The Motels Martha Davis Is Taking New Album Release to Another Level For Live Performances

July 28, 2011 - PRLog -- The Motels will have a previously unreleased 30 year old album available on August 9th through Ominvore Recordings.  The album is titled, Apocalypso, and will be available via download, CD, and a limited edition orange vinyl version.  Fans can pre-order the album on Amazon.com.

Motels singer Martha Davis plans to take the album to the next level during their upcoming live performances.  She recently informed her fans on facebook.com,  "We will be doing an Apocalypso centric set back east, (don't worry you'll get your hits) and we will feature Marty Jourard (original sax and keys)".

The Motels are a New Wave music band from the Los Angeles area best known for "Only the Lonely" and "Suddenly Last Summer", each of which peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982 and 1983, respectively. Their song "Total Control" reached number 4 on the Australian charts in 1980. Martha Davis, the lead singer, continues to appear under The Motels with various line-ups.

Onward Promotions will be presenting four concerts featuring The Motels for a rare east coast visit from the band.  The first concert for the Motels will be as an opener for a Rick Springfield concert on Labor Day weekend in Akron, OH, on September 4th, 2011. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster & the Akron Civic Theatre box office.  

The other three concerts following Akron will feature The Motels as headliners at the following locations:

World Cafe Live in Philadelphia on 9/6/2011.  Tusk, a Fleetwood Mac tribute band, and Irish folk singer John Byrne will also be performing as opening acts.

Johnny D's Restaurant and Music Club in Somerville, MA near Boston on 9/9/2011.

The Newton Theatre in Newton NJ on 9/10/2011.  The concert will be part of the theatre's Grand Opening weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKdxoBESUpY



Apocalypso will be released in its intended original form as a 10-track LP (on limited-edition orange vinyl). In addition, Omnivore Recordings will release Apocalypso as an expanded 17-track CD version that includes previously unissued original demos and outtakes. A digital EP of the five 4-track demo recordings will also be made available through all digital retailers (these tracks are included on the CD configuration). Martha Davis and The Motels will announce a set of live shows in support of the official release.

In 1981, Los Angeles band The Motels convened to record the follow-up to their 1980 release Careful. The band's lineup consisted of Davis (vocals/guitar), Marty Jourard (sax/keys), Michael Goodroe (bass), Brian Glascock (drums), and Davis' then boyfriend, Tim McGovern (guitar), who had recently replaced founding member Jeff Jourard.

"So it was" says Davis, "a band, on their third attempt to gain some commercial success in the U.S. A relationship quantified by music and qualified by its abusive nature-and of course there was the Art, that most magical place of expression-'tear down the walls,' 'piss in the face of tradition,' 'make something no one has ever heard before'-and in the '80s there were a lot of drugs, which might explain all of the above. We did as all bands do-locked ourselves away in a room with a tape machine and started making demos, a heady, wonderful experience, where we made up the rules. Tim's influence and command over the process is not to be overlooked."

"On the last day of March we met with producer Val Garay at his Record One studio in Sherman Oaks," recalls Marty Jourard. "After listening to a couple of the songs on the cassette, he immediately agreed to produce the album. He was coming off a huge success with 'Bette Davis Eyes' and was the hot producer of the month. In my recollection it was Tim making most of the production decisions and Val engineering, but opinions may vary. We recorded from April to August. On July 23rd the album cover was shot. It was fun watching Martha being photographed surrounded by fire. The final album session was August 9th from 1 p.m. to 7 a.m.-we drank a lot of coffee!-recording overdubs for 'Art Fails.' We were done."

"When we were convinced we had amassed the perfect collection of what were obvious hits or at least great album tracks, we went to the label," says Davis.

As Capitol A&R man Bruce Ravid recalls, "having cosigned the band, I was one of the A&R guys who thought that this album was 'too strange, too dark, and where's the single?' It was very much a Tim McGovern record that seemed like too great a departure for The Motels. This was a crucial release for the band, as we knew we needed to get them on radio in a big way. There was an unusual amount of love for The Motels at Capitol from the day we signed them, and we really needed consensus from the promotion, sales, and marketing people downstairs. It's true, our promotion execs didn't feel they had a shot with Apocalypso. We dreaded the thought of telling the band they needed to return to the well."

"When Capitol heard the album the reaction was something like, 'We'll release it if you really want us to, but the promotion department will not work it,' says Davis.

Davis sums up what happened next: "After the bruising of egos, and some time to reflect, it was apparent that this was actually a good thing. It was long past time for Tim and I to part ways and this was the opportunity to get out of a bad relationship. So Tim was gone and with him the album Capitol didn't want to release."

The resulting album All Four One was released in 1982 as The Motels' official third studio record and was the band's first commercial success, featuring the timeless "Only The Lonely," which would go Top 10 on the Billboard charts; the subsequent video would become a staple of rotation on the burgeoning music television network MTV.

"With the hindsight that only 30 years can bring, I hear Apocalypso a sort of wild sonic ride," says Jourard. "All Four One was our first real commercial success, but it was born of these sessions."

"All Four One came out, and we had our first real chart success in the U.S.-we were mainstream, baby...But something was lost with Apocalypso, the album that got away," says Davis. "I look at it as the last time The Motels were uninhibited, wild, and not worried about our place on the charts. In my heart, I think I've always liked Apocalypso more."

Apocalypso CD track list:
1) Art Fails *
2) Tragic Surf
3) Only The Lonely
4) Schneekin'
5) So L.A.
6) Apocalypso *
7) Mission Of Mercy
8) Lost But Not Forgotten
9) Who Could Resist That Face *
10) Sweet Destiny *

Bonus Tracks
11) Art Fails (alternate version) *
12) Don't You Remember (4-track demo) *
13) Tragic Surf (4-track demo) *
14) Fiasco (4-track demo) *
15) Obvioso (4-track demo) *
16) Only The Lonely (4-track demo) *
17) Only The Lonely (TV Mix - hidden track) *

(*) previously unissued track

Apocalypso LP track list:

Side One:

1) Art Fails *
2) Tragic Surf
3) Only The Lonely
4) Schneekin'
5) So L.A.

Side Two:

1) Apocalypso * 2) Mission Of Mercy
3) Lost But Not Forgotten
4) Who Could Resist That Face *
5) Sweet Destiny *

(*) previously unissued track

About Omnivore Recordings:
Founded in 2010 by longtime, highly respected industry veterans Cheryl Pawelski, Greg Allen, and Brad Rosenberger, Omnivore Recordings' vision is to preserve the legacies and music created by historical, heritage, and catalog artists while also releasing previously unissued, newly found "lost" recordings and making them available for music-loving audiences to discover. Omnivore Recordings is distributed by EMI in North America and Ace Records UK in Europe. The label's first releases early this year on "Record Store Day" included the limited LP release of the test pressing edition of the Big Star album Third and a limited-edition Buck Owens 7" of previously unreleased material - both editions sold out immediately.

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Onward Promotions is a concert/entertainment promotion company. Artists we have promoted include Rick Springfield, Brian McKnight, The Motels, Gary Myrick & The Figures, Kasim Sulton, Paul Freeman, Eliot Lewis, John Byrne, and Tusk.