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On October 2, 1987 I partied
with the Fixx. It happened at a nightclub called Pulsations in Glen
Mills, Pennsylvania. At this point, you
need to know two things: 1. The Fixx was a “new wave” pop band that hit it big in the early 1980s with hit songs like “Red Skies,” “Deeper and Deeper,” and “Saved By Zero.” The Fixx was sort of the missing link between the Police and Duran Duran. Their vaguely philosophical lyrics (a couple of their other songs were called, “Are We Ourselves?” and “Less Cities, More Moving People”) were brainier than Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon singing about “Girls on Film,” but not quite as pointy-headed (or as catchy) as Sting wailing about Jungian psychology in the Police’s “Synchronicity.” By 1987, the Fixx’s biggest charting hit, “One Thing Leads to Another,” was already four years behind them. 2. Pulsations began life as a Longhorn Steakhouse. In the early ‘80s, it was reborn as a glitzy discotheque several years after disco had been declared dead. The night Pulsations opened, a spaceship suspended from the ceiling fell on a patron’s head, killing her (I wish I was joking about that, but unfortunately, it’s true). This tragedy seemed to foretell the future of the ill-fated Pulsations. It was reinvented a few years later as a new wave nightclub, not long after new wave bit the dust. Pulsations was always a few years behind the times. And
now, on with my story… I was the entertainment editor at
the Temple News when the postcard arrived at the office. “Pulsations
Cordially Invites You to Join The Fixx for a Post-Concert Party.” The concert and subsequent party was
scheduled for October 2, 1987. The
dress code, according to the postcard: “Dare To Be Different!” Now, as the entertainment editor, I
could have passed this little gem of an invitation on to anyone else on the
newspaper staff, but I decided this was an assignment I had to take on
myself. The invitation was for me and a
guest, and it seems to me now that I could have waved an invitation to party
with the Fixx in front of practically any woman in school and gotten an instant
“yes!” out of them. In fact, with an
opportunity to actually meet the Fixx, I probably could have gotten
lucky, or at least luckier than I had been up to that point in my life. As the Fixx themselves said, “One thing
leads to another…” Curiously, though, I journeyed to
Pulsations alone on October 2, 1987.
History does not record why I didn’t try to make a date out of it. The concert itself was fairly
nondescript, or as I said in my review, “The Fixx just aren’t much fun
live.” We ran a photo of the band with
the review. Being smart-allecky college
journalists, the caption we put under the photo read, “Party! At Pulsations! With
Rich Wilhelm! We’re there dude.” I
don’t think the caption was my idea, but even today I laugh when I look at
it. In a way, though, the concert itself didn’t
matter. The whole point of the evening
was to party with the Fixx after the show. Soon after the last note was played I flashed my special
invitation in front of what I’m sure was a burly security guard (actually, I
don’t remember) and found myself in a darkened private room, eating ham and
cheese sandwiches on very small rolls and hanging out with record industry
folks and fellow press people, all of us anxiously awaiting the arrival of the
guys in the band. It was just like a
new wave This Is Spinal Tap, except this time it was real. The room had fluorescent lighting
that highlighted the paintings of stained glass windows on the walls. These paintings looked just like the kind of
windows you’d see in church except that they featured cartoon characters like
Yosemite Sam and Pink Panther, rather than pictures of saints or scenes from
the life of Christ. A balcony off this exclusive room
provided a great view of the various lighting fixtures and the spaceship that
were suspended from the ceiling above the main dance floor. All the unfortunate partiers who weren’t allowed
to hang out with the Fixx were getting down and getting funky (in that uptight
1980s way, of course) to the sounds of a popular disc jockey who was
broadcasting his radio show live from the Pulsations dance floor. Of course, the very private and wonderful post-concert party I was attending didn’t kick into high gear until the band arrived. The guys in the Fixx didn’t actually look too much like rock stars. In fact, after the band members had dispersed throughout the room, the only two I recognized were vocalist Cy Curnin and guitarist Jamie West-Oram. It was all very exciting
though. Cameras flashed and public
relations people introduced themselves to the band members. “Hi. The name’s Joe. MCA Records. Right, we met in Chattanooga.” Meanwhile, I had run into a guy
named Peter, who was the managing editor of the newspaper on another one of
Temple’s campuses. Eventually, Pete and
I decided to try to ask Cy Curnin a few questions. As Pete began to interview Cy, who appeared to have a bit of a
cold, I heard a woman next to me say to her friend, “I will talk to him,
as soon as I get these two guys away from him.” By the way she said “guys,” I knew that if
she had still been in high school she would have substituted the word “fags.” The moment this groupie wannabe saw an opening, she
interrupted Pete and said, “Cy, have you seen the Tower Records here?” I didn’t really ponder this question at
the time, but with the wisdom that comes from 13 additional years of life, I
now think that was a completely lame opening line with which to get Cy’s
attention. In any event, Curnin spent
the rest of the night politely nodding to everything Ms. Groupie said, and
probably wishing he could just get back to his hotel room or tour bus and blow
his nose. Anyway, after being banished from
Cy, I wandered over to Jamie West-Oram.
Not knowing what else to say, I blurted out that I enjoyed his work on
Tina Turner’s Private Dancer and Break Every Rule albums. He just nodded and said, “Yeah, well, it
pays the milkman.” Then West-Oram
autographed my special invitation, as I stood there wondering whether I should
have mentioned how much I love the Fixx rather than his session work with Tina
Turner. Oh, well. There I go, offending another famous rock
guitarist. The party broke up soon after that,
but Jamie West-Oram’s words haunted me forever. OK, so they didn’t haunt me forever but I did think about
them for about a week. “Yeah, well, it
pays the milkman.” It made me realize
that rocking and rolling isn’t always as glamorous Bon Jovi made it out to
be. For guys like the Fixx,
rock’n’roll was just a job. It was a
good job, but sometimes it sucked as much as anyone else’s. And
here we are, 13 years later. Believe it or not, the Fixx still
exist. They still have a legion of
hardcore fans who call themselves fixxtures. The Fixx’s 1999 album, 1011 Woodland, is a collection of
acoustic versions of their past hits, but as recently as 1998, the band put out
an album of new material. A brand new
album is rumored to be on the way, which will hopefully help pay Jamie
West-Oram’s milkman, since Tina Turner claims to be retiring. I visited Pulsations one more time,
to review a concert by another new wave pop band, Human League (headline:
“Humans Pulsate at Suburban Nightclub.”)
Right before it closed forever in the mid-1990s, Pulsations’ owners were
trying to turn it into a “gentlemen’s club,” but the Glen Mills community
wouldn’t allow it. Eventually, the
place simply shut down and is now gone.
An assisted living facility is being built on the site of the legendary
Pulsations. And me? I’m just sitting here, daydreaming about the night I partied with
the Fixx.
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(Please feel free to email to others who may be interested or to print a hard copy for them but remember: The Dichotomy of the Dog is copyright2000 by Rich Wilhelm. If you plan on making a bazillion dollars from this piece of writing, please let me know so I can sue you or something.)