In the '80s, we would herd nerds to The Gap. A even longer time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I guess they would herd womp rats to the auction house. That's where you can find Luke Skywalker's pants from Star Wars.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the sand-colored jeans, which were worn by Mark Hamill for much of the film, have a 29-inch waist and 37-inch length. (Good for you, Mark!) They were made by Levi Strauss & Co. and customized (with two six-inch slits down each side) by London costumier Bermans & Nathans.
Bidding ends soon, and the current high bid is $29,834. But even if you feel like offering a cool $30k, beware of the dark side of Hollywood auctions: These pants won't be free from the Empire unless you can offer between $70,000 and $100,000. I'd rather kiss a wookiee.
Artists who often complained about the tedium of filming ‘80s videos should have taken a tip from Chris Isaak. Just get a smokin’ hot model and have them film you getting all steamy with her on a bed, kiddie pool or anywhere.
In 1989, Isaak released his third album called Heart Shaped World that only spent ten weeks on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart and peaked at No. 149 despite having many standout tracks including Wicked Game and today’s feature - Blue Spanish Sky.
Director David Lynch gave Wicked Game a new life when his instrumental version of the song was featured in 1990’s Wild At Heart. Inspired by movie, an Atlanta radio program director started featuring the original version on his station and introduced Wicked Game to a national audience where it caught fire, peaked at No. 6 on the singles charts in 1991, spawned a very popular video and propelled Heart Shaped World to sales of more than 2 million copies.
While Blue Spanish Sky never caught on as a single, it is signature Chris Isaak with dreamy vocals and haunting guitar. Isaak released his most recent album in 2011 and is still playing his Gibson guitar to the delight of his fans.
Never before and never again (I hope) will I be able to write about Justin Bieber on Stuck in the '80s, but imagine my delight to wake up this morning to headlines that Jon Bon Jovi has called Bieber an "a**hole" in the British media.
The always hirsute frontman of Bon Jovi was blasting Bieber for disappointing fans by showing up hours late for a London concert. "Do it once, you can be forgiven," Bon Jovi told the Standard. "Do it enough times and shame on you. They won’t have you back. Then it just becomes a cliché. It's really not cool — you’re an a**hole. Go to f***in’ work!"
Coming days after Bieber was booed at the Billboard Music Awards, I feel warm all over. Now if someone would just reveal Daft Punk as a couple of Pet Shop Boys wannabes, my week would be complete.
Remember last summer when John Waite made headlines for trashing Journey and other ‘80s bands that keep reuniting? Let’s instead choose to remember the John Waite who had a sense of humor in the video for Change. The video for Change starts off as your typical starlett trying to make it in Hollywood narrative, but ends with a few light-hearted moments and plot twist.
After his departure from The Babies, Change was Waite’s first single off his 1982 Ignition album and only charted on the Mainstream Rock Charts. In 1985, Change was included in the movie Vision Quest and tried to piggyback on the success of the No. 1 smash Missing You, but only made it to No. 59 on the charts.
Waite makes his triumphant return to Clearwater on May 31 for downtown's Blast Friday free concert series.
Vince Neil, Lita Ford, Don Dokken, Slash, Tommy Lee and many more stars of '80s hair metal have gone on the record with their fading memories of life on the Sunset Strip and elsewhere during our glorious decade. Salon has pulled an incredible collection of stories, tall tales and quotes from the artists who gave us the music. It's all from the book From the book Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal by Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman. Copyright 2013 by Jon Wiederhorn. Here are three highlights:
VINCE NEIL: "The first concert I went to was Lynyrd Skynyrd, with Black Sabbath opening. Then Foreigner, and Eddie Money, I think, at Anaheim Stadium. I was probably fourteen; friends who were sixteen had a car. Everybody was smoking pot. I remember looking around during 'Freebird,' and it was a stadium, you could see, like, the concrete bending; or maybe it was just me being high, but it was a surreal experience." …
If you do an internet search for Dragon, you’ll no doubt be flooded with links to HBO’s addictive Game of Thrones series. There is serious doubt on how far you would have to scroll to find the band Dragon and their new wave nugget Rain from 1983.
New Zealand’s Dragon was well established Down Under before scoring a No. 2 hit in Australia with Rain. The video is a straight ahead performance and unfortunately unlike Game of Thrones, does not include any swordplay or gratuitous nudity.
Dragon has endured its share of tragedies including deaths to its prominent members due to drugs and cancer. The only original member, bassist Todd Hunter, is still keeping Dragon alive and they continue to tour Down Under.
Would you buy a ticket to see Jason Bateman in Teen Wolf Three? You kinda would, wouldn't ya? With all the interest in Bateman these days because of the new Arrested Development series, you'd think someone would ask him about his days in 1987's Teen Wolf Too.
Well, in 2011, someone did. Cinemablend.com kidded Bateman about his hirsute take on the franchise and asked about the possibility of a Teen Wolf Three.
"We're very excited about the latest draft," Bateman told the interviewer, probably with a wink of his eye. Bateman actually did meet the cast of the MTV Teen Wolf series about the same time.
"They came up and introduced themselves to me at the MTV Movie Awards," Bateman said. "They were really, really nice. They were like, 'Oh my God, there's number two!' They're so in their world right now."
Actually, if you really want to know what's up next for Bateman, he has three movies in the works: Bad Words, This Is Where I Leave You and Horrible Bosses 2.
As the ‘80s became stereotyped by Yuppies and mantras like “Greed is Good”, who would have believed that in 1987 a band of out Australia would take the world by storm singing about the injustices to native Aborigines?
After the success of their first single, Beds Are Burning, off the Diesel and Dust album, Midnight Oil released The Dead Heart, which peaked at No. 53 on the US charts. The Dead Heart is about the government “giving back” Uluru (or Ayers Rock) to the Aborigines. The beginning half minute of The Dead Heart video is a majestic time-lapse view of the red rock of Uluru.
Because of its unique Australian focus, Diesel and Dust is widely regarded as the best Australian album of the ‘80s and perhaps of all time by many publications.
Sinbad, who has been bouncing around TV and and the big screen since the mid '80s, is finding out that showbiz life these days is a different world. The comic has filed for bankruptcy protection, the second time he's used the courts to help him out.
Sinbad (real name: David Adkins) filed for Chapter 13 last month, TMZ reports. He owed $10 million (including $8.3 mil to the IRS) but has assets totaling only $131,000. According to court documents, he only makes $16k a month now.
Sinbad got his start in the '80s, appearing on TV's The Redd Foxx Show, Keep On Cruisin' and A Different World. In 1987, he "survived" rumors on Wikipedia that he had died.
Did you catch Star Trek: Into the Woods, or whatever it's called, over the weekend? Sadly, I missed it. I was unpacking boxloads of Tribbles as I moved from Orlando to the nearby 'burg of Longwood. I moved into a house built in 1985, and it clearly hasn't been updated since that year. Could anything be more perfect?
At least one website had their head in the game and provided us this interesting, if slightly deranged, ranking of the best Star Trek movies of all time. And I'm happy to say the '80s fared better than expected.
Screencrush's list has fondness for Star Trek III that frankly is not logical, but otherwise, I'd largely agree with it. Go here for the full rationale of their ranking. I'm only going to give away their top six here.
1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: "Out of all the classic 'Trek' films, it's the only one that stands alone as a great movie. You don't need to have seen the original series."
2. Star Trek: "It's easy to the list the problems with JJ Abrams' 2009 reboot of the 'Star Trek' franchise. It's dumb, it's full of plot holes, nothing makes sense, etc. However, Abrams is a magician -- he makes sure you don't see any of these problems until much, much later." …
With more than 30 million copies sold worldwide, it’s a stretch to say that Dire Strait’s Brother in Arms album is "lost" since it was released in 1985. While the No. 1 smash Money For Nothing is a constant on the radio, the title track, Brother in Arms, is uncommon on the radio.
The single for Brothers in Arms only charted in the U.K. with a peak positon of No. 16. The video combines grainy yet beautiful cartoon-like imagery with the senselessness of war to create one of the most unique videos of the ‘80s.
For trivia hounds, Brothers in Arms was the first recording to sell a million copies on CD and is credited for the growth and acceptance of the CD format in the ‘80s. Dire Straits last recorded in 1991 and broke up for good in 1995, while leader Mark Knopfler keeps busy with his solo career.
After scoring multiple hits in the ‘70s with his band LTD, Jeffrey Osborne went solo and went on to chart eight Top 40 hits in the ‘80s. While most of his singles were slow R&B ballads, Osborne still could hit the dance floor with songs like 1983’s Stay With Me Tonight.
Stay With Tonight peaked at No. 30 on the charts and has a thumping bass line and excellent guitar solo. Osborne stills performs occasionally, mostly on the casino circuit.
"It's not fun ... being an illegal alien." I was only 16 when this song by Genesis was released in 1983. All I thought at the time is that it was semi-catchy, and semi-stupid. But was it actually one of the most racist songs of the '80s?
That's one argument we hash out in this week's Stuck in the '80s podcast, which honors three albums from 1983. Download the show here. It's free. You can find all our shows here.
Depending on who you ask, the most racist song of the '80s might be a tune from NWA or Public Enemy. Though I'd argue their raps were ABOUT racism - a not-so-small difference. If you ask the New York Times, they'll say David Allan Coe produced "the most racist, misogynist, homophobic and obscene songs recorded by a popular songwriter."
As for Genesis, check out the oddly insulting video and ridiculous lyrics. Phil Collins and his bandmates would argue that the song was just a light-hearted look at the frustrations facing Mexican immigrants. Blender magazine, meanwhile, called it the 13th worst song of all time.
As ‘80s music started to become more slick and overproduced in the last half of the decade, there was a small revival of American roots rock coined The Paisley Underground. One of the soldiers of that movement was The Long Ryders. Taking their name from the 1980 western The Long Riders, The Long Ryders gained some minor radio and video airplay in 1985 for Looking for Lewis and Clark.
The song name drops folk heroes Gram Parsons and Tim Hardin who both died of drug overdoses. Hardin is the author of songs such as Reason To Believe (most recently made famous by Rod Stewart) and If I Were a Carpenter. The video showcases Sid Griffin’s uber-long sideburns in a decade were sideburns were not that fashionable. In 1987, like all old cowboys, The Long Ryders decided to hang up their spurs and fade into the sunset, but not before releasing a live album and several anthologies.
Axel Foley, take a seat. Deadline.com reports that CBS has decided against airing the Beverly Hills Cop reboot, which was backed by Eddie Murphy.
Rumor has it that Murphy, who appears in a cameo in the pilot along with former co-star Judge Reinhold, was outshining star Brandon T. Jackson, who plays Axel's son. Oh, that's a shocker. Come on, Eddie. Find your OWN project to star in.
Lest you think this is it for Axel, fear not: Multiple sources say the TV series will be shopped to other networks.
TOP 5 FORGOTTEN LINES FROM BEVERLY HILLS COP:
5. "This is not my locker!"
4. "I don't think cost is the issue here, sir. I think the issue should be my blatant disregard for proper procedure."
3. "Jenny, don't worry about me. We got cocaine and coffee here. We're gonna get wired and have a big party."
2. "Is this the man who... wrecked the buffet at the Harrow club this morning?"
1. "You know, it says here that by the time the average American is fifty, he's got five pounds of undigested red meat in his bowels."
Relive the '80s music, movies and culture with Tampa Bay Times correspondent Steve Spears. A teen during the greatest decade ever, Steve is obsessed with everything from Duran Duran to Journey, John Hughes to John Cusack, and parachute pants to big hair.
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