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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Hold On

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #23: Pimp Who’s Talking

    igho45

    IAN GOMM  “Hold On” b/w “Another Year” (Stiff/Epic Records #50747, Fall 1979)

    September ’79.  School was back in session, and everyone but me had grown a foot taller.  I didn’t care.  I was the only kid in class with tickets to the Dire Straits concert, thee hottest bill in town.  I’d gladly sacrifice a foot of height to have Knopfler & Co. melt my face off from the 3rd row, hands down.  What’s that you say?  You don’t care what I was thinking or feeling or listening to back in junior high 30 years ago?  OK, well fuck you, then.  Just click this link & let the opening chords of today’s 45 RPM platter set you adrift on a sea of memory bliss.

    Play \”Hold On\” by Ian Gomm

    Warming up for the Sultans Of Swing that chilly Fall night 3 decades ago was Ian Gomm, the former Brinsley Schwarz bassist, Nick Lowe cohort, and co-writer of the everlasting power-pop classic “Cruel To Be Kind.”  Touring in support of his Summer Holiday LP (from which “Hold On” was pulled, punnily retitled Gomm With The Wind stateside), Gomm brought along an all-star pub-rock who’s-who to flesh out the material, including Andrew Bodnar on bass and Martin Belmont on guitar.  Twenty-four hour service, in-deed!

    A lush & lovely ballad celebrating out-with-the-old/in-with-the-new mentality (a market once cornered by the likes of Guy Lombardo), B-side “Another Year” would’ve sounded right at home at the tail-end of any of Squeeze’s post-East Side Story LPs, as would just about any tracks off the brilliant Summer Holiday.  “Hold On” climbed to #18 on the US singles charts, and still pops up on AM radio now & then, sounding brilliant as ever.  Still active, Gomm’s current whereabouts can easily be tracked via the ever-rhyming Ian Gomm Dot Comm.

    NEXT WEEK: The greatest garage-rock single of all time?

  • Friday Throwback – Hold On

    Did you know that Jamie Walters is now a firefighter? Nope, he doesn’t throw Donna off the stairs anymore. Actually, Jamie Walters says that being a woman abuser on Beverly Hills, 90210 was a bad move because still, to this day, he receives flack from Donna fans who can’t separate the fact from fiction. Though How Do You Talk To An Angel was the hit song, I still liked this one better.

    (True story. I come from a family of hair stylists and in my senior year of high school, I asked my Aunt Annette to cut my hair like Ray Pruit. For some reason, I liked his hairstyle.)

    • Are those microphones in his room?
    • That guy yelling at the girl in the room was like the Ray Pruitt of the video.
    • If Jamie was a real hero, he’d go save the girl instead of singing a song.
    • How can she hold on to you bruh if you’re singing in the other building?
    • Did the dude just cut his finger trying to open a can?
    • Don’t jump Valerie!

    I think Jamie Walters did actually release two albums which you can probably find in the 99 cent used bin at your local record store. If I saw that dude out on the streets I’d probably ask him why he threw Donna off the stairs.