For today, a tribute to one of the greatest eighties bands that you’ve probably never heard of: the northern pikes

I grew to love the Pikes with their melodramatic, teen angst, eighties new wave sound in my childhood. Serial killer dad (who posts comments under flyrodking) is a fishing fanatic, and when my brother nicky and i were little, we’d all three take long trips out to these remote rivers. We traveled to places so far out there you couldn’t get a radio station, so we listened to whatever tapes dad had. dad had some weird tapes. We listened to a lot of Radiohead’s Pablo Honey (this is before Radiohead got big), the first batman soundtrack, Eddie Brickell, and so many other indescriminate bands. Our favorite tape was Big Blue Sky from the Northern Pikes. The lyrics were sooo cheesy. For example in “teenland” the intro goes something like “give me a kiss, give me a kiss, i want to find out what i missed” and in “dancing in a danceclub” the singer, very seriously sings, “you go up, up. you go down, down. you go uh uh uh up, down, down, da da da down..” about his dance moves. Funny, but what is hilarious is the dramatic and serious tone in which the Pikes sing with the 80’s cheese guitars in the background.

For a long time, i shunned all 80’s music, (except the cure, because I am obsessed with Robert Smith.) Anyway, yes i hated on the 80’s and made fun of anyone who liked Pat Benataur or A -Ha, and then one day about a year ago, i started humming “teenland.” I got the Blue Sky CD, burned a copy for s.k. dad and have enjoyed a rejuvenated love since. And even when i learned they were Canadian, i still liked them. That’s true love.

Posted in VT, Family