Okay, here's a half-assed one, but in the interest of consistency, I feel compelled to post about it. For a start, I should point out that I don't have anything against fitness. Prior to subjecting the world to my offspring, I myself was even a member of a gym or two and even worked out on a regular basis. I'm not a big fan of gym culture, but I understand the respect the compulsion and the discipline of keeping fit (even though I'm not really doing that at the moment). I'm not knocking health clubs
That said, I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Equinox on Broadway at 19th Street is selling "vintage" Cheap Trick t-shirts (see mannequin above -- click to enlarge). I just don't see the connection. I mean, no -- it's not like I'm being protective and antsy (again) about some quasi-obscure band whose iconography is being shamelessly appropriated (like, say, Flipper or Void, etc. etc.). Cheap Trick were stadium-fillers -- for a short while -- after all (At Budokan anyone?), and their soppy 1988 ballad "The Flame" was nigh on inescapable and practically defined "mainstream" for its time. But for some reason, this still gets my dander up. It makes me want to march into Equinox and quiz the first person I see wearing one about the finer points of Cheap Trick's sprawling discography.
I know I know, it's just a silly waste of time... but t just bugs me.
Anyway, here's one of my favorite Cheap Trick tunes. This is the opening cut from the band's largely ignored 1980 album, All Shook Up. Word at the time was that the slow-building opening note was the same as the climactic final note of the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band (y'know, if you ignore that whole "inner groove" business). Anyway,... enjoy.
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