1 post tagged “face dancer”
My old chum Platters That Matter Records just had a great batch of records on ebay; it was unsold stock from legendary Rockville record store Yesterday and Today, much of which was in turn unsold stock from Baltimore's legendary Music Machine (which closed up first). Y&T was owned by Skip Groff, who was also the man behind Limp Records, and who still runs a web-based record store under the Y&T name. (Y&T also employed Platters That Matter Records for a while in the 90s; circle of life, etc.) I never shopped at Y&T much, because I lived in Baltimore during my college years. I did shop at Howie Horowitz's Music Machine religiously: every Monday I would pick up my weekly grocery check from my mom, cash it, and drive out to Howie's to spend it on British imports. Howie was great, he took special orders and got just about anything I wanted, if not through his normal suppliers then on one of his regular trips to England. Even so I couldn't buy everything I wanted, so I just picked up five records that I missed back then. The first is A+B=C, a five-song EP from Baltimore-area "new wave" band Growing Up Different circa 1983. I put "new wave" in quotes because they sound like AOR musicians playing AOR songs on synths and calling it "new wave," and that's exactly what they were. After the demise of regional AOR giants Face Dancer, the rhythm section of Billy Trainor and Scott McGinn hooked up with keyboardist D.J. Long to form Growing Up Different. It's not bad, it's probably typical of a lot of older (i.e. 30-ish) musicians in a lot of cities trying to adapt to a new musical style in those days. "Stare Back In Silence" is certainly competent synthpop, cheesy electronic toms and all:
The Glory Daze AOR website has an exclusive three-part interview with Billy Trainor about the history of Face Dancer and its incarnations over the years, the most recent being in 2003. Here's what he has to say about Growing Up Different:
After we put FD to rest, Scott and I started experimenting around with electronic music and had a pretty cool very 80's kind of band for a while. It actually became quite popular, and we got a singles offer from a record company in England. Like the dumb asses we are, we held out for an album deal in the US which never came about.
A+B=C was released by CES Records, "A Division of CES Talent, Inc." Locally only, I presume. I did see Growing Up Different once, at DC's fabulous, now-defunct Wax Museum. They were the opening act; I can't remember exactly who the headliner was, but I think it was either Men Without Hats or the Eurythmics. (That's right, I went to a Men Without Hats concert.) They were all right; they had some pretty cool equipment and played a tight set. I'm glad to finally have this audio souvenir.
