[porkmarras]

 

One sad 1981 evening I was watching Solid Gold, as I did every week. The show was a perfect snapshot of culture as the era of Disco faded into an uncertain mess of rock ballads, new wave, and R&B. With hosts like Andy Gibb, Dionne Warwick, and Marilyn McCoo, and regular performers like Wayland Flowers & Madam (the gay ventriloquist with an old lady puppet), it was an assault on the senses. Of course, the sexy Solid Gold Dancers were the main reason I watched. As an evening alternative to American Bandstand, it offered acts with more primetime appeal to lip sync their latest hits, with performers as diverse as Bucker and Garcia ("Pac-Man Fever") to Elvis Costello appearing on the show.

But even my 11 year old sensibilities were put to the test when I saw an "all new band" that was ready to take America by storm. Someone apparently thought The Village People was a great enough gimmick to copy with sports players instead of gay blue-collar types, so they came up with...The All Sports Band. The sheer ridiculousness of it was overwhelming. You had a baseball player, kickboxer (who apparently was a hockey player in concept, but was switched when they realized skates would be pretty hard to wear onstage), race car driver, football player, and boxer. Apparently after a long day of playing their respective sports, they wanted to rock out a little.

The song was a forgettable tune called "Jet Set" and they were a sight to behold as they played. The football player strummed his guitar while wearing his pads (with no jersey...to please the ladies), and the boxer played drums within a cute little boxing ring setup. And by cute I mean "hella gay". He even played drums WITH HIS GLOVES ON!

They never toured, and "surprisingly" never released another album. In fact, interest in the album they did release was so low, that it hardly shipped to stores. Most copies that exist are promo editions that were sent to radio stations.