“Have you heard of Martini Ranch?”
It’s a question that I ask of anyone who gets to know me on a long enough timeline. More often than not, I’m not even met with a faint glimmer of recognition. Which always blows my mind until I remember that I also had to be introduced to Martini Ranch long after it had ceased to exist.
I remember exactly how it happened, I was working as a truck driver in 2017, and I had a lot of time to listen to podcasts on the road. A personal favorite was the Witch Finger Horror Podcast. I’d started listening to it as a fan of the band Kittie (who still rips by the way and just dropped a phenomenal album back in June), because the vocalist Morgan Lander was one of three hosts along with Megan Rae, and Yasmina Ketita of Rue Morgue Magazine. As I was listening to episode 19, titled “Near Dark and our tribute to Bill Paxton” (he had died earlier that year) I heard the name Martini Ranch for the first time.
You see in 1982, two years before he’d play a street punk who makes the mistake of thinking he could clown a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger…
(a man who makes good decisions, clearly)
…Bill Paxton would form a new wave/synth pop band with his friend Andrew Todd Rosenthal called Martini Ranch. Now I don’t need to tell anyone that Bill Paxton’s great. He’s the only actor to have been killed by an Alien, a Predator, and a Terminator. He listened to an old lady’s fuck story in Titanic, saw a flying cow in Twister, showed up in a Limp Bizkit video, and was fantastic in Agents of SHIELD (even if no one watched it). I could go on and on until it was “Game over, man! Game over!”
(you read that in his voice, didn’t you?)
Also- I fucking love 80s new wave/synth pop! I’ve got tears for fears that the men without hats want me dead or alive, because the cure is in the art of noise, dig? How the fuck did I not know that Bill Paxton had a new wave band? Even crazier, how did I not know that in 1988 just one year after playing a fucking wild ass vampire in Near Dark, he and Martini Ranch would release their only album “Holy Cow” and it would feature the talent of multiple members of Devo, and Cindy Wilson of The B-52s. I fucking love The B-52s! I will roam on channel z in my wig, and dance this mess around all through the funplex, dig?
The two music videos the album spawned are likewise star-studded affairs. The first was a German Expressionist fever dream that costarred Brat Pack member Anthony Michael Hall, Michael Biehn who has also fought Aliens and been killed by a Terminator, but hasn’t made it to Predators (yet), and Judge Reinhold, best known for his appearance in the fourth episode of “Clerks: the Animated Series”. The second music video was a post apocalyptic biker western directed by James “will be making Avatar movies until the heat death of the universe” Cameron. The video starred Paul Reiser (who has been killed by Aliens), Jenette Goldstein (killed by Aliens and a Terminator), Lance Henriksen (killed by a Predator, mangled by Aliens, and likely killed by a Terminator but unconfirmed), Brian Thompson (killed by a Terminator and played an alien bounty hunter in X-Files), and James Cameron’s soon to be future (and then shortly thereafter, former) wife, director Kathryn Bigelow. I fucking love Kathryn Bigelow! The weight of water at the point break near dark made for some strange days for the loveless, dig?
So, what about the music itself?
(ai could never)
As one might imagine from the guest artists involved, Martini Ranch would fit easily in a mix with Devo, the B-52s, bands like Oingo Boingo and the like. The album Holy Cow is danceable, no small amount goofy, often witty, and generally fun.
The opening track “New Deal” posits a transfiguring of flesh just a few years after David Cronenberg’s “Videodrome” was released (maybe that’s a stretch, but I’m a Cronenberg fan, so it stays).
“Reach” at track 2 is a western tale much the same as its music video.
Track 3’s “World Without Walls” opens with a sound clip of Reagan telling Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”, but then moves on to be a song about a couple in a car (unless metaphor?). Ah the 80s.
Also peak 80s is track 4, “Fat Burning Formula”, which is a playful riff on the fitness fads of the era and you can absolutely feel the spandex and sweatbands in one of the most Devo-esque tracks on the album.
“Richard Cory” at track 5 is a retelling of the poem of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winning poet and playwrite Edwin Arlington Robinson about a rich guy everyone envies who then surprisingly shoots himself in the head (more rich guys should take notes, no I wasn’t recently in New York).
“Hot Dog” is track 6, and, it’s about a dog I guess? Or fucking. It could be about fucking. *listens a bit more* Ohhhh yeah… it’s definitely about fucking.
Which leads into track 7’s “Serious Girl” that has hints of Minneapolis funk and opens with the line “Treasures of the deep, are not as precious as your love” and makes me wonder if Bill Paxton and James Cameron bonded over oceans and shit.
Track 8 opens with an odd, and depending on who was performing what voices, no small amount problematic (though very of its era) 16 second vignette of a man ordering sushi for the first time before kicking into the delightfully odd “How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self-Culture?” which has the line “I think it’s important that you spend some time. Make it in your prime” that I’ve always misheard until having it corrected just now while researching this article as “I think it’s important that you spend some time NAKED in your prime” and, I dunno, I kinda like it my way better. Like, I don’t know what you mean by “self culture” but I know what I mean.
The penultimate track “(Brother) Take It Out” is either a look at the world’s most dysfunctional and abusive nuclear family, or maybe just like a metaphor for how people treat each other, I dunno. Catchy though!
(pictured here: the family from “(Brother) Take It Out”, probably)
And the closing statement on the record is “Power Tool”, which has 80s soundtrack epicness (you’ll know what I mean if you listen to it), and is about how people and power fucked up the planet which feels a touch quaint given all that’s happened in the decades since the album’s release, and also depressing because damned if we just don’t learn shit. *sigh* Anyway, the track and the record itself ends with a 30 second faux record scratching loop that keeps repeating the phrase “the poodle’s in the car”, a reference back to the track “Hot Dog”, as if to say the final takeaway from the record is powerful people are fucking up the planet, let’s all have sex about it. No? Just me? Whatever…
But now with all of that explored, it brings me back to my original question- “Have you heard of Martini Ranch?” And the larger question is of course- how did this happen? How did a full-on movie and TV star with a cult following in horror and sci-fi communities, and a number of the most popular musicians of their time, make an entire record, then partner with more Hollywood stars and big name directors to make huge music videos, and so few people know it exists? How did I not know?!?
(ahhh… it all makes sense now)
Riki MJ Adams is a musician and FBC contributor
Fancy Boys Club 