Great Music Videos: 'Alive and Kicking,' Simple Minds

Thanks, Matthew, for getting this series going. Here's the second video I thought of after reading your introductory post.

I'm pretty sure that I saw this video debut on MTV in September 1985. Remember how they used to do that? They'd announce they'd be showing a video for the first time at whatever time, and then on would come Alan, or J.J., or Nina, or Mark, or Martha, at that time to introduce the video with appropriate fanfare. I'm pretty sure the first time I saw "Alive and Kicking" was during this treatment.

I wasn't much of a Simple Minds fan before this video, and I feel confident I'd never heard this song before seeing this video. But immediately the video just totally grabbed me. I thought it was the song that I liked so much, and so I went out and bought the album at Camelot in the Kentucky Oaks Mall at some point that autumn of our senior year at Heath. I listened to the record all the way through once or twice, but I quickly got to the point where I pretty much just dropped the needle on "Alive and Kicking" and yanked it back off after that song had played.

And then it wasn't long after that before I realized it was the video I loved. I liked the song, but I loved the video. "Alive and Kicking" would fall into Matthew's Category 2, "Videos That Are Really Made to Be a Visual that Goes Along With the Music." I was a 17-year-old boy ready to get out of my parents' house on Cairo Road in Paducah, Kentucky, and here came Jim Kerr with his exotic friends inviting me with a striking Scottish travelogue into kicking, free life with all of its dramatic waterfalls, piercing sunsets and giant drums. Indeed, within a year, I was on my (self-perceived) own in college in Bowling Green, making my own discoveries, such as the rocky embankments along the Barren and Green rivers north of town.

I learned this morning from super Wikipedia that the video was actually shot "near the town of Hunter, at North–South Lake in the Catskill Mountains of New York State." Which is fine. Simple Minds was from Scotland, and the place they found to make their video looked like what I imagined Scotland to look like. But, regardless of exactly where on God's green Earth that it was shot, the "Alive and Kicking" video is no bait and switch. It's a brilliantly executed brochure for the gift of Life, More Life, wherever we have to get ourselves to receive and embrace its wild abundance.

'Not One, Not Two, But Three Straight Class A State Titles for Pikeville'

Bravo, WYMT of Hazard, for this terrific report on the 1987, '88 and '89 Class A state-champion Pikeville Panthers football teams. 

Everything about this thing is fantastic. For example, we get some great footage of stadiums, like Pineville High's ("PINE is FINE") ...

Also, it's great seeing all of the helmets in the modern-day "Sports Overtime" studio ...

And, watching this report led me to reading about the great Wikipedia history of 1969-launched WKYH (for "KentuckY Hazard")/1985-renamed WYMT ("We're Your Mountain Television"). 

Hooray for Jay Crawford, Hillard Howard and his champion Panthers, the Pineville sign and press-box painters, the KHSAA championship organizers at U of L, the Wikipedia editors, Lauren Cash and the WYMT-studio helmet arrangers, Walter Camp and Philo Farnsworth and everyone else who in the last 46-plus years had some hand in bringing about this happy past 15 minutes this morning for me. Thank God for all of you.

Baseball Update (1985)

Maybe I'll try to write this in character as 17-year-old me in 1985 ... no, I'm not going to do that ... I don't think ... comments flow ...

Live Aid

It's 12 noon in London, 7 a.m. in Philadelphia, and this thing--made by the BBC about Live Aid, which happened 30 years ago today--is amazing.

Come And Knock On Vince Ferragamo's Door

I am more and more satisfied with the NFL Network, particularly its offseason programming. They just ran an ad for its 1985 Caught in the Draft episode, which is set to air tomorrow night, and right now they are showing the Jan. 20, 1980, CBS telecast of Super Bowl XIV. 

Comments flow!

Previous and future NFL79 reports:

-- NFL67 wrap (as posted Jan. 13, 2013)
-- NFL68 wrap (as posted Jan. 11, 2014)
-- NFL69 wrap (as posted Jan. 11, 2016)
-- NFL70 wrap (as posted Jan. 17, 2017)
-- NFL71 wrap (as posted Jan. 16, 2018)

-- NFL72 so far (as posted Jan. 17, 2019)
-- NFL78 so far (as posted Jan. 31, 2019)
-- NFL79 so far (as posted April 15, 2015)
-- NFL14 so far (as posted Jan. 28, 2019)

-- NFL15 so far (as posted Sept 13, 2015)
-- NFL16 so far (as posted Jan. 8, 2017)

March (1985) Madness

Great, great stuff from Paul Just at WKUSports.com: "Student photographer Todd Miller was in the right place at the right time to get one of the truly great photos in WKU athletic history. Mason was high, fully extended above the defense ... the ball was in the air ... the score (90-90) and the time (0:01) were clearly visible on the scoreboard above the center of the court ... and ... a split second later, ..."

The Big Chill + Bruce Springsteen = TV

Wikipedia is so great: "Hometown is an American dramedy series than ran on CBS from August 22 to October 15, 1985. The series was a direct adaptation of the smash hit 1983 movie The Big Chill, and centered on the same premise as the film: a group of friends all in their 30s, who had reunited after traveling separate paths following their college days in the 1960s. … The most internationally known member of the group was Christopher Springer (Andrew Rubin), the wealthy rock star who had a troubled personal life (modeled after Bruce Springsteen). Chris decided to come back to his old hometown to regain the support from his old friends and to repair his problems, while intermittently going back on the road with his band. ..."

Oh, Kentucky

Bon Appétit Appalachia!

Good jobs news from Henderson, London and Louisville.

Hiring in downtown Marion.

Ominous Christmas news from Shelbyville.

Starting bid is $1.99: "'The 'Broadway Mall' is the new look of Paducah. It presents a comfortable and relaxing atmosphere for downtown shoppers:"

The state police says traffic fatalities around the state were at their lowest since 1947 last year--and that they're projecting downward again for 2014.

TIME says Hopkins is the 631st most dangerous U.S. county in terms of safety from natural disaster.

CNN celebrates the entrepreneurship surge in Kentucky.

NPR investigates the pie-crust controversy at the state fair.

Estately assesses the commonwealth's love of Dallas, Dirty Dancing and Ronald Reagan.

MLB Playoffs: Day Seven

For the third year in a row, the Cardinals faced a winner-take-all Game Five in the National League Divisional Series -- and for the third year in a row, the Cardinals prevailed.  Adam Wainwright dominated the Pirates, and the Cardinals cruised to a 6-1 victory.  Pittsburgh had two chances to eliminate St. Louis, but the Bucs could not manage more than a single run in Game Four or Five.  So St. Louis moves on to play the Dodgers in the NLCS -- expect lots of Jack Clark references over the next few days.

So that just leaves Detroit and Oakland, who will settle their series tonight in Oakland:

National League Divisional Series:
Los Angeles beat Atlanta 3-1
St. Louis beat Pittsburgh 3-2

American League Divisional Series:
Boston beat Tampa Bay 3-1
Oakland and Detroit are tied 2-2

Tonight's game:
Detroit at Oakland (7:07 Central Time) (on TBS)

Good luck to Eric and the Swingin' A's.

CBS MLB Power Rankings

Last night, I watched the Nats pull out a thrilling 8-7 victory over the ChiSox, and then sat up until after midnight watching the A's/Angels tilt from Anaheim.  So far, it looks like it could be another exciting season for our two favorite teams at the Heath Post, and that analysis is supported by CBS's latest power rankings.  Here is the top 10:

1.  Atlanta (7-1)
2.  Cincinnati (5-3)
3.  Washington (5-2)
4.  Oakland (6-2)
5.  Texas (6-2)
6.  Detroit (4-3)
7.  St. Louis (4-4)
8.  San Francisco (5-3)
9.  Boston (5-2)
10.  L.A. Dodgers (4-3)

Oh, Kentucky

One and done: The boys' and girls' rounds of 268 (I think) start tonight. Most of Kentucky's 64 boys' and 64 girls' high-school basketball districts have four teams. The sixth, 10th, 59th and 60th districts have three teams each; there are 17 districts with five teams apiece, but at least one of them, the fourth, puts only four teams into its tournament. So, anyway, that math (probably flawed) comes out to 268 teams that begin today in the hunt for each of the one boys' and one girls' state basketball championship that the KHSAA awards. Hooray! In the honor of all those teams' having at least a glimmer of title hopes this morning, the Kentucky desk today performs a reading from Dave Kindred's essential Basketball, The Dream Game in Kentucky (5 stars, highly recommended), printed by Louisville's Fetter Printing Company in December 1975:

KINGDOM COME, February, 1968--Driving down KY 463, you pass through Delphia, which isn't much more than the "Delphia U-Wash Laundry" on the right. Over a hill and you're in Letcher County in the mountains of Southeastern Kentucky, 225 miles from Louisville. At a sign that says "Cumberland 5 miles, Hot Spot 15 miles," you turn left and go down a narrow road four miles--past Dollie's Place, which is a cafe with good hamburgers and a six-foot pool table--and you have found Kingdom Come High School. ...

Kindom Come doesn't have a good team. It has lost all 12 of its games and is last in The Courier-Journal's Litkenhous Ratings of the state's 350 high school teams. It has an 0.1 rating.

Coach Coots, who is called 'Coots' by everyone in school, says Kingdom Come has problems it likely will never overcome. Only 30 percent of the fathers in the valley have jobs, he said. Boys leave school to join the Army. They go to Cincinnati or Detroit to work.

"These kids have been losing for so long, they're used to it," Coots said. "They joke it up just as big if they lose as if they'd just won a game."

Maybe.

When Red Bird moved ahead 70-68 and was holding the ball until the final seconds ticked off on an electric alarm clock (the scoreboard had shorted out), a Kingdom Come senior guard Sharon Gentry shouted at a Red Bird fan: "Don't you sound off about winning, or I'll come down and scratch your eyes out."

And when Junior Halcomb left the floor, after missing two late free throws that would have tied the game, the tears in his eyes were not from joking it up.


In other sports news: Franklin-Simpson and Lone Oak's Kenny Perry ... LexCath's Natalie Novosel ... awesome, baby.

It's windfall day in western Kentucky: $7,000 profit shares for the Corvette makers in Bowling Green from GM, free surgeries for cataracts sufferers in Paducah from HPKo10*.

Van Halen--voted a "favorite music group" by Heath High School's seniors in both Pirata 1984 and Pirata 1985--played in Louisville this weekend. With all of the tumult and uncertainty that these last 27 years have brought, it's good to see that we can still count on David Lee Roth and the Van Halen brothers to make beautiful music together.

Tommy Womack's rocking anew, too.

Whitney Houston (1963 - 2012)

When I think of Whitney Houston I always think of her first big hit video "Saving All My Love For You."  In that video Houston seems like such a sweet innocent woman with a beautiful voice and that's the image that I have carried with me for almost 30 years of Houston no matter what news reports said of her life. 

Because Houston took such a dramatic fall from the top it is hard now to even remember what a huge star she was, but in my lifetime she would have to be right there with Michael Jackson and Madonna when talking about biggest pop stars.   She produced 11 number one singles over a ten year period and then she simply fell off the face of the Earth. 

It would appear that like so many she fell into a life of drug addiction and no matter who you are drug addiction can be a path to destruction.  Back in 2009 Houston tried to make a bit of a comeback, but it all went for not as it became apparent from her performances that she no longer had a voice.  At 45 she was done.  After that she seemed to simply disappear. 

Hard to imagine that at 48, less that 30 years since she first burst onto the scene Whitney Houston is dead and has been out of the public's eye for so long that for an entire generation she never existed. 

Even now I still think of Houston and her first number 1 hit.

Album Review: Lp1 by Joss Stone

If you think all it takes to make great music is great talent then I would point you to Joss Stone.  Stone has an incredible voice but does not know how to write for it and apparently can't find anyone that does know how to write for it or produce it.  For Lp1 she brought in Dave Stewart, of Eurythmics fame, but even he failed to get Stone to tone down her schtick.  The problem is Stone doesn't seem to know how to actually sing.  As good as her voice is there doesn't seem to be any real emotion to her singing or thought to her delivery.  It's like you're listening to an American Idol audition where it's all about trying to sell your voice. 

I use to think that Stone would learn to sing, that age would develop her talents, but she has been putting out records for eight years now.  I think we are way past the point where she should have figured this out and so I'm ready to write her off as a failed talent.  Like so many artists Stone needs a brilliant person to come along and help craft her abilities, but I can't imagine that will ever happen. 

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 1 out of 5 stars for Just OK.

Oh, Kentucky

"A football star at the University of Kentucky, (Lexington-native Frank) LeMaster exhibited his athleticism when he was asked, by coach Joe B. Hall, to play for the freshman basketball squad in 1970 and he wound up as a starting power forward, averaging eight points and nine rebounds per game."

Elizabethtown Sports Park has snagged its first big fish.

I've got to get on the telethon stick! I need to see if I can find my autographed picture of Willard Scott that I secured at the 1981 WPSD Telethon of Stars.

Speaking of me, I spent the summer of 1989 living at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

More me (and Middlesboro): “If you’re out there at 12:00 (a.m.) then you’re out there for no good” ... pretty much what my dad told me after, as an impressionable teen in the summer of 1985, I was lured out to a midnight showing of The Song Remains the Same by an older peer.

Best of the 80's: Tim by The Replacements

Sitting at number 64 on the Best of the 80's list is this 1985 release.  This was the major label debut for The Replacements. 

The mid 80's were a very important time in music.  The Replacements were heavily influenced by Big Star a band who lived in obscurity in the 1970's.  By the mid 1980's though a band like The Replacments, who were not being played on mainstream radio in places like Paducah, KY, were finding radio play on alternative stations, especially college stations all across the country.  That's how they could manage a major label deal along with bands like Husker Du.    

With major labels backing these alternative bands the music scene began to change.  It would push bands like The Replacements, R.E.M., and others into the mainstream and expand their influence to be much greater than any band of similar ilk could have done just a decade earlier. 

It's overly simplistic to say, but in many ways The Replacements are a remake of Big Star.  The biggest difference is an emotional edge to their sound that made The Replacements very popular with college students and still can tug at your heart 26 years later. 

The best example of this on Tim is "Left of the Dial," one of the best love songs of the 1980's.  It is such a youthful, angst riddled song, that lives perfectly in the world of 1985. 

I've never been a big Replacements fan, and to be honest I didn't even know they existed in 1985, but this is a solid album of alternative rock/pop.  This album would be perfect for a road trip back to a 25th school reunion.

Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 3 out of 5 stars for Pretty Good.

Ah, Footbah flashback

It had been a terrific and successful Homecoming Week 1985 at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky.

Tuesday, Oct. 9, had been Dress Up Day; "I thought that there were a lot of people who participated and those who did looked very nice," Missy Wynn told fellow senior Jane Simmons for the Heath Post. Hat Day came Wednesday; "there was a variety of hats ranging from baseball caps to Arabian sheik hats," Simmons reported. Thursday brought Color Day, and that brought out plenty of black-and-gold football jerseys. Friday closed the week on a casual note: Sweatsuit Day. The attire was appropriate, given that afternoon classes were called off so that Heath's 490 students could participate in a host of activities planned by the Student Council, including whipped-cream eating, bubble-gum blowing, football throwing, water-balloon tossing, donut eating, chug-a-lugging and sleeping-bag, three-legged and obstacle-course racing.

Now it was time to get down to the business of the evening. The Heath football team--struggling to replace a half-dozen two-way starters from an 8-3, playoff squad in 1984--was off to 1-4 start, and tonight's opponent was the first-place team in its sub-district, the Fulton County Pilots. (Even Heath's junior-varsity football team was 0-5!) Still, there was a surprisingly strong sense that the varsity Pirates would get things turned around, starting tonight. Two of 1-A Heath's losses had been to 2-A and 3-A powers (Mayfield and Hopkinsville, respectively); furthermore, Heath--a school that advanced to the state-championship game in just its fifth season of fielding a varsity team, had never posted a losing football season--and the Pirates had only four games left on their 1985 schedule.

Indeed, Heath got off to a very, very good start on this Friday night. Robbie Estes returns a Fulton County fumble on the opening kickoff for a touchdown. A missed extra point leaves the score 6-0, Pirates, just 45 seconds into the evening.

On the Pilots' opening play from scrimmage, Oscar Bishop throws 17 yards to his twin brother, Roy. On the next play, Oscar runs for 14. This looks like it's going to be a tough night, but then Fulton County starts showing a propensity for penalties and Heath's defense tightens. The teams trade scoreless possessions.

Late in the first quarter, Fulton County is on the eighth play of a possession. It's first down at the Heath 40. Oscar Bishop throws deep, and junior Jamie Jones (who would star on the 1986 state-championship team) intercepts! Three plays later, Jones scampers 50 yards for a score. Senior Michael Carter--touted early in his career, before multiple knee surgeries reduced his speed, to be the next great Pirate running back--runs for the two-point conversion, and the Pirates are ahead 16-0 with 1:43 to go in the first quarter.

The Pirates force the Pilots into a three-and-out and resume possession at their own 39, and here again comes Heath! It's Jones for four yards and Jones for seven. Troy McCann, the Pirates' unheralded senior quarterback, completes his only pass of the first half for 18 yards to junior Kevin Lanier, and Heath has first down at the Fulton County 25. On fourth-and-six, Rodney Bushong (the first-year head coach who had been promoted from assistant when Jack Haskins, the only coach in school history, left in the offseason for 3-A Calloway County) could call for a 38-yard field-goal try, but his kicker has already missed an extra point. He'll take his chances with his offense. Illegal procedure! Now it's a fourth-and-11, but, if Bushong wasn't going to try a field goal from 38, he's not going to kick for 43. McCann drops back and is sacked for a six-yard loss. Fulton County takes over possession.

Now the Bishop brothers are in full gallop. Oscar throws for 15; Roy runs for 25. Fulton County mounts a 14-play drive. But on a third-and-1 from the Heath 9, illegal procedure bites the Pilots, too! Oscar misses on the third-and-6 pass, and now Fulton County's coach shows even less confidence in his kicking game. On fourth-and-6 from the Heath 14, Oscar's pass flutters incomplete. Deep in his own territory, McCann runs a couple of keepers and runs the last seconds on the clock. Heath takes a 14-0 advantage into halftime! The Pilots have outgained the Pirates, 121 yards to 104, and produced seven first downs to Heath's three--but they also have recorded two turnovers to the Pirates' none.

At halftime, Teresa Dowell--escorted by a senior captain of the football team, defensive end Jim Boyd--is crowned queen. Dee Lynn Blackwell, Donna Elrod and Missy Leatherman complete the queen's court.

On the third quarter's first possession, on a third-and-16 from its own 29, Heath eschews the pass and elects instead to run Carter, who gains 11. Kevin Skinner unloads a 52-yard punt, and the coverage is good. This possession produces no points, but it does give the home team solid advantage in field position to open the second half, as Fulton County is stuck at its 10.

The Pilots pick up a first down but have to punt from their 25. Jones fields the 45-yard line drive and dashes 70 yards for the Heath score! A two-point run puts the Pirates up, 22-0, with 5:10 to go in the third quarter.

Maybe the cathartic score unfocused Heath a bit. There are penalties called on the Pirates both after the two-point conversion and on the ensuing kickoff. Plus, the Pilots start gaining yards in gashes: seven, 28, seven, seven. With 1:42 to play, Fulton County gets on the board with a two-yard run--but then fails on a two-point run. It's 22-6.

Carter is thrown for a four-yard loss in the waning seconds of the third quarter, but, on the play, Fulton County is flagged for dragging down the runner by his facemask. Carter barrels 10 yards on the next down, to give the Pirates' first down at the Pilots' 34, as the teams switch ends for the fourth quarter.

Three runs and a penalty on each side net negative-four yards for the offense, and Heath punts from its 38. The shank skitters out of bounds at the 30--a punt of eight yards.

There's a 15-yard Heath penalty in the ensuing Fulton County possession, but this is quickly becoming a story of the Bishop brothers: Roy runs for 13 yards; Oscar throws for 15, and Oscar runs for 14 and the score. At 8:08, it's 22-12 (after another failed two-point conversion).

Heath starts its next possession with a five-yard penalty. Two runs produce a yard. McCann remains a perfect one-for-one on his passing attempts, because he's sacked on his only dropback of this possession. On fourth-and-19 from the Heath 24, the punt goes out of bounds after 20 yards. And on Fulton County's first down from the Heath 44, Oscar Bishop runs for all 44 of it. This time, Roy Bishop is sent in to kick for the point after--and succeeds, 22-19 with 4:56 to play.

Here's the Heath possession from the 37: Jones runs for two, Carter for five, Carter for one and a 19-yard punt isn't returned.

Oscar Bishop--so sick that Carter had heard before the game that he would not play--was vomiting in the huddle between plays. And yet he finished the game with 221 offensive yards (116 on the ground and 105 through the air), following this final Fulton County drive:

-- First and 10, Fulton County 36, Oscar run, 12
-- First and 10, Fulton County 48, Heath penalty, 5
-- First and 5, Heath 47, R. Evans run, -5
-- Second and 10, Fulton County 48, Oscar passes incomplete
-- Third and 10, Fulton County 48, Oscar Bishop passes to H. Coffey, 6
-- Fourth and 4, Heath 46, Oscar run, 12
-- First and 10, Heath 34, Oscar run, 0
-- Second and 10, Heath 34, Roy run, 6
-- Third and 4, Heath 28, Evans run, 9

With 22 seconds remaining, Oscar throws 19 yards to Roy for the game-winning touchdown. Fulton County is called for consecutive five-yard penalties, and yet Roy stays on to kick. It's good: 26-22, Pilots.

Roy's kickoff goes only 29 yards, and Estes returns 10. Heath gets in two shots before time expires; both fall incomplete. Alas, it's an underclassman, Jamie Jordan, sent in to heave the last two attempts, so McCann finishes the loss with one passing attempt and one completion, for a gain of 18 yards.

I went straight home, so I wouldn't know. But Simmons wrote in the Heath Post, "After the game, the cheerleaders sponsored a dance, which was held in the cafeteria. The Pep Club arranged for pictures to be made in the library."

With the loss, my senior year appeared destined to be the first losing streak in
Heath's football history, which had begun in 1971. Alas, after the 1-5 start, the Pirates charged to three straight victories, and, between the second and third of those games, Coach Bushong found an opponent for a 10th game on the schedule: at Class 4A Madisonville.

Visiting Heath beat the Maroons, 14-0, to finish the 1985 season with a non-losing record of 5-5. The next autumn, the Pirates finished 13-1 and Kentucky Class A champions.

Pirata. Magee, Tracey; Matthew Vaughn, and Eric Woehler, editors (West Paducah, Ky.: Heath High School, 1986) 138.