Raised on Radio #16- Jermaine Jackson

It's almost impossible to overstate how huge Michael Jackson was in the 1980s.

The 1984 Jacksons reunion Victory Tour was as big as a cultural moment as the LA Olympics and Reagan vs Mondale.

Everything named Jackson in the 80s was a hit. Oldest Sister Rebbie had a megasmash called "Centipede". The (Michael-less) Jacksons took 2300 Jackson Street to the top of the R&B charts. Improbably, sister LaToya took three albums into the Top 200 and had two songs make the Top 100.

I have written here before my thoughts on MJ. There are quite a few Michael Jackson songs (one of my favorite is actually the now-hardly mentioned "Say Say Say" duet with Paul McCartney) that I really like, but Jacko was constantly everywhere, and that is almost always a bad thing.

So, I actually gravitated towards Jermaine Jackson who never made it to the big time, despite his best efforts. I had to usually switch over to the Urban channel to hear his stuff.

1984 sticks out for me as it was the year that gave the three songs that I think of when I think of Jermaine ("Dynamite" which peaked at #15, "Do What You Do" #13, and a duet with Michael "Tell Me I'm Not Dreamin' (Too Good to be True)" which didn't chart.) It was also his most successful year as his LP Dynamite went Top 20.

Jermiane's career was probably more successful than you would guess, including some odd bedfellows duets with Devo ("Let me tickle your fancy" #18 in 1982) and Pia Zadora ("When the Rain Begins to Fall" #54 in 1985).

He has 17 songs make the Top 100; seven went to the Top 40, and two trips to the Top 10 (1972's "Daddy's Home" and 1979's "Let's Get Serious"). His last major attempt was "Word to the Badd!" which probably got more press than spins, a duet with T-Boz that took some swipes at his more famous brother- #78 in 1991.

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others

Awhile back I was doing a series of posts on Des Moines-area attractions, when I received news that the franchise Twin Peaks was opening a restaurant here.

Twin Peaks, if you don't recall, is one of the newer "Breast-aurants" who take the Hooters concept, but they don't act like people go there for the food.

It is also going into a location that has been sure suicide for many restaurants who figured that their Mexican Steakhouse BBQ restaurant was going to make it there.

A couple of years ago, CNN ran a list of Top 5 worst places in the US to open a restaurant, and Des Moines made it. It wasn't this particular location (although some places re-reported incorrectly it was), but it should be noted that this location is 1) just down the street 2) covered by the same un-advertsing friendly city zoning laws and 3) has nearly as bad as a track record for restaurants staying in business. as the one mentioned in CNN's list.

It does set up the great battle to see if sex really sells. If you take the worst location around and add cleavage, will the restaurant ultimately prevail.

The answer a month in is Advantage: Twin Peaks. I saw more cars there one night driving by than I probably had combined for two years as a smoky BBQ joint. They also have a hefty lunch crowd.

How are they pulling this off?

Well, radio ads, of course; but mostly, I would attribute some access t the daily 4:00 ritual of having the scantily-clad servers hula-hoop out by the road side.

Here's a helpful picture of what a young scantily-clad hula hooping female might look like:



From my observation (and those who have been agree) the restaurant's clientele is 99.99% male.  It likely will stay that way as I am told, the servers like to have their pictures taken with the customers to give away as souvenirs.

I am also told by anyone who has been there or talked to someone who had- the food is terrible.

The ultimate question may be will the breasts be able to prevail over bad food?  It is has a buzz for being a new place with a very unique concept, but how much business will make 3rd and 4th trips back?

This weekend, I was talking to a stripper (Hey, Henry Miller and Bukowski were always hanging out with strippers.  It's like, a way literary thing to do) and she asked me if I had been.

She told me that she had gone over there to recruit some "help" to see if they would leave their Twin Peaks job for one with a little bit less memorization (Who ordered the Onion Rings?).

I didn't think to ask her if she had any success.

She did tell me that the food there was terrible. 
 

On the Shelf 073: Piano Magic

I was skipping the internet fantastic and happened to catch Piano Magic released their 11th album today Life has not Finished us Yet.

You can find it on amazon here, or from their record company, should you prefer that (I have no idea if Amazon is much better or much worse for an artist).

It is their first album since 2009's Ovations. Ovations made by "Best-Of" list that year and I consider it an absolute must-have album.

Interestingly enough, Glen from Piano Magic was a frequent visitor to my Livejournal for a few months back in the day. I embarrassingly wasn't familiar with his band and uncomfortably suggest that Brendan Perry had a better voice than his (Fair warning: Brendan Perry has a better voice than everyone).

Glen eventually (as far as I know) posted less and less on LJ until he finally stopped posting at all about a year ago (That's no slight on him, as it seems only a handful of LJ'ers still bother with the damned thing).

I would have probably posted this whether it was any good or not just based on those brief interactions, but his music is good. Even more, it's not that his music is good, it's amazing. His brand of dark, ambient 4AD-ish style pop is everything you could want- evocative, intimate and inspiring.

I am off to get the album, but in the meantime, listen to the single.