Roach Days Revisited covers the time from September, 1985 to May, 1988. During that time Aric and I lived at The Roach Motel then Stately Roach Manor. It was an epic time of parties, women and Rock & Roll.
While we moved in on September 6th, It wasn’t until Halloween that the name Roach Motel became official. I sometimes wonder if I should have been in marketing. To promote our new house and spread our new address, we had a Name That House Contest.
To enter, the contestant had to write their contact information and suggestion for the name of our house on a post card and mail it to us at our new address. The prize was a fun filled weekend in the house that they named! I made business card sized fliers on the copy machine at Keltsch’s. They contained our address, the details of the contest and served as invitations to the Halloween party we were having. We spent the next couple of weeks handing them out to every hot girl we saw. That would become our party policy. Invite every hot girl you see, never invite any guys. Somehow guys always seemed to find out anyway but it made the Girl/Guy ratio much more attractive.
We got a bunch of suggestions but the winner was Ginger, one of the waitresses at Azar’s on Coliseum Blvd.. Our house became, The Roach Motel. We got fancy guest book for people to sign when they came to visit us. I wonder what ever became of that book.
Before we plunge ahead into Roach Days Revisited, let’s do a quick recap. My early musical influences were primarily my mother who provided the kind of Disney material that one would expect. As I got a little older, TV theme songs became intersting to me. My mother’s love for pop radio fuelled her to collect hundreds of 45 records from all kinds of artists but sticking rather closely to top 40 material. My tastes narrowed briefly as I focused in on KISS. Going to school in Vermont led to a wider appreciation for more artists and styles including folk, classical, disco, soundtracks and more. Still, I was hovering mostly around popular radio music. In high school I got my first stereo and the benefit of peer driven influences. Boom boxes and Walkmans were the new mobile music technology and I acquired a lot of music on factory cassettes. MTV was born and a whole new wave of MTV-Ready music acts appeared to take advantage of that space. I loved a wide variety of artists and styles that were equally varied yet not too far from the safety of radio. I returned to Indiana for college and began to gravite toward harder rock while still appreciating the pop music and signature 80’s style and MTV appeal. During theRise & Fall,I got a good dose of MTV and learned the relevance of heartbreak and loss songs. My tastes narrowed to heavy metal for a while but they were about to expand again.
The Clash – Rock The Casbah
Wham! – Careless Whisper
Simple Minds – Don’t You Forget About Me
Starship – We Built This City remember how radio stations all over inserted themselves into this song?
Glen Frey – The Heat Is On