Jerry Buckner Video & Audio Blog

After the disappointing late release of “E.T. I Love You” in 1982 we were not happy with Columbia Records. But we were still under contract so we needed to come up with another hit. Because they still looked at us as a novelty act we felt we needed to come up with another novelty hit. But we also wanted to come up with something that would help blend us into the main stream so we could extend our career. At the time the TV show “The A Team” was very hot primarily because of Mr. T so we wrote an up tempo song that featured snippets of some of his catch phrases ( “I pity the fool”, “I ain’t riding on no airplane” etc.). The night we went into the studio to cut the track we got into an argument with the engineer. Things got louder and louder and spilled out into the lobby and almost turned physical. Our manager at the time, Arnie Geller happened to be on the phone engaged in conversation with a record company. Arnie was a very class act. Nothing ever got him upset. He was always cool no matter what. Here are people screaming and threatening to kill each other and what did I overhear Arnie say, “Oh that, it’s just the boys recording a new song” and kept right on talking as if nothing was going on. After everybody cooled down we went back in the studio and cut the track and it really came out great. Unfortunately it wouldn’t really matter. We all flew to New York to play the new song for the CBS executives but they were not very impressed. The truth is they had made a bundle on Pac Man Fever and had written us off. I’ve heard people say that a hit will surface sooner or later but I disagree. Gary and I always felt this would have been a big record had it been released at that time. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

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I set this blog up over a year ago and promised to answer some questions and upload some music. I apologize for taking so long to do that but it has been a very busy year but hey better late than never.

First I would like to correct some information about us in Wikipedia.

In 1999 we did not actually reform the band. We went into the studio to re-record the Pac Man Fever album. Danny Jones and Mike Stewart played on the album. Danny was the drummer not Mike. Mike played bass, keyboards and guitar. The rest of the information on Wikipedia is pretty accurate.

While signed to CBS/Columbia Records we had 3 single releases. “Pac Man Fever”, “Do The Donkey Kong” and “E.T. I Love You.” Actually that’s incorrect. The label did issue a special release single with “Pac Man Fever” and “Do The Donkey Kong” on their Gold Hits Series in 1984. But while under contract we had 3 singles and “E.T. I Love You” was our last one. As it turned out it was a heart breaker for us. In 1982 Steven Spielberg’s movie “E.T I Love You” was a huge hit, After seeing it Gary and I wrote the song and stayed up all night recording it. Our manager Arnie Geller immediately flew to New York and played it for the label. Everyone there loved it and thought it would be a huge hit however because of the lyrics we needed Spielberg’s permission to release it. Arnie flew out and met with Spielberg’s people where the song was well received. Everything looked great until 3 days later when we learned Neil Diamond was releasing “Heartlight.” At that time Neil was still a big artist at Columbia and carried a lot of weight. Our record was shelved and not released until the fall of 1982. By then “Heartlight” was a hit and the excitement over the movie had died down. It was a bitter pill to swallow for a couple of reasons. We lost a big hit but mainly we felt it would have helped us move into more mainstream song releases. But, to borrow Tom Hanks line, there’s no crying in the record business. Anyway, for those who have never heard it, here is “E.T. I Love You”

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It’s been a while since my last post mainly because of my hectic lifestyle but I plan to do better for 2008 for those who may care.
One thing I’ve been doing is going through my record collection. I’ve been collecting records since I was a kid. I love old records mainly 45s. I have albums too but there is something magic about a 45. In the 50s and 60’s singles ruled. Prior to the “English Invasion” album releases were at a minimum. After an artist had a couple of hits, the record company would release an album and fill it up with hit cover songs. Or if the artist was big enough they could release a “best of’ album but that was mostly it for LP’s. Of course The Beatles changed all that. But a group trying to make it bacK then might not be able to afford to record an album but they could usually scrounge up enough to record a single. There were groups everywhere and they were all trying to make it big. Gary and I grew up in Akron, Ohio which did not have a professional studio so we recorded all our songs in Cleveland which had a couple of nice studios in those days. The main two were Audio Recording and Cleveland Recording. We liked Cleveland Recording. It was owned by  Ken Hammond. Kenny had the most current equipment and had enginnered several hits there including The Outsiders “Time Won’t Let Me” and The Lemon Pipers “Green Tambourine.”  Kenny was a very nice man who patiently worked with each group. We used to ask his opinion at every session and he was always considerate even on the worst of songs. For about $200 you could buy 3 hours studio time to record 2 songs, mix and edit them and be out the door. We never recorded any hits there but there are a couple records we did that are now collectibles. The next thing you had to do was come up with enough money to press records. After you did that the then came the fun part. Taking the records around to radio stations and convincing them to play it. In those days AM radio was king and they did not like to play local band’s records. They only played the national hits. The fact that they were a business trying to get good ratings to sell advertising meant nothin to us. We thought they should play our songs to help us make it. I can’t tell you how many radio stations we were thrown out of. But one in particular I’ll never forget because it came back to haunt us years later. There were 2 pop radio stations in the early 70’s in Akron who were battling each other for ratings. WHLO and WCUE. After being rejected numerous times by record companies we decided to try something really nuts to see if we could get any attention from the companies. We got the idea to do a novelty record called “Gotta Hear The Beat.” It consisted of Gary singing/screaming I gotta hear the beat over and over again. At the end of the record the men in white coats take him away. It was somewhere inbetween “They’re Coming To Take Me Away” and “Surfin’ Bird.” It was difinitely crazy but it was different and the kids that heard it loved it. A DJ friend of ours at WHLO said he would play it if WCUE played it so we went there and met with their music director. I won’t mention this guy’s name but he was an arrogant jerk who listened to about a minute of the song and turned it off. He said it wasn’t any good and picked up a record by CCR and said “now this is hit..” That’s all it took for Gary and he lit into the guy telling him he wouldn’t know a hit unless he read it in Billboard (Magazine). The guy became enraged that we challenged his musical knowledge  We all started yelling at each other and he screamed at us to get out and that he would never play our record on WCUE. As we were leaving he broke the record in half, which wasn’t an easy thing to do and threw it at us hitting the wall next to Gary’s head. Two interesting things happened as a result of that encounter. WCUE did in fact end up playing the record because of so many requests but would never admit doing so. The second happened years later when Pac Man Fever was a national hit. We got a call from our label (CBS Records) saying a music director in West Virginia refuses to play the song. He said he hates you guys. We asked his name and sure enough it was that same guy. He never forgot that day. So remember don’t mess with the music director if you’re trying to get some play unless of course he’s as big a jerk as this guy was. I have some other great music director stories I’ll share with you later. Have a good one! Jerry B