12.31.08 HOLY CRAP WHAT AN ABORTION

The year was 1981.  America was swept up by a Ronald Reagan who still had most of his mental faculties.  New Wave was moving in on the Disco Era, white people had moved on from quaaludes to cocaine, and some enterprising producer sought to create a rightful heir to The Village People.  And so there came to be The All Sports Band.

The sheer ridiculousness of it was overwhelming. You had a baseball player, kick boxer (who apparently was a hockey player in concept, but was switched when they realized skates would be pretty hard to wear onstage), race car driver, football player, and boxer. Apparently after a long day of playing their respective sports, they wanted to rock out a little…

They never toured, and never released another album. In fact, interest in the album they did release was so low, that it hardly shipped to stores. Most copies that exist are promo editions that were sent to radio stations.

This is precisely the sort of thing for which “EPIC FAIL” was coined.  They didn’t just fail.  They failed spectacularly.  In the 1980s. That’s amazing to me.  I thought every horrible idea was just accepted blindly in the ’80s.  Shoulder pads in women’s jackets, Ewoks, trickle-down economics… and yet there was no room for the All Sports Band.  If any of these guys are still alive, they’re turning tricks for closeted drunks in a highway underpass.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

(thanks to Upstate Underdog, video after the jump)