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1975 - 1983 |
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Steve Allen spent the Wonder years along with
Ron Flynt in Tulsa (Oklahoma) - "Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour went to the
rival high school" - playing guitar and working in whatever clubs he could
lie his age into. "20/20 ? It was perfect, we're all 20!". Steve
Allen moved first
to Los Angeles to pursue a record contract, following the example of Tulsans
Diwght Twilley and Phil Seymour, who had just scored a hit in 1975 with "I'm
On Fire." By the time Steve Allen got a record deal with Bomp Records, Ron
Flynt had arrived in Los Angeles too and with the help of Phil Seymour, they
went to play on what became the "Giving It All / Under The Freeway"
single. Then, Steve and Ron met an ex-Buffalo
lad; Michael Gallo, 20/20's resident pop music expert. Once Michael told
them he had never played in a band before, though he played drums for 8
years, he was asked to audition for the drum slot. "He was amazing,"
excludes Ron, "but then again, he had been sitting up in his room 10 hours
day with headphones on drumming to Move, Small Faces, Easybeats, Beatles,
Who, Kinks...you name it, he's got it! Mike's freshness gave 20/20 this
buzzz like you've never felt. Mike was really the lightning rod in creating
and promoting 20/20. The band was officially christened 20/20.
And so the 20/20 lineup was solidified, "though
there was room for a lead guitarist to embellish our sound" explains Steve -
first Peter Case, who had just left the Nerves, auditioned but he formed a
band where he wanted to be the singer-songwriter,: The Plimsouls. Chris Silagyi was to become the lead guitarist. He joined the
band and two weeks later the band were guests in Phil Spector's sunken
living room and they appeared on the cover of the Sunday Calendar. With the
help of Gary Valentine, they played at Madame Wong's restaurant, a place
where they met Brian Wilson and Tom Petty. Tom Petty and Phil Seymour were
best friends, Phil having done backing vocals and arrangements on Tom
Petty's first two hits, "Breakdown" and "American Girl". At that time, they
recorded a massive 15-song demo withsome standouts songs as: "I Need Someone",
"Drive" (later released on the 1979 Bomp Compilation Waves Anthology Vol.1),
"Screaming" (available for the first time in 1996 on the Bomp compilation "The
Roots Of Powerpop" along "Drive" and "Under The Freeway"), "Out Of This
Time", "Cheri" and "Remember The Lightning" (a bit of an homage to/rip-off
of "American Girl", itself an homage to Bo Diddley. Aside from recording at
Warner Bros Studios backing up Phil Seymour on his solo demos, 20/20
remained unsigned. But not for long....
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Phil Seymour -
Ron Flynt - Steve Allen - Mike Gallo |
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Their reputation having grown up as a
formidable live act, 20/20 got a call from Clive Davis and they
signed with CBS. Earle Mankey, former Sparks'
musician and producer of many powerpop bands such as
The Elevators or
The
Quick, was the man. The first album, 20/20 was recorded and
mixed in three weeks, during the summer of '79 at Sound City in Van
Nuys. 20/20 came out in October '79, garnering radio play around the
country for the songs "Cheri" (a classic powerpop single released
all over the world) and "Yellow Pills" (which would became later the
name of the Jordan Oakes' powerpop fanzine, and
the title of 5 volumes of powerpop compilations. The success of
20/20 led to an appearance on American Bandstand, Dick Clark was
cool with the band. Life was good.
The second album, "Look Out!" was
recorded with Richie Podolor as producer (he also produced both Phil
Seymour albums) starting in the fall of '80 through the spring of
'81. Recording of the second album was as wild as it was long. The
record was initially going to be called "Nuclear Boy" but eventually
evolved into "Look Out!". The album again received critical acclaim
and regional airplay with "Nuclear Boy" and "Strange Side Of Love"
(a single coupled with 2 songs not available on the album and which
remain unreleased until now "People In Your Life" and "Child's Play". |
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In the late Seventies,
the term "Powerpop" was resurrected by Bomp magazine, and in a
manner similar to the spread of the term "No Depression," applied to
the music of bands who ignored progressive rock, stadium rock, disco,
and singer-songwriter styles that topped the charts. Badfinger, the
Raspberries, the Nazz, and the Dwight Twilley Band all got
retroactively termed "power pop." 20/20 was among the first "new"
bands to get the label. Worse still,
the whole of the L.A. pop scene had already become a single movement
to the media and Bomp powerpop tag became the favored way to describe
it. When the enormous backlash against the Knack hit "My Sharona", it
virtually ended the careers of many far superior L.A. bands, among
them 20/20 and the Plimsouls, who were undoubtedly the other two most
popular bands of the scene. 20/20's label could never translate radio
play and sold-out shows into national chart success, so when the label
wanted to do a third album, 20/20 declined, they might have better
luck elsewhere. A new deal with a major label fell through, leaving
the band without a label and still in debt from the initial advance,
so the band released their third album Sex-Trap in 1982 on
their own Mainway Records. Spurred by more critical acclaim, the album
was picked up by Enigma in 1983, two songs "Sex-Trap" and "Fast Car"
were remixed, one song dropped "Please Please (Listen To Me)" and one
song added, the fantastic "Jack's Got A Problem", but again, the band
had signed to the label "Enigma" that would later become successful
before the band had any hit records. Later, Sex-Trap would be reissued
(1999) in Japan with a bonus song "Best Of Your Life".
Discouraged and still
in debt, Allen went to work for Warner Bros. Records, and eventually
moved to Nashville. Flynt moved back to Tulsa, where he dropped out of
the music business for a couple of years. Bill Belknap was still
living in Tulsa where he co-owns a successful recording studio and
works as an engineer (he was behind the board for Stewart Copeland's
Grammy-winning soundtrack to Rumblefish). Flynt and Belknap did
session work together, and played in a weekend band, later doing the
soundtracks for two Saturday morning cartoon shows. In November of
1995, Flynt and his family relocated to Austin. Chris Silagyi became a
renowned producer and worked with Dave Alvin among others.
go to 20/20
second part 1995 - 2005 (source:
Bomp Magazine, Ron Flynt, Steve Allen, Chris Saligyi,
Austinchronicle.com) |
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THE 20/20 DISCOGRAPHY
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GIVING IT ALL - 1978
(single) |
CHERI - 1979 (single
France) |
CHERI - 1979 (single Italy) |
20/20 - 1979 |
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LOOK OUT! - 1981 |
STRANGE SIDE -
1981 (single) |
SEX-TRAP - 1982 |
SEX-TRAP - 1983 |
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SEX-TRAP - 1999 |
4 DAY TORNADO - 1995 |
INTERSTATE - 1998 |
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