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27 August 2007

Back in the 1970's, Casablanca Records was home to, among others, rock and roll comicbook heroes Kiss. In contrast to the cartoon demonicism of the Betongued One and Co, they also offered the white satin-suited antics of a band called Angel.[More:]

One of the biggest hype-related disasters in music history, Angel hailed from DC, and were discovered by Gene Simmons playing in a nightclub. They were universally panned by critics and had lukewarm sales in the US. They were of course, big in Japan. They did manage to make a brief appearance in a concert sequence in the Jodie Foster girls-in-trouble flick Foxes.

Now that a few decades have gone by, what are we left with? Some good wretchedly excessive fun, in a dopey sort of way.

So here from YouTube (since visuals are neccessary to get the full, um, impact here) is Angel:

The Winter Song (on American Bandstand)[this is the 'Epic Song']
Feelin' Right[this is the 'Party Song']
The Magic Touch[this is the 'Song for the Ladies']
I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore[this is the 'Bar-Band Cover Tune]

guitarist Punky Meadows was immortalized in the Zappa song 'Punky's Whips.'

and then there's that logo. See, it's the same upside-down. Groovy, huh?

[this concludes today's voyage to the Land Of What The Hell Were They Thinking]
The fuck?! I always thought Zappa made all that up. I can't believe there actually was a guy named Punky Meadows! From the photos in the first link, I can't tell which one's him -- they kind of all have that "pootched out succulence of his insolent pouting rictus" look about them.
posted by Atom Eyes 27 August | 10:09
this is Punky:
≡ Click to see image ≡
He is something of a..glamorous fellow isn't he?
posted by jonmc 27 August | 10:14
how weird - when my wife & i went to see superbad, she asked me if there were any old-school "teen sex comedies" told with more of a female perspective, written and directed by women. the closest i could come up off the top of my head was foxes, but it wasn't really a comedy and it was written and directed by men. (it also had a real live runaway in it.) little darlings comes the closest to that criteria, in that two women wrote the screenplay. anyone else have any suggestions of a porky's-esque romp with a truly female perspective?

(of course, mentioning foxes made me think of angel, which inspired me to dig out zappa in new york...)

all in all, i'm pretty sure that angel fared better than jobriath in the hype aftermath department.
posted by syntax 27 August | 10:29
syntax: Jobriath (deservedly) has gained a cult following and respect for his abilities. Angel, well, are Angel...
posted by jonmc 27 August | 10:35
also while looking for links, I found this quiz: here is a list of musicians, name the band they belonged to. I scored 100%

1) Warren DiMartini
2) Donald Roeser (hint: trick question)
3) Herman Rarebell
4) Tom Peterson
5) Punky Meadows (super bonus points)[consider it a freebie]
6) Nicko McBrain
7) Carlos Cavazo
8) Barry Goudreau (dipping back into the 70's)
9) Glenn Tipton
posted by jonmc 27 August | 11:12
I'm skipping a few, and half-guessing a few, but: Ratt, Cheap Trick, Iron Maiden, Quiet Riot, Judas Priest.
posted by box 27 August | 11:27
89% (As usual, I got #8's band mixed up with 38 Special, which doesn't make any sense; since when do my mistakes have to make sense? I'm just a dilettante). The answer to the "trick question" is the first piece of music trivia I ever learned.
posted by Hugh Janus 27 August | 11:27
While reading this I thought "I think I have one of their LPs" but it ends up I still have an Aviator LP (vinyl) that I won at some junior high event. I think I played it once and then set it aside. I just poked through my vinyl and I still have it.

What I didn't pay attention to then is that this band is made up of some people (Mick Rogers-Manfred Mann, Clive Bunker-Jethro Tull) who played in some pretty well-known bands.

I need to listen to this now.
posted by terrapin 27 August | 17:50
Wow. I just watched that video for "Feelin' Right", and that may be the very worst thing ever created by bipedal creatures. It's not even so bad it's good: it's just bad. How can a rock band FAIL at bombast? With an ORGAN PLAYER, for fuck's sake. They were obviously STRIVING for bombast, and they WEREN'T EVEN CLOSE. How can ANYONE write a song so devoid of anything resembling a hook, a riff, or a melody?

I watched the whole thing, waiting for ten seconds of music that would justify that song's existence. It's not there. It's not smart enough to be mockable, and it's not memorable enough to be worth parodying.

It's just really, really, really fucking bad.
posted by BitterOldPunk 28 August | 23:59
The drumming's not bad.
posted by bmarkey 29 August | 00:04
hey jonmc! || What on earth do you wear

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