Release : Ball And Pivot - Heart In The Sky
Artist : Ball And Pivot
Album : Heart In The Sky
Genre : Synthpop
Source : CDDA
Label : Ball And Pivot
URL :
Date : 01-08-2008
Encoder : LAME 3.97 / -V2 --vbr-new
Quality : 176kbps 44100 kHz Joint Stereo
Tracks : 12
Time : 46:13 min
Size : 58.81 MB
1 Two O'clock Jump 3:45
2 Baby Doll 3:31
3 Downtown 4:04
4 Heart In The Sky 4:45
5 Shot Of Love 3:04
6 Christine 4:31
7 Jump My Train 3:35
8 Blue Angel 4:24
9 It's Love, Miss Veronica 3:42
10 Looey Salamander 3:52
11 Down 4:04
12 We Love The Dead 2:56
notes
The Boston rock band Ball and Pivot was formed in early 1984 by singer Bruce
Wilkinson (previously the bass player with the Atlantics), guitarist Tom Hauck,
and drummer Paul Caruso (both also formerly with the Atlantics). The groupÆs
first project was an independent six-song EP recorded at Syncro Sound and
released on Z-Club Records in the spring of 1984. The band was joined on the
record by Tim Long (keyboards) and Skip Smith (bass), who stayed with the group
when Ball and Pivot started playing live in clubs and colleges in the New
England area. The EP yielded the regional hit ôTwo OÆClock Jump.ö
The next year the group was restructured, and Gene Gilmartin replaced Paul
Caruso as the drummer and Paul Michael replaced Skip Smith on bass. The group
returned to Syncro Sound with producer William Garrett and recorded the 12ö
single ôDown.ö With support from ArubaÆs travel office, in the spring of 1985
Ball and Pivot went with director Luis Aira to Aruba and made a video of the
song. The single, extolling the virtues of an oral hook-up, was a huge regional
radio and dance club hit, and the controversial videoùavailable in both regular
and R-rated versionsùmade it briefly to MTV.
During live performances the group was often joined onstage by vocalist Hope
Moon, who was featured as the female partner during ôDown.ö In 1986, the group
traveled to Daytona Beach, Florida, to perform during Spring Break week. After
only three days of a week-long contract the group was escorted out of the hotel
by Daytona police and told not to come back, presumably due to Bruce and HopeÆs
outrageous stage performance.
During the next two years the band played to audiences in the New England area,
and performed with artists as diverse as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,
Nona Hendryx, and INXS. In 1987 the band scored again with the rocker ôNowhere
to Hide,ö released with a video by Jeff Hudson. Ball and Pivot was the
quintessential 80Æs techno rock-dance band, with success both onstage and in
urban dance clubs and radio.
In early 1988 Dave Roberts replaced Paul Newman on bass. The band continued to
perform until June, 1988, when they played their final show. Singer Bruce
Wilkinson passed away in October 2000.
"Heart in the Sky" features 12 tracks recorded in 1985-1987, including the smash
hits "Down," "Two O'Clock Jump," "Downtown," "Looey Salamander," and 8 more. All
have been digitally remastered, and many have never been previously released.
BOSTON GLOBE, May 25, 1985
Ball and Pivotà has worked out a deal in which they'll make a video for their
new single, "Down," in tropical Aruba next month. Seems the band heard the
island wanted to boost tourism, so after a quick call to the tourist board, the
band agreed to make their video there in exchange for a free hotel stay,
government assistance and a cut rate from American Airlines. "We wanted to show
what you can do if you just have enough nerve and imagination," says Ball and
Pivot's Tom Hauck. "We have a minimum of capital, but we're probably getting
$100,000 in production costs out of this." The band, which plays tonight at
Jumpin' Jack Flash, will also do an outdoor show in Aruba. >>>> Steve Morse
THE NOISE BOSTON REVIEW, January 30, 2008
These songs, many previously unreleased, are like opening a time capsule from
1987 to find all the conventions of the synth-pop genre intactùthe wheezy
keyboards, the repetitive song structures, the mysterioso vocals, the
percussion-heavy arrangements, the theatrical balladry. Yet, in their heyday,
Ball and Pivot filled venues such as the Paradise and Spit/Axis. The thing is,
while all the hipsters were grokking on Big Dipper and Dumptruck, the
cognoscenti were snobbishly missing out on the decidedly mainstream pleasures of
this equally fine band, Boston's answer to OMD (see, for instance, "Blue
Angel"). MTV-hit "Down" and horn sections, as on "Downtown," may not have
screamed indie cred, but they shouldn't have deterred rock's true believers from
being able to appreciate Ball and Pivot. Maybe some of their repertoire was
dance fodder, but that's not all it was; this offshoot of The Atlantics, led by
Tom Hauck and Bruce Wilkinson, featured carefully thought-out songs spilling
over with sophisticated arrangements (check out Paul Michael's bass build-up on
the climax of "It's Love, Miss Veronica"). And their love songs both said and
meant something, as on the surprisingly Spartan "Heart in the Sky" and the
achingly evincing lament "Christine."
>>>Francis DiMenno