Every now and then I go down the audio wormhole and find myself binge watching old music videos (that I never saw in real time on MTV since my parents didn’t get cable until I moved out of the house in my mid-twenties).

The journey often starts by hearing a long forgotten tune on my favorite public radio station – Fordham University’s WFUV. By the way, I’m super happy that ‘FUV expanded its playlist a few years back to go beyond its former baby boomer nostalgic staples. I love that I now hear stuff from my heyday, while also getting introduced to a wide variety of new artists. If you’ve never checked them out, you should! I’m lucky enough to have them play through my oldschool car radio at 90.7, but you can stream them here.

Yesterday I was chillaxing to one of their noon “mix-tapes” on Spotify when the opening harmonica of Flesh for Lulu instantly brought me back almost 30 years.

It’s amazing how that happens. One minute I’m eating oatmeal in my Connecticut kitchen listening to a virtual mixtape on my laptop, and then – BAM! – I’m back in Silvers 148 standing at my dual cassette deck making an actual mixtape for an upcoming party.

I’m pretty sure that I first heard all of these songs on WDHA “The Rock of New Jersey” back when it was playing a mix of hard rock and more alternative stuff. Not sure they all translated into hits everywhere, but I know that these artists made it onto some of my late 80’s mixtapes.

Enjoy the blast from the past.

Wasn’t that fun? I can’t tell you how many times I played this song over the past several days. My teenage daughter can attest to this; I even made her watch it so she could fully embrace some 80’s.

It really made me happy.

Although I’m sad to say that while tracking this video down I learned that lead singer Nick Marsh recently passed away after a fight with cancer. But his music lives on for many of us!

Back in the day, this song just grabbed me and took me somewhere else. I’m not quite sure exactly where it took me, but I do know that it did motivate me to wander down to Cheap Thrills to pick up a copy of the cassette.

And I didn’t even wait to make sure I liked three songs before purchasing it. Very few bands passed that threshold. I think the previous one was Crowded House with their debut album back in the spring of ’86.

There was a better quality version of this on Vimeo, but I liked the effect of it having been taped from MTV’s 120 Minutes show.

I couldn’t resist including this one, because I like it even better than their first single – and when else in 2016 are you going to hear back-to-back songs by Dreams So Real? Their sound still sounds fresh to me and I could totally picture them rocking out at a millennial music festival somewhere.

I don’t think I realized at the time that these guys emerged from the same Athens, Georgia music scene of REM and B52’s. Unfortunately they were just a smidge ahead of their time. In just a couple of years, bands like Gin Blossoms and Better Than Ezra would be all over main stream radio with a similar sound.

Not everyone can wait for fame and fortune and these guys ultimately all moved on to non-musical careers. Although there have been a few reunion shows here and there…

I think this guy also caused me to break my “like three songs before purchasing” rule. There are so many Peter Himmelman songs that I love, but I chose this one because it had the more quintessential late 80’s music video. Band. Barn. Birds. Big Hair.

If you like this, you can check out more of his stuff here. He’s a really busy, but somewhat elusive guy about to embark on a tour to promote his newest venture – a book about unlocking your creativity. I think I might need to check that out; I’m always searching for ways to let me creativity out. Catholic school tends to lock it in there real tight.

Peter Himmelman might not be a household name, but his father-in-law is. You might have heard of him. Bob Dylan.

This concludes today’s trip down the musical memory lane.

OMG, they just played this:

“Rush” by Big Audio Dynamite II was my absolute favorite song from 1991! Wow, brings back memories of being a young newlywed living and working in Waltham, Massachusetts while listening to the now defunct WFNX in Boston.

But that’s a post for another day…

Catch ya later.