ALBUM OF THE YEAR
By Tom Lanham
O
stensibly, this is an article about
British rock newcomer Sam Fender
and his brilliant, one-in-a-million
debut disc, Hypersonic Missiles - easily the
best album of the year. Nothing can touch
it; it’s so far ahead of the pack. But it’s also
a moment where we can’t help but break
with a few staid journalistic traditions and
tell this story the way it has to be told, first-
person singular and through the often-
gauzy filaments of time. And — believe it
or not — every last event detailed here
actually occurred. I just rarely talked about
it — much less bothered to write about it
— until now.
Growing up in Indianapolis (and before
I started covering music for my college
paper back in ’77) we had the coolest of
neighborhood record stores on the East
side of town, called Wonderwall, long
before the Gallagher brothers would bring
the Beatles-inspired name to even more
considerable prominence. And its owners,
Rex and Joyce Martin, not only had an
encyclopedic knowledge of music, they
knew how to keep getting their customers
excited about it, starting with a 40-slot new
release rack that greeted you just inside the
front door, with the latest on the top two
rows. And every inquiry had a smart,
informed answer. Both Guy Clark and
Gene Clark appeared on this display the
same week — why? Who were they, and
how different were their respective cata-
logs? The Martins — or one of their equal-
ly intelligent employees — would take the
time to explain it, and never condescend-
ingly. It was like rock and roll high school,
open to any truly inquisitive student.
It might seem deceptively adolescent
now, but Wonderwall’s biggest asset was
one solitary rack screwed into the rear
wall, with Posada-blocky letters proclaim-
ing ‘Killer Album of the Year!’ A reverse
date-by-date calendar counted down the
remaining days until said sacred artifact
was unveiled to the slavering public. Each
morning, there was a ceremonial removal
of yesterday’s date — Only FOUR DAYS
LEFT! It was simple but exciting.
Especially when you walked in and saw a
stack of the item in question, like, say,
KISS’ Destroyer occupying that gaping
hole. A "Killer Album of the Year" if ever
there was one. I first heard my own all-
time favorite album at Wonderwall —
Graham Parker and The Rumour’s stun-
ning Heat Treatment. The clerks there kept
playing it for me until I finally got it. This
was the world into which I tumbled as a
young music fan — serious listeners who
took other listeners just as seriously and
delighted in telling them about their own
"Killer" records. I mean, why wouldn’t I
start writing about this incredible art form
in 1977, the year punk broke? My first
interview assignment: Nazareth, followed
soon after by The Ramones, Saxon, Mink
DeVille. The list went on and just never
stopped. It’s been a giddy rollercoaster
ride, and I’m incredibly grateful. Maybe it
was a Midwest thing, but we never under-
stood why you had to give up on the heavy
metal you loved the day before once you
bought your Damned, Pistols, or
Boomtown Rats records. And that’s col-
ored my writing ever since.
And then, of course, there was Bruce
Springsteen, who I got hip to through con-
stant Born to Run speaker-blasting spins at
Wonderwall, and the press copy of
Darkness on the Edge of Town I received on
the Columbia mailing list at college in ’78.
Sam Fender has repeatedly sung the prais-
es of those two landmarks — his older
musician brother Liam introduced him to
them, and they changed his life. And,
when he and I finally talk — in a phoner
that goes on for nearly an hour — a casual
mention of AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson
sends him on a rhapsodic rundown of the
hell that band endured after the tragic
death of original frontman Bon Scott, and
how the survivors rallied to make Back in
Black, a Killer Album of the Year that no
one saw coming. This kid gets it, I thought,
that punk, folk, blues, and classic metal are
all equally important, equally capable of
22 illinoisentertainer.com november 2019
producing memorable music, and you can
never blithely dismiss an entire genre with
a knuckleheaded “Disco sucks!” Who
would you attack next? ABBA, for making
pop standards — pre-Max Martin — so
perfect that they glisten?
Cut to Thanksgiving week, 1988. I was
living in San Francisco and writing for the
Chronicle, and had just done a story on vet-
eran Springsteen alum Southside Johnny,
who was touring behind a comeback disc
on Cypress. Coincidentally, my girlfriend
at the time chose that week to tell me that
she was seeing another guy occasionally,
and he was also a Southside fan, so she’d
agreed to go with him to the show, the
Friday after Thanksgiving. I thought about
it for an hour, then called her back and
broke up with her — having endured a
creepy two-year relationship before that, I
knew what I wanted, and this wasn’t it. On
Thanksgiving day, alone in my apartment,
I spilled my Swanson Hungry Man turkey
dinner on the kitchen floor, and as I
watched the gravy pool into the floor
cracks, something clicked — or snapped —
inside, and I thought, Fuck it! I am GOING
to that Southside show tomorrow! I don’t
care how uncomfortable it might be! So I
went. Stag. Maybe 50 people there, total, it
being the holiday and all. And the tiny
crowd had gathered down in the front as
Johnny took the stage, while I stood at the
back of the club, nursing a beer. A few
songs in, something weird happened. My
ex — who was up front, too — turned
around and looked directly at me. Then
she chicken-winged the other guy, who
turned to stare at me, too. Soon pretty
much everybody was looking directly at
me, not Southside, who was craning his
neck to see what was going on.
Slowly, I became aware of two figures
standing behind me to my right, with no
one else around. I pivoted to look, and
almost dropped my beer. It was
Springsteen himself and his wife, Patti
Scialfa. With nobody to talk to but me.
Which afforded the great opportunity of
when we first met, on the Darkness tour’s
Indianapolis stop, when I dropped by
afternoon soundcheck to give him a copy
of my album review and just say hi. I met
his manager Jon Landau that day, most of
the E Street Band, and finally Bruce
appeared and — in a Mean Joe Green
moment, minus the sweaty jersey — he
said, “Hey, kid — I signed something for
ya” and gave me an autographed glossy.
Then he asked if I was coming to the gig
that night and I said no, I didn’t have any
tickets — I just wanted to say hello. He
motioned for his tour manager and told
him to add me to the list. Which he did,
giving me the pair of tickets Bruce always
reserved for his mom at every concert:
Second row, on the aisle, back when he had
middle aisles for him to wander out among
the audience. At last, I got to tell him that
I’d never seen a performance so passionate
in all my days and that I truly became a
serious rock journalist that transformative
night. I said, “You probably hear those
kinds of stories all the time,” but he shook
his head. “No. You’d be surprised — I real-
ly don’t.” He was in town to see his Bay
Area-based mother, and within minutes
he’d joined his old chum onstage for a
handful of duets, like “Hearts of Stone,”
which he’d personally written for him. But
the key thing I got to say to him that
evening? “Sir, you are why I do what I do.”
Happily, I said the same thing to Sam
Fender a couple of weeks ago, after they’d
canceled three or four interviews to dis-
cuss his American tour, which was sup-
posed to kick off in San Francisco.
Overseas demand for his time was grow-
ing day by day, as Hypersonic Missiles unex-
pectedly debuted at #1 on the UK charts.
By the time he finally made it to California,
he was too exhausted to play; His entire
cross-country jaunt had to be canceled,
save its final stop in New York City. Then,
and only then could he finally talk freely
and reschedule his pendulous list of inter-
view requests. And yes, the album is that
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