A little riff-rock to get the evening started: Hot Spot: More to Life Than Sex? Van Halen-inspired lunacy from 1987 Last updated 08/11

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I just couldn't resist starting the Party with this. It's my only song about sex from start to finish, and it's got that 20-years-behind-the-world trailer-park metal-meathead feel to it. The audio quality isn't the best (it sounds like something from a '60s psychedelic era one-hit wonder) but the lyric is clever, it's hooky as hell, and it rocks...it's spotty in places but there are some great moments on this recording. I always felt that it was worth doing to a higher standard, but I never got the backing or support to make that happen. And I think it's timeless enough that it could still chart with a bit of updating to the lyric. Can't you just hear Jet doing this?

Download 128kbps full-length (3:38) mp3 3.3MB

	Credits:	Words, music, arrangement & production by Cub Lea, 11/87
	Players:	Cub Lea (all instruments)
	Drums:	Roland TR-505 digital rhythm composer
	Notes:	Recorded and mixed on a Tascam PortaStudio 0.5 4-track cassette recorder 12/87 in a Toronto, Canada rooming house

Concept

It was 1987. Aerosmith had just come out of detox, Bob Clearmountain was tearing up the charts as part of a one-two "Maple Leaf Sound" production punch with Daniel Lanois. Bob Rock was raking in zillions writing songs with everyone from Bryan Adams to Jon Bon Jovi. (I still have trouble with that; I grew up in the days when his brother, Tony Bongiovi, was working at The Record Plant in New York and co-producing or mastering some of the best rock and roll records of the early 1970s.)

And of course, I wanted some of that money!

Seriously, I loved Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation to death, but I knew if I had a chance I could do every bit as well. I'm also a huge fan of pre-1984 Van Halen. Roth was a goof, no doubt about it, but what a great voice and attitude for hard rock, and some of the song structures they put together were among the most inventive since the heyday of Chess Records. Did you guess the rhythm on which this song is based? Fifty bonus points if you guessed Bottoms Up. I fuckin' loved the opening on this song, but the chord structure that followed it really disappointed me. This is twice the song Bottoms Up ever was...but let's be fair: Eddie and Daz-ed Lee were good enough that their songwriting didn't need to be great (although it hit a phenomenal peak with Diver Down, Fair Warning and half of 1984). And I'm not half the guitarist Valerie Bertinelli was. (According to Eddie, her fingerwork could be amazing.)

I could never match Roth's tone or Eddie's playing...hell, I'm probably not as good as Valerie Bertinelli. But I knew how to build rock songs. And this, I felt, was the proof: a tongue-in-cheek four-minute rock anthem with a buttload of gimmicky changes and an ass-kicking feel from start to finish. It's not my best vocal performance; my voice improved a lot in the year after this was recorded, but there were some really nice moments on this vocal. The playing is sparse, and nowhere close to what I'd like to hear, but the soul of the song is there. It really was a very good song for novelty hard-rock.

Execution

But it needed a lot more production than I could throw at it to really pull it off, and when I had money to record better demos, this song was always third or fourth on the list behind newer stuff that I thought was more sellable.

The other real regret I have with this song is that I never got to play it live. This should have been a killer club tune, with plenty of opportunity to work the audience between verses and during the break.

More to Life Than Sex

Head turn, double take, lady in the corner
Eyes roll, heart quake, blood's a-gettin warmer
Stud walk, small talk, heavy duty flirtin'
Let's play; no way; ego's a-hurtin'

Spoken:
You wanna blow this joint?
Aw, my Corvette's in the shop!
You've got amazing thighs...I mean eyes!
What do you mean you gotta work in the morning?

Oh, oh, oh, oh, here it comes
The lines are working
I never saw that ring
But it really doesn't matter 'cause the wife would kill me

I know you don't believe I'm gonna love you forever
An hour into heaven and I'm already bored
Well an hour or two of exercise is better than nothing
They tell me that there's got to be more to life than

Sex with a stranger at the Mexican border
Singles bars and luxury cars
Takin' tetracycline on the doctor's orders
Football pads and electric guitars
Candy pants; K-Y jelly
Vitamin E and nights at Chippendale's
German wine; triple-X ratings
Bump and grind, (spoken) and Donahue and Oprah?

Spoken:
Male, 35
Seeks intelligent counterpart
For friendship and fun
Photo, phone and note to Box 415

Here she comes
Getting closer
I can't look over
Cause every girl loves what don't come easy

Tell 'em you're a virgin and you'll see who your friends are
Tell 'em that you're celibate and see who's impressed
Hold out for love and people think you're a loser
They don't believe there's anything more to life than sex

Spoken:
Oh my God!
Not a single reply
What a waste of fifty bucks
But it really doesn't matter there's a whole wide world of

Media to cater to your every persuasion
Man's the only animal that's always in heat
Well they tell me it's a symptom of our civilization
Still believe there's got to be more to man than meat.

Spoken:
Hey, where did everybody go?

Announcer:
Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the most important people of our generation:
Johnny "Wadd" Holmes!
Carol Doda!
Dr. David Reuben!
Paul Newman!
And his lovely wife, Ruth Westheimer!

Copyright ©1988 Living Skill Music