As a result, Cheap Trick was that rare breed of band who were embraced by both the critics who loved people like Elvis Costello (but wouldn't give AC/DC the time of day), as well as the seventies rock dawgs who pledged their allegiance to Ted Nugent and Kiss.
Like I said, Cheap Trick were the band everybody agreed on at a time when rock fans were otherwise more divided than the cliques you remember from high school.
At first, I'll admit that I dismissed them though. Their first album did nothing for me (I warmed up to it later), and at the time I knew them mainly as the band who seemed to be doing little more than pursuing a career as the permanent opening band for Kiss. Gene Simmons even had taken to wearing a shirt where the words "small dick" duplicated the Cheap Trick logo.
I initially wanted nothing to do with them.
What changed my mind however, at least in part, was a journalist named Ira Robbins, who wrote for a magazine called Trouser Press.
Robbins was a guy whose opinions I really respected, and he was always running power pop and new wave artists like Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and Dwight Twilley up the flagpole. He also was a very early champion of Cheap Trick, who he compared to the Beatles and the Raspberries in reviews where I first read the words "power pop" used to describe a band.
So when Cheap Trick's second album In Color was released, I decided I'd better start paying attention, and it turned out that he was absolutely right. With songs like "Downed," "Clock Strikes Ten," and "Come On, Come On," I became hooked.
By the time of Cheap Trick's third album Heaven Tonight, I crossed the line from casual to hardcore fan. With songs like "High Roller," "Surrender," and their cover of the Move's "California Man," Cheap Trick had for me become a band who could do no wrong.
Even though I've never been a Kiss fan, that line from Cheap Trick's song "Surrender" about "mom and dad rolling numbers, rock and rolling, got my Kiss records out" is for my money one of the best rock lyrics ever. It made perfect sense to me.
Not long after that, I got the chance to interview Rick Nielsen, and it remains an encounter forever etched in my memory. Cheap Trick were sandwiched between AC/DC and Ted Nugent on a triple bill show in Seattle, and I interviewed Nielsen prior to an in-store album signing the band were doing at the old Peaches record store. Later that day, when I showed up at the in-store with some friends, Nielsen announced me to the room as the guy who uses too many big words. I don't think I've ever been so simultaneously flattered and embarrassed since.
Article comments
1 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Must've been Heaven Tonight when Rick Nielsen and crew took a power pop shine to you. (I had similar but more bumbling brushes with greatness with Elvis Costello and Tom Waits, but still...) Nice write-up, and thanks for evoking Trouser Press and the Move, too.
2 - Fasted7
Great post, thanks!
I warmed up to them about the same way you did.
Great to see the promo video- I ordered mine from www.deepdiscount.com for only about $27. I get nothing for endorsing them but they do a good job- and very low cost.
3 - Brad Laidman
Good Stuff - Trouser Press Record Guide rules
Great Band even if Rick was sort of a jerk to me at his pizza joint in Chicago
Long live Bun E
4 - Pico
Great read, your personal recollections made the story all the more interesting. I was never more than a casual fan myself, but there was no question this band was on a serious roll for a while and it is amazing that they didn't get much bigger than they were.
5 - Mark Saleski
great stuff glen. dang, i'm gonna have to get this i think. Budokan and the first three records are just great stuff.
6 - JC Mosquito
The first record is the best of the best, tho'.