Lost/Forgotten Album #348

[Jon]

Good thing you came here for the eighth album in this series.

It's good since you came here expecting something that hasn't been posted before and I have delivered, as usual. If a certain someone (name withheld) were to do the same, everything would be right in this world.

This week it's the debut album from Moon Martin, Shots From A Cold Nightmare, released in 1978. You might know him from MTV (when they mattered) way back in 1982 with the song "X-Ray Vision". You might kind of know him from a certain song on this album, but you probably didn't know he wrote and performed it first. You might not know that I saw him in concert, opening for The Cars on the Shake It Up Tour and also might not know that he was much more animated than The Cars who basically all stood in one place during their concert. 

John David Martin is his name, but he adopted "the nickname "Moon" from friends, after it became an inside joke at the songwriter's penchant for mentioning the word in his compositions."

That above quote is from allmusic.com where the following review is also from:

Shots From a Cold Nightmare is a catchy batch of radio-flavored rock &roll, even though Martin's songs can seem to get a little too serious when it comes to the perils of infidelity, which is what most of them are about. While Martin comes through on the somewhat creepy-sounding "Paid Killer," the well-written "Night Thoughts," and on "Victim of Romance," there are still a couple of the album's songs that were bettered by other artists. "Cadillac Walk" sounds more stimulating coming from Mink DeVille on his self-titled release from 1977, and Robert Palmer managed to make a Top 20 hit out of "Bad Case of Loving You" a year after it appeared on Martin's album. Although Palmer and DeVille improved upon these two cuts, Shots From a Cold Nightmare remains one of Martin's most pleasing efforts, equal to 1979's Escape From Domination in its accommodating vocal form, but much stronger than both of his releases from the '80s, Street Fever and Mystery Ticket, which fail to relinquish the same amount of Martin's personality or distinctness both lyrically and vocally.

Shots From A Cold Nightmare

1. Hot Nite In Dallas
2. Victim Of Romance
3. Nite Thoughts
4. Paid Killer
5. Cadillac Walk
6. Bad Case Of Lovin' You
7. Hands Down
8. All I've Got To Do
9. You Don't Care About Me
10. She's A Pretender

Availability: Culture Factory recently released this and his next two albums and if you were on their super-duper top secret email list, you would have been able to get the albums for $6.98 apiece. Now they're around $16 new or used. 

[Yngve J. Chapleen]

There is something about hearing music from an Artist for the first time. It's like the kid who goes into a candy store he never visited before. Although, I do have the Palmer version of that certain song, I was not aware that whoever wrote it also performed it previously. Nice. Sounds different but still nice. I'm glad that over the years my interest in music expanded enough to care more of the quality of the music than anything else around it and ditched few biases in the process, because back in the days when this came out, even if I did saw it in the bins, I wouldn't make an effort to hear it. The guy wears glasses, so he's music must be something in between Elton John and Mate Peter, the old me would make this connection hastily and move on. Now, I like those aforementioned artists as much as do any Metal band, for reasons that matter.

This ain't a bad listen. Towards the end it lost the focus, but there is plenty here to like.

[RJhog (Admin)]

Uh...don't remember this guy at all. The lead track was respectable.  But the next two were just...there.

Paid Killer, however, got my attention.  But then he lost it again.

Attention regained with Bad Case of Loving You.  I like Palmer's version better, as I'm sure most folks do, which is why it was a pretty big radio hit and this was not.  But kudos to the man for writing it.

The rest is just kind of monotonous.  His voice, while not bad, gets a bit annoying.  

I guess I should just say that, other than a couple of songs, this doesn't appeal to me.

[Scott]

I remember hearing this guys name on Casey Kasems American Top 40 show sometime in the late 70's but for the life of me I cant think of the song that actually hit the top charts at the time and I'm relatively sure it wasn't this version of Bad Case of Loving You. Moon is the kind of name that is weird enough to stick with you, kinda like Moon Unit, except she had a really really cute phase, this guy? not so much...

The rhythm on the opener kinda sounds like something Krokus could rock up and make much better!  I can appreciate Boss mans thoughts as I got lost after the first track as nothing really stood out, in fact it really started to feel too simple and under produced.  Though I really liked that closer, not Cherry liked, but close.  Interesting choice this week as I to have been out on Culture Factories site from time to time and browse right past these, now I can continue to do so...

[Jon]

What I'm getting from these comments is that youse guys want.......... MORE MOON MARTIN!!!!!!