I remember the day well, as if it were just yesterday, though it was, in fact, over 20 years ago.

I was listening to I-95, one of Fairfield County’s rock stations. The cool folks listened to The Lich, a DJ on another station further up the dial, who played much better music, but I couldn’t get it on my home radio. Thus, it was I-95 for me. This was probably the twilight of Classic Rock - when you could still here new rock songs mixed in with Freebird.

The DJ announced, “This next band is probably going to be the next Led Zeppelin…” I sat, transfixed, convinced of the truth of his statement even though I had never heard the song. I got ready to hit “record” on my cassette deck…

And he played Who’s Behind the Door? by Zebra.

“They are definitely the next Zeppelin,” I thought, “Maybe even the next - dare I even think it? - Rush.”

Thus began my love affair with obscure hard rock bands. I suspect that; if I wanted to, I could use Google to actual research some history about these bands. Some of them might even still exist, but I want to “keep it real” by only discussing what I remember without any regard for facts. Thus, my brief history here only addresses what I think I remember about these bands.

Zebra

I think they were from New Orleans, or possibly Long Island. They were a power trio that did sound a little bit like Led Zeppelin if you listened really hard and ignored things like the fact that the lead singer didn’t especially sound like Robert Plant in any way. I think Who’s Behind the Door was their only song to get a lot of airplay in my area and it is possible that I was the only one who liked it because I am easily influenced. In fact, I almost always believe the last thing I heard, which means that right now I firmly believe “fart.”

I owned their debut album, “Zebra,” on cassette but I’m not sure if I ever listened to it or not.

Anyhow, Who’s Behind the Door was some sort of symbolic thing about opening up the metaphorical door to your soul and taking a look at who you really are. Either that or it was about the tax collector coming. It was eclipsed as a “door song” by Who Can it Be Now by Men at Work, who sounded even less like Led Zeppelin than Zebra.

The Jon Butcher Axis

I think they were Canadian. The I-95 DJ claimed that Jon Butcher was the next Jimi Hendrix, presumably because both were black and played guitar. Any similarity between the two pretty much ended there.

Their hit was Life Takes a Life, which sounded more like late period Blue Oyster Cult. I mean Shooting Shark late period, not Burning for You late period, for those of you keeping track at home. It was sort of a plodding song that I think may have had “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” as its theme.

Jon Butcher is still alive and still producing music. To be fair, he was a pretty decent guitarist and may well still be a pretty decent guitarist. I think he was also nominated for a Grammy at one point. Of course, so was the group that sang Afternoon Delight.

Kix

Apparently, some years after I lost track of Kix, they had some bonafide hits. They turned into a hair metal band. I remember them, though, from their song Body Talk, which used a vocoder. You know - the thing that let Peter Frampton make those “wa - wa wa wa wa wa” sounds on “Frampton Comes Alive.”

Body Talk was on my iPod for a while because I thought it was an obscure New Wave classic - like by a band that wanted to be The Cars. I seem to recall that Kix was a little embarrassed about the song, which makes me love it more.

I have no idea what happened to them, but I suspect they aren’t doing the hair metal thing anymore.

DFX2

This was a California band headed by a pair of identical twins. They released one six-song album. Their song that got some I-95 play was called Emotion. I think they were trying to be some sort of Clash meets Bruce Springsteen thing with lyrics that were simpler than what Springsteen or Joe Strummer wrote when they were pre-schoolers.

DFX2 is significant to me because I had forgotten all about them and their song until about four years ago. Suddenly, I remembered there was a rock band with twins that had an obscure song. I couldn’t remember anything about the song or the band other than this. I drove my friends insane for weeks as they tried to guess band names and song titles. They thought I was just making it all up to drive them nuts. When I actually managed to remember the name DFX2, one of them was stunned to learn that he actually had it on a CD with a title like “Obscure Hits of the 80’s” or something. It was on my iPod for a while, too, until I realized that I was skipping over it every single time it popped up randomly.

Art in America

Art in America was known on I-95 for their hit single Art in America from their album “Art in America.” In all honesty, this is probably the only notable thing about them. We all were amused by the redundancy, but then Talk Talk put out the song Talk Talk from the album “Talk Talk,” and we all decided that was a more fun redundency and a better song.

I remember the song Art in America being something like an Alan Parsons’ Project number. The lyric went something like:

Art in America
Is different in my eyes
So welcome to new times
I know that you’re tired

I have no idea what that means. Furthermore, I remember sort of despising the song, which makes it all the more maddening that the lyrics, has stayed with me all these years. Heck, I can sing the chorus right now. I just did! And I still despise it. Excuse me while I go spit.

Dear Enemy

Dear Enemy sounds like a Goth band, but this was before Goth existed. Indeed, Ministry was playing Depeche Mode style songs back when Dear Enemy had their hit, Computer One. I’m not joking about Ministry. Listen to their album “With Sympathy” if you can find it. Ministry has tried to suppress it. It sounds only slight more threatening than Just Can’t Get Enough.

Computer One was sort of a Gary Newman number. He sang Cars. I have wanted to listen to Computer One again for years, but all of my sources of illegal downloading have failed me. Alas.

I don’t think they would have viewed themselves as hard rock, but I-95 did, and (as I’ve mentioned) I believed everything they told me.

Vandenberg

This band actually had a top 40 hit with Burning Heart. I think that they were promoted as something of an answer to Van Halen, but they really seemed like the Scorpions. They even had the cool German - or maybe Norwegian - accents.

If I remember correctly, the band was front by a man whose name started with the letter “A,” like Adrien or Allen or Aretha. His last name was, as you may have guessed, Vandenberg. He was supposed to be the next guitar god. I will point out that Randy Rhodes and Stevie Ray Vaughan, both actual up and coming guitar gods, both died in plane crashes. As near as I can tell, Aretha Vandenberg is still alive and may not even be able to afford plane fare anymore.

My point is not that he wasn’t a great guitarist, because he may well have been. My point is he lived past the point where his death would have tragically cemented his reputation as worthy of memory, while they both died which made everyone all nuts for their work. Friends of mine who previously thought Vaughan was a hack (for the record, he wasn’t) suddenly went ape shit for his work. Rhodes went from being this lame ass that would never be Tony Iommi to being the only cool thing about solo Ozzy Osbourne albums. Had Vandenberg died right after Burning Heart cracked the Top 40, he would maybe be legend right now.

And, no, joining Whitesnake after your own band fails does not make you a legend. Just for the record, Aretha.

Next: A Brief History of Obscure New Wave Acts or maybe another Wednesday One Hundred