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How random is this?  Siouxsie Sioux has a solo album out...some gazillion years after the Banshees and the Creatures. I need to pick it up still but a cursory listen at her site is promising (click on the butterflies to navigate).

I saw the Banshees perform at the first Lollapalooza. I've always loved her music and am very excited to see this new effort.

And damn, I want to look like that when I turn 50!

Siouxsie Sioux

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were born in 1989, the year I graduated from high school. Wow.

• What Berlin wall?
• They never “rolled down” a car window.
• Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
• “Off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone.
• Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
• Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
• They were too young to understand Judas Priest’s subliminal messages.
• They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”
• Women’s studies majors have always been offered on campus.
• High definition television has always been available.
• Microbreweries have always been ubiquitous.
• Time has always worked with Warner.
• Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
• MTV has never featured music videos.
• The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
• Burma has always been Myanmar.
• Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture.
• Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.

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Oh yeah! I remember watching this on Friday Night Videos...

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark ~ Secret

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The very first concert I ever went to was The Alarm (wow, what a cool front page!), playing with Pat Benatar. It was on their Spirit of '86 tour so I must have been about 14, almost 15. My mom went and I had to take my sister, but I didn't care (this would be extremely funny to you if you knew my mom). I was determined to see them. They were the polar opposite to my other favorite band, The Smiths. The Alarm was full of power, love and truth.

They were cool. They were a bit more rockerish than U2 but with a more general political bent, which I always felt made them somewhat more accessible. Plus they had killer hair.

The lyrics alone were enough to give any angst-ridden teenager some sort of hope for the future. From Blaze of Glory:

 It's funny how they shoot you down

the alarm - blaze of glory

When your hands are held up high
And you open up your heart and soul
But that's not enough for most.

I remember this much
There is nothing
You shouldn't speak of
If you got something to say
And there is no one
To be scared of
Just get them out of the way

GOING OUT IN A BLAZE OF GLORY
My heart is open wide
You can take anything that you want from me
There is nothing left to hide

the alarm - absolute reality

You may affect the truth
You may be seen as false
You may be a king or a vagabond
You may be up, you may be down
You may sit in judgement with the rest of the clowns
You may have love
You may have hate
You may be the President Of The United States
But even you, you can't sit and hide
While the world's resources die

This is absolute reality reality reality
We are all the cause,
The solution to reality

There was just so much power and so much glory in their music. I went through a period of time where I didn't listen to them for many years and have just started to revisit the music again. Wow. I am struck by how timeless the music is.

I have their autographs on a piece of paper in my desk. My friend Brian Patrick got it for me at the same concert--somehow he managed to be near the backstage door when they were leaving. He knew how much they meant to me. Now that I think about it, I should probably put that piece of paper somewhere where it won't get lost, maybe frame it.

And so, I leave you on this 80s Friday, with more hair and incredible music from the Alarm--a later video, Rain in the Summertime, from Eye of the Hurricane (1987) and the classic 1983 song, The Stand.

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the Mr. T fashion show...

Mr. T - Fashion Designer?

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