Out of curiosity, I decided to give them a listen today. I discovered that their only #1 hit, Pick Up the Pieces, has appeared in about a million places. I’ve included it here because I’m curious to see how many of you react as I did: “It’s that song!” Obviously I’ve found a hole in my music collection that needs filling with some white-boy funk (and, yes, they did record a version of Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music, White Boy) from Average White Band. They also have a pretty great version of Lime and the Coconut taht you can hear at Grooveshark.

For those of you who missed New Wave in the 80s (either because you weren’t born or you didn’t care for it at the time), this Spandau Ballet song serves as a good primer: horns, unusual lyrics/vocals, and danceability. And because it’s been days upon days since we had a video I thought I’d give you a live performance so that you can enjoy the 80s fashion that went with the song, as well. I kept the album version because the horns didn’t make it into concert. You must know by now what a sucker I am for horns.

By the way, I’ve finally started updating my pages with songs listed by title and by artist. I’m only up to the end of March, so far, but it takes me about an hour to add a month’s worth of songs to both pages. But if you’re looking for something particular (or if you’d like to browse) you can try there instead of the search bar in the sidebar.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Blondie lately and I can’t help but think how much Debbie Harry has in common with Kirsty MacColl, vocally. Now there’s a collaboration that would have been amazing. I’m picturing something between Rip Her to Shreds and England 2 Columbia 0 that would showcase both their voices and their respective senses of how women relate to the world.

But enough of this pie in the sky. Someday I’ll post War Child and whine about the trauma of growing up during the Cold War but this is Saturday. I had a tough time choosing between this—fun, frothy, and cheerful—and Rapture, the ill-advised rap attempt they tried toward the end of the band’s fruitful and frustrating run. Both entertain me but for very different reasons. Did anyone else hear the latter? You can’t get that much cheese into just any song, but I decided to spare you…for now.

That’s neither here nor there. The point is that the man himself is playing less than two miles from me right this moment and he has a new album out to share with audiences to boot. He’s included a fantastic take on the standard Ain’t Nobody’s Business and an unrecognizable but amazing instrumental version of Frankie and Johnny mixed with originals. Sunny Crownover provides the vocals on the former and several other tracks on the album. I only hope Robillard decides to play with his former band, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, who are also hanging around town for the weekend, and that they take a run through Do Me Right while they’re at it.