In Reply to: Re: I remember them as Martha and the Motels... posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on October 18, 2025 at 11:27:42
meaning the 70s and 80s.
As for The Naughty Sweeties, I saw them a few times, and they would probably be forgotten if my friends and I didn't constantly quote from the song you mentioned: "You took advantage! A great big advantage!" The phrase has become an inside joke for us...
By far my favorite band was The Beat Farmers. The greatest bar-band ever.
I liked the line-up from Slash Records, meaning X, Los Lobos, and The Blasters (another great bar-band). I saw those bands a lot.
I liked power-pop bands like the Plimsouls, the Rubber City Rebels, Great Buildings, Robyn Hitchcock, The Go-Gos, and Paul Collins's The Beat. I also saw The Knack a few times before they became popular, but I would have chosen any of the previous-named bands ahead of them.
I saw various iterations of Danny Elfman's bands, beginning with an early version of The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boing and later morphing into various versions of Oingo Boingo.
I went to some punk shows, too, including Black Flag, TSOL, Agent Orange, Social Distortion, Fear, the Circle Jerks, and others. SD was by far my favorite among that group.
I saw AC/DC on their first American tour, at a club called The Starlight. My ears are still ringing from that show, it was incredibly loud for such a venue.
I was lucky enough to catch The Ramones at a mid-sized club called The Irving in NYC. I even got backstage (there's a long story associated with that adventure, too long to recount here).
I was also incredibly lucky to catch Bad Brains at their breakout show at CBGBs, when HR finished the opening song by doing a backflip. The opening band that night was called Shrapnel...
So many memories! I've left out a ton of other bands...
BTW, I grew up in Pasadena, which had an active local music scene. I can't remember how many times I saw Red Ball Jet - a bunch of teenagers named David Lee Roth, Eddie and Alex Van Halen, and Mark Stone. Eddie's guitar virtuosity was not yet apparent, but David Lee Roth commanded the stage even back then.
I wouldn't even think about Martha and The Motels if you hadn't brought them up... btw, for some reason when I reminisce about Martha Davis, I also remember a band called Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, another band led by a woman (they sounded very different from the Motels)...
But Martha had a great voice, and every once in a while I might hear something in my head that sounds like "suddenly, last summer..."