Does anyone remember the band the A's?  I do.  I had to find some of their music on vinyl and record it to CD but as a rock band with a dance edge I think their music stands the test of time.

I think the year was 1981.  I was 15 years old. They had already released their first self titled album and now had some backing from their label Arista.  The album was named A Woman's Got the Power.  It had a skinny girl on the cover holding up an arm almost like making a muscle while holding a glass of milk.

I recall at age 15  I snuck behind the Stone Balloon bar on Main Street in Newark Delaware with a big boom box to record them live through the back door. About halfway through the show a bouncer came back and found me.  He stopped me from recording the gig.  He made me wait and then came back to tell me the band said it was OK for me to record them.  It was my personal copy of them playing live and that was good enough for me.  And this was a big deal to me.  I was 15, I had to ride my bike 7 miles to downtown Newark with this boombox on my handlebars.  I thought I was going to be arrested when this bouncer comes back and notices me sitting there listening...hanging every note.  When he came back with the OK, I was nothing short of shocked and stunned in relief. As a young boy just learning to know who I really liked in music, I was impressed at how cool they must have been to let me record them, even if it was through the stage door.   (I finally got to see the A's live November 21st 2007 - see photos in my A's ReUnion Concert Gallery)

I recall a lot of great new songs on the Woman's Got the Power album but my favorite was still After Last Night from their first album.  Also from the first album they had a fun and quirky tune called C.I.A. Another well done song with complete originality was Words.  In fact I think originality is what made the A's a great local band worthy of the big time. Their songs carried a hook while honestly working on instrumental sounds and riffs that you just didn't hear every day.

During a time when Punk was making a real name for itself the A's were profoundly dance influenced.  During this era the synth was not widely used. It was about to be, but not quite yet. And this is one reason the A's may not have made the cut with music fans.  The world was about to quickly race forward with punk and new wave.  The A's were like Boston in some ways, they clung to the old ways of music making.

I heard that the lead singer Richard Bush was big coke head and the band really never had aspirations of becoming a stadium type band. (NOTE:  I HAVE SINCE RECEIVED A POST BY BAND MEMBER RICK DIFONZO JUNE 30 2007 CORRECTING THIS BAD INFORMATION.  READ HIS FOLLOW-UP FOR THE REAL REASON THE BAND BROKE UP)  And if you are pretty much a clubber with girls on your mind, you better have some damn good songs to take you over the hump, because I'm sure they would love to have become music stars, they just didn't have the maturity to cut the shit when it came to partying. This just didn't compute to me.  How could a guy be so much more into drugs than achieving a worthwhile goal?  What was worse was how could he write heartfelt lyrics while putting his priority on drugs?  (AGAIN THIS PART OF MY ARTICLE STANDS CORRECTED: READ RICK DIFONZO'S COMMENT POST ON THIS ARTICLE).

How do you live?  How do you live with a broken heart?

How do you find the strength to go on? How do you live with a broken heart?

I remember that night behind the stage door at the Stone Balloon. I didn't know anything about anything, I was 15 years old.  I rode my bike 6 or 7 miles to Main street with my boom box clamped to my bike rack.  All I wanted to do was hear the A's.  What a great band I thought. I clung to the lyrics and I figured Richard Bush knew a lot about love.  Somewhere during the performance he pulled out a copy of the Album of A Woman's Got the Power and held it up.  I know this because I heard him say,

"This is it.  You gotta buy this one, because this is it." 

He was referring to their label dropping them if they didn't sell.  I thought, "How could a label drop them?  I hear channel 17 on TV playing their song A Woman's got the Power between innings during Philadelphia Philly's baseball broadcasts."

When a man's down to his bottom dollar...

A Woman's got the strength, A woman's got he po-wer...

None-the-less, their label did drop them. After that they resorted to releasing an EP.  Back in the day everyone was releasing EP's a.k.a. Extended Play's.  This was a vinyl record with usually 2 to 4 and sometimes 5 songs on it. It seemed like a real drag too when the A's didn't make it.  I was pulling for them when the other local band looking to make it big was the Hooters.  They had a local hit called Fightin on the Same Side.  I loved that song but somehow I was more an A's guy. Eventually the Hooters eclipsed the A's when most of my friends that worked in record stores felt the A's were a better stage presence.  I was too young to get in a performance so I relied on what I heard from friends working in record stores like it was gospel. The word was if you seen one Hooters gig, you've seen them all, but not the A's.  They always delivered a great evening.  For me, behind the stage door I just felt like they were a great band.  They never flubbed a cord or verse and that was fine by me. I wished I could get in.  I wished I could have met them.  But alas, they say never meet your heroes.   I was no geek, I was a music audiophile. And to this day I still think the A's music sounds great.  Not all great bands make it. 

If you are fan of the A's you can find their music still through web sites like GEMM. Just search the A's and you'll get a slew of vendors.

Here is what I got for a track list.

"A Woman's Got the Power" track listing:
(side 1)
1.) A Woman's Got the Power (Richard Bush - Rocco Notte) - 4:43
2.) Electricity (Richard Bush - Rocco Notte) - 3:40
3.) Heart of America (Richard Bush - Rocco Notte) - 4:10
4.) How Do You Live (Richard Bush - Rocco Notte) - 3:51
5.) When the Rebel Comes Home (Tom Jans) - 3:48

(side 2)
1.) Johnny Silent (Richard Bush - Rocco Notte) - 3:49
2.) Little Mistakes (Richard Bush - Rocco Notte) - 5:32
3.) Working Man (Richard Bush - Rocco Notte) - 2:45
4.) I Pretend She's You (Richard Bush - Rocco Notte) - 3:37
5.) Insomnia  (Richard Bush - Rocco Notte) - 4:44

After Painting by Numbers the band broke up and everyone stuck around Philly I believe.  Richard Bush and Rocco Notte seemed to be the crux of the band and briefly played together in The Candles.