New Wave Outpost Forum

hi anyone know if they had any sucess?i had their first 2 lps on 1 cd and about every song was a classic.i know they had videos for She Shelia and Whats He Got but were they hits?any of hits also?

What you have is basically it for the "hits"....according to allmusic, they released 2 more but I've never heard anything from them.

I saw them twice in Youngstown Ohio....the keyboardist (sic) Wayne Famous was a pretty nice guy. I tried to buy him a beer but he didn't drink before a show (maybe never?) so I got him some orange juice. The next time they came around he saw me and bought me some orange juice.

Max

The music you listen to is the soundtrack of your life.

I liked the original line-up with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. They sucked by the time Nathan Lane and Ferris Bueller joined up.

http://nealsnow.multiply.com/

I saw their 3rd lp in a used record store but passed on it - - asking too much for it. I did listen to it and while it was a little glossier (isn't that always the case, listening to a band's lps from '86 compared to '82) but there were some good tracks.

Those 1st two lps are nice ones though.

[quote][i]Originally posted by 80sfreak[/i]
<br>hi anyone know if they had any sucess?i had their first 2 lps on 1 cd and about every song was a classic.i know they had videos for She Shelia and Whats He Got but were they hits?any of hits also?
[/quote]

"What She Does to Me (The Diana Song)" - #61 on the Hot 100
"What's He Got?" - #108 on Bubbling Under the Hot 100
"The Producers" LP - #163 on Top 200 Albums

"She Sheila" and "You Make the Heat" did not chart. "Certain Kinda Girl" had a video, but wasn't a single (the reverse of "What She Does to Me," which was the lead single, but didn't have a video). They were more popular in the Southeast U.S. than elsewhere, and reportedly lost a lot of support after the debut due to being pains-in-the-asses and getting under the skin of a top-level exec who happened to control their fate at both of their major labels.

[quote][i]Originally posted by SomebodySomewhere[/i]
They were more popular in the Southeast U.S. than elsewhere, and reportedly lost a lot of support after the debut due to being pains-in-the-asses and getting under the skin of a top-level exec who happened to control their fate at both of their major labels.
[/quote]

You're kidding me. They don't strike me as having been prima donna sorts. Aw, it's such a shame if that were the case, because The Producers were way talented and I think they could've been at least as big as The Romantics (whose music theirs reminds me of) if they'd been able to keep at it. And was "I Love Lucy" any kind of a hit, then? Because that's my favorite song of theirs.

[quote][i]Originally posted by deethelurker[/i]
<br>You're kidding me. They don't strike me as having been prima donna sorts.[/quote]

Read the forum at their website. The one member who posts there strikes me as the poster child.

The executives' name (I couldn't remember it offhand) is Al Teller. He ran Portrait, dropped them from there, and then when CBS put Portrait into a state of suspended animation, he took over MCA... and then dropped them from there, too. Obviously, I don't know the whole story, seeing as I wasn't there, but I don't believe for a minute that a record executive would carry a grudge over to a new label had they all been good little do-bees.

Ignoring office politics, "The Producers" was hardly a blockbuster. It spent 2 weeks on the chart. Maybe it was a bit of a sleeper with reported sales of 200,000, but even that isn't much -- a lot of major-label albums don't break even on 200,000 -- and it was certainly understandable that "You Make the Heat" wouldn't get anywhere near the same amount of attention and, subsequently, sell less. Never mind that power pop was dead by 1983. Even if the band were yes men to a fault, why should Portrait have kept them?

[quote]Aw, it's such a shame if that were the case, because The Producers were way talented and I think they could've been at least as big as The Romantics (whose music theirs reminds me of) if they'd been able to keep at it.[/quote]

The Romantics were willing to please their label by changing style to suit trends. The Producers weren't, and shot themselves in the foot as a result. That and they ran out of material quick. Of their four albums, "The Producers" is the only one I think is consistent. "You Make the Heat" has 2 great songs -- which is 2 more than "Run for Your Life" and "Coelacanth" have. After Portrait cut them loose, they should have done what most dropped bands do. Break up.

[quote]And was "I Love Lucy" any kind of a hit, then? Because that's my favorite song of theirs.[/quote]

"What She Does" and "What's He Got?" were the only 2 singles from the s/t one. "Lucy" is one of my favorites, too, along with "Breakaway." Had there been a second single off "You Make the Heat," that's the one I would have picked. I don't really think the other cuts on that one are worth hearing.

thats a shame.i worship the 1st lp and the 2nd i absolutey love about the entire lp.can anyone give me a link to the site with forum?

hey thanks

This is in re: SomebodySomewhere's comments:

I don't think power pop "was dead by 1983" because The Hooters managed to do boffo business as a power pop band in the mid '80s (and I don't believe in musical genres dying in the first place), but even if it did, why should The Producers (or any other musical artist) not stick to the kind(s) of music they feel best suits them?

And I went to where I presume you aimed to send me to, i.e. the "guestbook" that seems equipped to be a sort of "message board" for the site, and I really didn't see any member of The Producers out-and-out being a jerk. It sounded like there was some difficulty between a guy named Charlie who worked for/with the band and Kyle Henderson, but there are always going to be those sorts of clashes/difficulties amongst band members or band members and people who are hired to be session musicians, engineers, what have you. If that's the jerk-like activity you're referring to, I will pray for you if you ever have to encounter one Mr. Simon Le Bon. Because unless you've a young-enough woman with model-like looks, or unless you happen to catch him on one of his rare "good" days, Le Bon is a le arse. But that doesn't distract me from the fact that Nick Rhodes and John Taylor are both really sweet guys with nary a negative fan experience between them, and the fact that Kyle Henderson was apparently being a brat about dealings with someone else shouldn't distract from the rest of the comments that say that the rest of the members of the band were apparently quite nice people. (Sorry for the Duran references. They're the only group I've actually had personal experiences with.)

I guess we'll have to agree that the band's material weakened as time progressed, though I still believe that You Make The Heat was still a solid, strong album. Run For Your Life is where I think the band started to lose the plot and I can't listen to Coelacanth, but if I were a real, true, strong Producers fan (I don't think I can *quite* qualify as a Producers fan) I think I might be able to say that all four albums were great ones. However, being that I'm NOT (as I stated) a Producers fan (only someone who likes their music), I'm not interested in devoting that kind of energy to them.

The Producers were one of my fav bands back in the day. We went to a concert at the Union Ball Room at the University of Utah where you could stand right against the stage and reach out and touch the band.

I got kicked out of the concert briefly for pushing a "rent-a-cop" security guard down onto his ass (he deserved it) . . . but that's another story.

In addition to the songs mentioned above, I recommend:

"Dear John"
"Breakaway"
"Table for One" (featured on the NWO sometime ago)
"China Town" (reminds me of some of the early "Police" songs)

[quote][i]Originally posted by deethelurker[/i]
<br>I don't think power pop "was dead by 1983" because The Hooters managed to do boffo business as a power pop band in the mid '80s[/quote]

The Hooters were power pop? Maybe "Day by Day, "Hanging on a Heartbeat" and "And We Danced." The rest, not even close. Even those three were more AOR than anything.

[quote](and I don't believe in musical genres dying in the first place), but even if it did, why should The Producers (or any other musical artist) not stick to the kind(s) of music they feel best suits them?[/quote]

By all means, do what you love, but if there's no longer any marketability in it, don't complain when you no longer have a major label contract.

[quote]And I went to where I presume you aimed to send me to, i.e. the "guestbook" that seems equipped to be a sort of "message board" for the site, and I really didn't see any member of The Producers out-and-out being a jerk. It sounded like there was some difficulty between a guy named Charlie who worked for/with the band and Kyle Henderson[/quote]

Not them.

[quote]The Hooters were power pop? Maybe "Day by Day, "Hanging on a Heartbeat" and "And We Danced." The rest, not even close. Even those three were more AOR than anything.[/quote]

I would classify them as "power pop". They don't strike my '90s sensibilities as being odious, therefore they can't be the same musical classification as truly bad (according to me) AOR such as REO Speedwagon and Journey. They sound more interesting than that. And the first Hooters song that comes to my mind is "All You Zombies".

[quote]By all means, do what you love, but if there's no longer any marketability in it, don't complain when you no longer have a major label contract.[/quote]

Feh. Sometimes the most interesting things can be heard on indie labels. And let's not forget that the worst time period for music was the time period between 1988 - 1991, where the only artist doing anything good was They Might Be Giants, and even they didn't really sound of the time period.

[quote]Not them.[/quote]

Then I'm lost. Tell me where to go. There's are, like, six guestbook archive pages and I don't know which one(s) to go to. I just read through the current guestbook.

"I love Lucy" was a big hit down in Peru around 1983-84 timeframe.

Then again, so was "Easy Lover" by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey[:0]