The Call's Michael Been, 1950-2010

[Slicing Up Eyeballs]

Terrible news out of Belgium tonight...

[b]<a href="http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2010/08/19/michael-been-dead-brmc-concert-pukkelpop/">The Call’s Michael Been, 1950-2010</a>[/b]

[Panorama]

So Sad, I loved The Call. I remember seeing them open up for Peter Gabriel on the Shock the Monkey tour, and I photographed Michael Been with Harry Dean Stanton back in Cleveland in 1988 for Alternative Press Magazine, nice guy.


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"Photography with a Vision"
http://www.cooganphoto.com

[ebbhead]

Very sad. RIP

[coop41]

ah man, loved the Call

[plagiarism]

I don't know much about The Call, other than their singles, but I liked them. RIP, Michael.

What strikes me is that the music business was tolerant of "old people" back in the NW era. Michael Been was 32 or 33 when "The Walls Came Down". (Debbie Harry was about the same age when Blondie hit it big in the US.)

[Panorama]

[quote][i]Originally posted by plagiarism[/i]
<br>I don't know much about The Call, other than their singles, but I liked them. RIP, Michael.

What strikes me is that the music business was tolerant of "old people" back in the NW era. Michael Been was 32 or 33 when "The Walls Came Down". (Debbie Harry was about the same age when Blondie hit it big in the US.)[/quote]
Ben Orr as well when The Cars first record came out he was 30. Now a lot of kids get a hit record while they are still teenagers.

<HR width="185" align="left">
"Photography with a Vision"
http://www.cooganphoto.com

[SomebodySomewhere]

[quote][i]Originally posted by plagiarism[/i]
What strikes me is that the music business was tolerant of "old people" back in the NW era. Michael Been was 32 or 33 when "The Walls Came Down". (Debbie Harry was about the same age when Blondie hit it big in the US.)[/quote]

They still are but only if you're country (the only genre where you're allowed to look like a real man) or adult contempo. You know, anything marketed towards middle-aged women. If you want to go pop, forget it. In the pop genre, 30 is like 90 in music industry years.

R.I.P., big guy.

[Surly]

Rick Springfield (yes, I know, I know, not new wave, but I'm just adding to the age discussion here) was also in his 30s during his hit streak in the '80s. So was David Sterry of Real Life. Gwen Stefani should consider herself to be very lucky to have a solo career in her late 30s as well!

The Call - I saw them on the '86 arena tour when they opened for Simple Minds. I waited outside The Coliseum in Cleveland (well, near Cleveland) to meet the bands after the show, because I was a teenager and SM are my favorite band. Michael and the others came out first. I introduced myself and told him that I worked in a record store and played his records there to help sell more copies. He shook my hand vigorously and said "Oh, thanks so much, man!" or something to that effect. I worked on the [i]Millennium Collection[/i] that Universal put out a number of years back to cash in on Al Gore using "Let The Day Begin" as a campaign song. I was disappointed that they didn't go with my final track listing which would have presented a pretty complete overview of their singles. Another person on the team decided to make it more of a personal mix tape, using a live version of "I Still Believe." Ugh. No point to that at all. At least I got to do the track annotations.

Of course I love "The Walls Came Down" (always a track that would lead to calls of "Oh man, I can't believe you're playing that!" when I used to DJ in NYC in the early 2000s) but I also really, really love "Scene Beyond Dreams." What a voice he had; a terrible, terrible loss, and they really deserved to be so much bigger than they were.

Many people don't realize that Peter Gabriel and Jim Kerr are singing backup on "Everywhere I Go."

"Words like conviction can turn into a sentence"

[SomebodySomewhere]

If No Doubt hadn't broken in when Gwen was in her mid-20s and then made their label a shitload of money, no A&R guy would ever give her a second look now. And that's even with her still looking like she's in her 20's (and acting like she's 12). Music industry ageism in CHR is ten times worse for women. You can sell the aging dude rocker, but the old chick -- ick, who wants that!

Hell, even back in the early '80s, people were shocked Toni Basil got a major label deal at the age she was, having had no previous success. (Although I always assumed the reason Chrysalis didn't really lift much of a finger for her second album is because she had just turned 40.)

[Dave]

Walls Came Down is one of the most perfect songs from the New Wave era. The lyrics work as well today as they did then...

Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down
They'd all been warned
And the walls came down
They just stood there laughing
They're not laughing anymore
The walls came down
Sanctuary fades
congregation splits
Nightly military raids
The congregation splits
It's a song of assassins
Ringin' in your ears
We got terrorist thinking
Playing on fears
Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down
They'd all been warned
But the walls came down
I don't think there are any Russians
And there ain't no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
playin' with tanks