Listen: Naked Eye / Luscious Jackson
Naked

Luscious Jackson never did manage to spin their wheels beyond the college market for very long.

Oh yes, the good old college market as it was once known. You don’t hear that tag being sold much these days, which clearly coincides with college radio’s withered presence. The format was always an interesting free for all when it came to musical selection, but the consistent requirement to allow untrained students airtime meant ultimately, those amateur deliveries put most listeners off. Only the die hards could withstand the dead air and weak back sells in exchange for hearing something different.

‘Naked Eye’ became Luscious Jackson’s temporary out of jail free card, gaining enough play to reach #36 on BILLBOARD’s Top 100. Despite name producers and an old school record label, their homemade, amateur sound was never lost. In fact, as with ‘Naked Eye’, they didn’t really sounded like a group were playing together at all. Despite their attempts at rap coming closer to a suburban high school band than some street toughs from New York’s Lower East Side, their squeaky clean middle class take on Prince basically boiled down to reheated Waitresses, but it kinda worked, and I always found myself fond of their singles.

Listen: Christmas On Riverside Drive / Kid Creole & The Coconuts KidCreoleChristmasOnRiversideDrive.mp3

Listen: Christmas Wrapping / The Waitresses WaitressesChristmasWrapping.mp3

I couldn’t resist jumping on the Christmas bandwagon, even as I swore I wouldn’t. I guess I’ve been hearing The Waitresses’ ‘Christmas Wrapping’ so much lately. You’d have thought it was given it’s deserved airings when released in ’81, but that was not the case. Seems it’s just oozed into the mainstream, which is just fine. Flawless song and delivery, and some classic lyrics (“Let’s get this winter over with” comes to mind). Like everyone, I have some real holiday favorites: Wizzard, Brenda Lee, The Ramones, The Phil Spector album and Eartha Kitt’s ‘Santa Baby’, but the one nobody mentions is ‘Christmas On Riverside Drive’. Kid Creole & The Coconuts had a perfect two year run back around ’81/’82. The UK ate them up, several singles bobbing in and out of their Top 40, with side projects selling as well (Coati Mundi/Dr. Armando’s Second Avenue Rhumba Band). The whole living color filled tropical sand and palm trees allure was too much for England not to buy into. The live show back then must have been absolutely perfect for the moment. Their seasonal song is unfortunately way below the radar, but captures the greatness of NYC around the holiday to a T. Both singles are from the Ze release, A CHRISTMAS RECORD.