to-five page strolls down memory lane, articles that hopefully entertain, inform, and (if I've done a really good job) even make the reader think a bit.
I dig down deep into my soda-brined brain, dredge up a bunch of memories, and wrap them around an album or song that rocked my world back in the day. Normally I get really into the process, listening to the music on repeat as I vomit words out of my head, with the intention of revisiting them later and rearranging and massaging everything until my whimsical reminiscences make some sort of sense.
It's a painstaking process, sometimes even a painful one. But when it's all over, it's very rewarding.
This week, though... I don't have it in me.
Like Eddie Murphy in Bowfinger, I've been barely keeping it together for the last several months. I worry about where my career is (not) going. I despair about where the country is (not) going. I fear where the world is (probably) going. All of the craziness and chaos, at both a personal and global level, have put me in a mindset that you could charitably call "gloomy".
And I'm tired of it. I don't want to fret anymore. I don't want to wallow. I don't want to sit in the bathtub, praying my cat does me a solid by knocking my George Foreman grill into the water, anymore.
I'm looking for something to lift my spirits, refill my happy tank, and put a big, dumb smile on my face. For me, finding that level of solace means usually means I go running to music.
And if there's any one album that can do all that for me, it's the lone release by the fondly remembered New Wave synth pop duo...
EBN-OZN.
High school, for me, wasn't awesome. But it wasn't horrible, either. It was an odd mix of awesome and horrible. There were some pretty low points, like my family's troubles, the girls I asked out who laughed at me, and the death of my cat. But then there were some pretty awesome highs, too, like filming football games with my friend Tom, playing basketball and video games with my buddies every Friday night, and getting my first real job (and money!) as a bag boy at Food World.
And of course, there was MTV.
You may remember how I've discussed the impact MTV had on my generation. But I warn you, dear reader: MTV is going to crop up in these columns a lot. A lot. How could it not? I was a fourteen year old nerd who was just discovering his love of pop music, living in a radio market that didn't really offer a lot of diversity. MTV came along and presented me and kids like me - the children of the early 80s - with an entire universe of new musical styles genres. And we succumbed to its programming willingly.
People rag on the early 80s as being a musical wasteland, but that's nonsense. I don't think there's ever been a more diverse era for popular music before or since. Look at the songs that were topping the charts: the sultry Motown pop of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean"... the theatrical rock histrionics of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse Of The Heart"... the instrumental majesty of Vangelis' "Chariots Of Fire"... the New Wave quirkiness of Tommy Tutone's "867-5309/Jenny"... the classic balladry of Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes' "Up Where We Belong"... the Jamaican-infused rhythms of Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue"... the over-the-top rock pomp of Big Country's "Fields Of Fire"... the effortless punk-pop of the Go-Go's "We Got The Beat"... the icily hypnotic synth pop of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)"... Dear God, look at that list! And that's just the merest tiniest tip of the musical iceberg! The early 80s saw rock, pop, soul, and more share the radio airwaves. For a good three years, the Billboard charts were one big genre love fest.
If there was any one genre that really sunk its hooks (musical hooks, that is) into me, it was synth pop. The synthesizer gave musicians an entirely new palette of sounds and textures to add to their songs, and when it was utilized well, the results were amazing. Anything with a bouncy keyboard line got me going. The Human League's "Don't You Want Me", Men Without Hats' "The Safety Dance", Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science", A Flock Of Seagulls' "I Ran (So Far Away)", the Buggles' iconic first-video-on-MTV-ever "Video Killed The Radio Star"... Every single one was a synth pop classic. And every single one I discovered through watching MTV for hours at a time. (When I wasn't playing video games, that is.)
But there was one song that was so unique, so clever, so off the wall, that I became obsessed with it. In the video, this twitchy blonde-haired Bohemian rambled on and on to his nerdy, uptight teacher companion about his escapades with a Swedish knockout named Lola. Sometimes he spoke. Sometime he sang. Sometimes he sounded like he was having the time of his life. Sometimes he sounded like a serial killer.
Even though the tune was ostensibly a love song, it had a kooky title: "AEIOU Sometimes Y". At every turn, it defied tried and true pop song conventions.
And I frigging loved it.
The video itself was nothing to write home about... there were no special effects, no big dance scenes, no cool sets... it looks like it was shot in an afternoon with a cheap camcorder. No, what made it so captivating was the combination of the insanely catchy song and the oddball antics of the lead singer. I'd never heard or seen anything like it before.
Even the name of the band was bizarre: Ebn-Ozn. How the hell did you pronounce that random sequence of vowels and consonants?
That was the dilemma facing me when I went looking for their tape at Marty's Record Shop.
I looked high and low for a picture of Marty’s. The best I could come up with was this shot of the Westchester Mall, the end of the building where my grandmother worked.
Marty's was a small music shop on the JC Penney end of the Westchester Mall, an older single-story shopping center on the south side of town. When we were kids, my Mom would take my brother and I there at least once a week every summer, just to get us out of the house. She'd buy us an Orange Julius. We'd go visit my grandmother who worked at the Thalhimer's department store on the other end of the big rectangular building. We'd ogle the impressive selection of toys at JC Penney. (Yes, they used to have a toy section.) We'd eat lunch at the K&W Cafeteria. It was just dumb fun that kept a couple of kids occupied for a few hours. And it was air conditioned, which was a big plus in the middle of the humid Bible Belt summers.
When I got to be a little older, I'd beg off my grandmother duties (leaving my poor brother to put up with her alone) and pop into Marty's Record Shop instead. Marty's wasn't anything special... it was like every other small record store. There were rows and rows of LPs, and a decent rack of cassette tapes along the far wall. Posters were plastered high on the walls. (There were probably CDs for sale, but since I wasn't yet CD-capable, I ignored them.) It was never super busy, so if you needed help finding something, you'd get service right away.
The one unique thing Marty's had going for it was its front window. Back when the original space had been designed, the contractors built a bay window-like display area into the facade. For a clothing store, you'd more than likely find mannequins propped up on the raised platform. But Marty's didn't have anything like that. No, what they had was a sit-down video game. If you didn't mind feeling like a nerdy zoo animal on display, you could sit a couple of feet up in the air and blow alien invaders away until you ran out of quarters. I will admit to dropping a few coins (and cool points) by climbing up into the display window and wrangling the joystick on a few occasions.
But not this time. No, with this visit, I had a purpose. I was on "the hunt". And I'll be damned: there it was. Feeling Cavalier, by Ebn-Ozn. There was only one copy, so I snagged it from the rack and guarded it closely until I got to the register. And because the clerk could tell I was perhaps their only fan within a hundred miles, he gave me a Feeling Cavalier "flat" (a reproduction of the album cover used in promotions and advertising) for free! Gift with purchase!
Once the tape was mine, I raced home as quickly as I could, eager to listen to my new treasure. (No tape player in our cars at that point.) I was looking forward to an entire album full of synth pop tunes in the vein of "AIEOU Sometimes Y". I was so stoked!
Boy, was I surprised.
Hang on, that probably came out wrong. I was definitely surprised, but not in a bad way. More like in a "what the fuuuu--?!?!" way. See, every single song was different from the last. Every single one! Sure, there was a common synthesizer thread throughout everything, but style-wise, the two members of the band were all over the place.
Take the opening track, "Bag Lady (I Wonder)". It's not a fluffy pop song like "AEIOU Sometimes Y". It's a true rock song, one with a healthy dose of social commentary folded in for good measure. Honestly, it's not that different from a lot of Top 40 rock songs of the time vibe-wise, but the production is just different enough to make it stand out. For one thing, it's heavy with Fairlight synthesizer arpeggios, haunting strings, and thundering programmed drum tracks. But then Ebn (whose real name is Ned Liben, by the way) cuts in with this incredibly raw guitar work, punctuating the more emotional moments of the song. Thirty-plus years on, I can admit that the song is a little too on-the-nose, despite the commitment that Ozn (Broadway performer Robert Rosen) puts into his powerful vocal performance. But at the time, it really made an impact on me. The song was not only catchy, it made me aware of a social problem (that has only gotten worse in the years since).
From there, the style-hopping just keeps on coming. "Stop Stop Give It Up" provides relief from existential angst on the strength of a brightly chiming chord progression. "I Want Cash" pummels the listener with a chaotic plea for financial security of any type. "Kuchenga Pamoja" is a six-minute morality play based on an African field hand chant, that ambles along with a loping tribal drum machine beat. "TV Guide" is a brief fever dream diversion that pretty much sums up every kid's desperation back in the days of having only three channels to choose from.
And of course, there's the synth pop perfection of "AEIOU Sometimes Y". Which, I was delighted to discover, was significantly longer on the album than it was in the video! There's a whole "Bohemian Rhapsody"-meets-Salvador-Dali-esque breakdown in the middle filled with weird electronically processed voices and even more sexual innuendo. It's one of those "album versions" that improves on the radio edit in every way.
But to me, the biggest - and best - surprise was the bonkers cover of Bobby Day's "Rockin' Robin", a pop song that was a big hit back in the 1950s. Ebn and Ozn threw every trick in their repertoire at this remake. Synthesized piano. Vocals processed to the point of almost no return. Squawking guitar solos. Intricately-programmed percussion tracks. It's faithful to the original, and yet it's its own unique beast. It's so loopy, it's revelatory. You can't resist its infectious happiness. I included it on many mix tapes and CDs over the years, but none of the recipients "got it" the way I did. Oh well. I tried.
Apparently, the majority of the music-buying public didn't "get it", either. Feeling Cavalier did not do well on the charts, unfortunately. (In all the years since it was released, I've never met another person who owned a copy. And I've met a lot of music fans.) Critics weren't very kind, either. Ironically, most of them focused on what they considered a "lack of focus" across the various songs on the album. The seemingly scattershot mix of styles and instrumentation didn't grab them.
Their loss! (And what do critics know, anyway? They'll all frustrated musicians who never made it.) In short order, Feeling Cavalier became an indispensable part of my music collection. I listened to it through the end of high school. It was in my sad little portable tape deck all summer. It went with me to college, where you could find it safely ensconced in my Aiwa tape player, keeping my brain going as I typed away in the computer labs. It kept me company at my first post-college job, during those late nights when I was writing and debugging billing reports. It was in my luggage when I drove to California. It's been everywhere with me.
(You know that album flat I mentioned earlier? My Mom, who worked at an elementary school, actually laminated it for me. And that thing has been displayed in every place I've lived since 1984. My dorm rooms. The condo and house I rented with my ex-wife. My first apartment. My house in Berkeley. As I write this, it's on the shelf right behind me in my office. For two-thirds of my life, it's been perhaps the only visual constant of my daily existence.)
I love that album. I loved it a little too much, actually... at one point in my third year of college I had to buy a second copy, because I played my original tape so much it broke. And let me tell you... it took me a long time, back in the pre-Amazon days, to find another one.
But I persevered. It was worth it.
Thirty-six years later, it remains amongst my treasures…
Thirty-plus years later, Feeling Cavalier is still one of my favorite albums ever. The sad thing is, as a fan... this is all I'll ever get. Unfortunately, Ned Liben passed away back in 1998, depriving the world of not only an amazing talent, but a man who was, by every account I could find, beloved by everyone around him. At least Robert Ozn (he changed his last name several years ago) is still with us, lighting up the dance charts on both sides of the Atlantic as Dada Nada. (If you're a fan of electronic dance music, I suggest you give him a listen. You can thank me later.) But the magic that was Ebn-Ozn... it's trapped in digital amber. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event... and I am so glad I was along for the ride.
When things in my life get stressful, or I find myself needing a good dose of nostalgia to lift my spirits, this album is where I often go. I'll pop around from song to song, letting the music and the memories wash over me and take me to a happier place, a simpler time, when the most pressing thing in my life was finishing my latest cartoon before the school newspaper deadline.
And it works like a charm. I'm telling you, to this day, when I hear those first rubbery bass notes and the screechy Fairlight strings from the beginning of "AEIOU Sometimes Y"...
...It's impossible to stay bummed out.
(Sorry for the poor quality of this week's video. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a cleaned-up version available online. But the audio’s more important than the video. I’ll say it again: where's the love for this album? It's a classic!)
BIO
Don Stroud is not the famous actor and world-class surfer of the same name. He is the non-famous California transplant who became an award-winning film editor and struggling amateur screenwriter. He loves cats, sushi, comic books, movies, music, and Cherry Coke. What's that, dear? Oh yes: and his wife. You can follow him on Twitter, where he pops up sporadically, at @DonStroud2.