Digging In The Magazine Box: The Cure

An ad for a 1984 Cure show in Seattle.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: UB40

Unemployed? No problem, go check out the UB40 show. Because you know, a "UB40" in England means... eh, you know the deal. An ad for a UB40 show in Seattle, circa 1984.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: Ted Nugent

Say what you want, but The Nuge is The Nuge, and will be that way until death. Here he is, an ad for a show where I'm sure he played like there was no tomorrow. Nothing mellow here.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: The Hooters mini-LP review

I wasn't a diehard fan of these guys, so I'm not sure why I saved this record review from Record magazine. I liked a few songs by The Hooters but other than that, that's it. It's a review of a record they did before they moved on to a major.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: Green Monkey Records

There was a time when C/Z, eMpTy, and Sub Pop did not exist. One of the great labels of Seattle in the early to mid-80's was Green Monkey, a place where you could order a catalog and spend money on some good music. Here's a blurb from The Rocket about a 4-hour radio show organized by the label's Tom Dyer and some young kid named Jonathan Poneman.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: Quiet Riot

First off, Happy Kamehameha Day to my fellow kama'aina.

Yes friends, there was a time when Quiet Riot could fill up a place like the Seattle Center Coliseum. In truth, they were one of the biggest bands in heavy metal once upon a time, and like many bands who were at the time, they've received a bit of bad rep for simply working.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: Eurythmics

Circa 1985.

Digging In The Magazine Box: Siouxsie & The Banshees

Siouxsie Sioux hits Seattle, circa 1985

Digging In The Magazine Box: Frank Zappa

It's hard to believe this man was once of this Earth. Maybe he's jamming with Sun Ra and laughing at the continued stupidity of his former planet.

A few songs from this performance were used on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 3.

Digging In The Magazine Box: Echo & The Bunnymen

Spare us the cutter, dude. This is an ad for a Seattle appearance from Echo & The Bunnymen, with The Church opening, circa 1985.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: Herbie Hancock Album Ad (1984)

Sound System was the album Herbie Hancock made after his highly successful Future Shock LP. This is his "how ya like me now?" look.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: Run-DMC

An article from Record magazine:



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Digging In The Magazine Box: Dio/Whitesnake

Dio. Whitesnake. In terms of hard rock and heavy metal, you couldn't get any better than this. Yeah. Circa 1984.

Digging In The Magazine Box: Seattle Headbanger's Ball!!!

YES!!! Being a fan of hard rock and METAL, this was the kind of show I always wanted to go!!! TKO were the pride of Seattle's metal scene, which is why they got the top bill!!! Little did they know that the band below them, Metal Church, would move on to becoming much more than just local "demo tape legends"!!! I didn't attend this, but I did get a chance to see Metal Church when they opened up for Anthrax at the Tacoma Dome!!! Not the main Tacoma Dome floor, but one of those siderooms, where I was able to witness the metal strength of one Jeff Gilbert, who was talking with some friends!!! Not sure of what happened to Shadow, though!!!

Taken from The Rocket!!!



(Click thumbnail to see ad in full!!!)

Digging In The Magazine Box: Steve Lawson Productions

Ads like this sold me to what it could have been like to not only be an artist with all of the great machinery and buttons, but perhaps to become a producer or recording engineer. This, among other things, brought this fat boy joy. $50 an hour for top-notch studio time? When home recording was a distant dream and reality, this was the way to go.

Seattle residents will now know this recording studio as Bad Animals.

Digging In The Magazine Box: Otari MTR multi-track tape machine

There was a time when recording innovation meant not doing a Google and Rapidshare search for plug-ins and w@rez. Even though 4-track home recording was available in the mid-80's, going into a professional recording studio was something most musicians wanted to do. Those who could afford it bought a machine like this for their home/basement studio. Most recording in the 21st century is done in digital, but some say that analog recording still offers the best results. It's safe to say that you will not see ads like this one in magazines anymore, but analog junkies look at machines like this with pride. Taken from The Rocket.

Digging In The Magazine Box: Seattle Helps The Hungry

There was a time in our history when efforts like this weren't considered corny or an opportunity to boost someone's failing career. This is a brief article showing the making of "Give Just A Little", Seattle's answer to the Band Aid/USA For Africa relief effort. Most of you will no doubt remember the songs "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "We Are The World", but what some may not know (or remember) was that it moved many local and regional music scenes to create their own benefit record to help raise money for food relief in Ethiopia and other African countries. The We Are The World compilation album on Columbia featured Canada's contribution, and there was also Hawai'i For Africa's "The Way Of Love".

When I bought my copy of the Seattle Helps The Hungry 45 at the U-District Tower in Seattle, I clearly remember a number of other benefit 45's, including one from Los Angeles featuring a number of Mexican singers and entertainers, and I want to say that Cheech Marin was on it. I don't have an MP3 of the song with me, but the song was very much in the vein of "We Are The World" in that each singer contributed a line or two and it lead to a chorus by everyone in the group. In this case, there were two versions because of the amount of singers who wanted to help out.

The record also represents what the Seattle music scene was circa 1985, and yet this doesn't even begin to truly represent the diversity Seattle's scene had to offer. Had this record been released five years later, the lineup would have been very different. No Kurdt Vanderhoof here, but you did have Uncle Bansai, Jr. Cadillac, Mondo Vita, and (yes) Rail, all of whom were staples of Seattle's live scene in the early to mid-80's. Even Cindi Reinhart was on the record.

The following scan is taken from The Rocket.




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Digging In The Magazine Box: Paul Hardcastle cassingle

There was a time in our history when people used to complain about formats. Vinyl vs. compact disc, 8-tracks vs. reel-to-reel, mini-disc... eh, I don't think too many people debated the merits of an MD (I may be wrong).

There was a time in our history, not so long ago, when record companies wanted to let people know about the great format known as the cassingle. For you new kids, the word "cassingle" is a combination of the words "cassette" and "single", so you would have the contents of a single (for you new kids, that was a 7 inch 45 rpm record, generally with a large center hole that you played on a phonograph/record player/turntable) on a tape. To be honest, before the official format surfaced, I actually made drawings and discographies of songs I would not mind seeing on a new format I created called the "cassingle". At the age of 10 I had no concept of trademarks or patents, otherwise I might have scored big time. When the "cassingle" did surface, I constantly said to myself "I made that".

Some of the first cassingles I saw were titles on IRS Record and one by Devo. But here, in a clipping from Billboard magazine, Chrysalis Records were ready to spread awareness of this new "cassingle" with a song by Paul Hardcastle.

Yes, I did buy this cassingle, and I think I still have it somewhere.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: Vitamix-1984 (cassette review)

Awhile back I transcribed an article about hip-hop from the Pacific Northwest circa 1985, featuring Sir Mix-A-Lot and Vitamix. The former would gain attention outside of the area, while Vitamix's glory remained more low-key.

When I moved from Hawai'i in 1984, Vitamix was one of the first names I became familiar with as a representative of rap music in this new place I called home. One could keep track of his tapes and shows by reading The Rocket but unfortunately I never got a chance to hear any of his work.

This is a review that I've kept all of these years, from The Rocket circa 1984 for his 1984 release.



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Digging In The Magazine Box: RCA Victor 45's

This clipping was taken from the Steve Hoffman boards. Apparently all this time I've been going to thrift stores and seeing certain RCA/Victor 45's on colored vinyl, there was a reason for it. It wasn't so much a mystery as it was something unknown, at least to me.