Dance hall days - Wang Chung - 1984

Wang Chung

Dance hall days

Wang Chung

Source: Wikipedia

Wang Chung are an English new wave musical group formed in 1980. The name Wang Chung means "yellow bell" in Chinese (黃鐘, pinyin: huáng zhōng; Wade–Giles: huang chung), and is the first note in the Chinese classical music scale.

The group found their greatest success in the United States, with five Top 40 hits in the US, all charting between 1983 and 1987, including "Dance Hall Days" (No. 16 in the summer of 1984), "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" (No. 2 in 1986) and "Let's Go!" (No. 9 in 1987).

Jeremy Ryder, known professionally as "Jack Hues" (vocalist/guitarist) and Nick Feldman (bassist) would eventually form the core of Wang Chung. They first met when Hues answered Feldman's ad for a musicians in the classifieds section of the weekly British 

music magazine Melody Maker in 1977. They were joined by Paul Hammond (ex Atomic Rooster) on drums, forming The Intellektuals. In less than a year, that band split up. Hues 

and Feldman then joined up with future Wang Chung drummer Darren Costin, bassist Leigh Gorman, keyboardist Simon Campbell and vocalist Glenn Gregory, to form 57 Men. This band lasted for about 18 months before breaking up.

Gregory went on to become the vocalist for Heaven 17, and Gorman later played in Bow Wow Wow. Meanwhile Hues, Feldman and Costin stayed together and rechristened 

themselves Huang Chung. The name Huang Chung was claimed by the band to translate roughly as "perfect pitch"—although later, on American Bandstand, they claimed it was the sound a guitar made.

At the beginning of Huang Chung's career, all the members performed under pseudonyms. Jeremy Ryder was "Jack Hues" (a play on the French term "j'accuse"), Nick Feldman was "Nick DeSpig", and Darren Costin was "Darren Darwin" (and later, just "Darwin").

The band was signed to a label called 101 Records. The first Huang Chung release, "Baby I'm Hu-man", appeared on a 101 compilation album in 1980. Three live tracks were subsequently released on another 101 Records compilation in 1981.

Later in 1980, the independent record company Rewind Records signed the band up for a two-single deal. Huang Chung's debut single for Rewind Records was "Isn't It About Time 

We Were on TV". It was followed up by "Stand Still". Neither single charted, but the group had begun to attract the attention of Arista Records, who signed them to a two-album deal in early 1981.

Around this same time, the group expanded to a quartet, with the addition of sax player Dave Burnand. In keeping with the all-pseudonymous nature of the band, Burnand was known as "Hogg Robinson" for the first Arista single, and later, simply as "Hogg".

Under the direction of producer Rhett Davies, Huang Chung issued two singles on Arista in 1981, neither of which charted. A third single, produced by Roger Bechirian, appeared in early 1982. It too failed to chart.

The band's first album was issued in 1982. Self-titled, it compiled the three non-charting Arista A-sides, one of the Arista B-sides, and six other new tracks. Like the associated singles, the Huang Chung album failed to chart.

Around the same time, Hues, DeSpig and Burnand contributed to the lone LP by the mysterious pseudonymous group Blanket of Secrecy. Hues and DeSpig wrote the song "Lovers" for the album, and Hues scored the strings for that song, while Burnand played 

sax on the album. Despite some speculation at the time, no member of Huang Chung was actually a member of Blanket of Secrecy—that band consisted of Roger Bechirian, Andrew Howell and Pete Marsh, operating under the pseudonyms Tinker, Soldier, and Tailor.

In late 1982, Huang Chung returned to the studio to start work on their second album for Arista Records. However, their manager David Massey convinced Arista to close their 

contract with Huang Chung, and instead placed the band with American label Geffen Records, making the group the second UK-based act to be signed to Geffen worldwide after Asia (not counting then-New York-based John Lennon in 1980).

At this juncture, and at Geffen's suggestion, the band changed their name to Wang Chung, allegedly to make pronunciation easier for English-speakers. (This explanation of the group's name change is consistent with the claim by VH1's Pop Up Video that they 

changed it because people kept calling them "Hung Chung".) At the same time, Nick Feldman and Darren Costin opted to be billed under their real names; only Jack Hues would keep his pseudonym.

The band spent most of 1983 recording their second album, Points on the Curve. Released in January 1984, the album yielded two moderately successful hits, "Don't Let Go" (No. 38 US) and "Dance Hall Days" (No. 16 US, No. 21 UK).

In late 1983, Hues and Feldman collaborated in a one-off project with vocalist David Van Day. A demo of the track "Ringing the Bell" was submitted to David by their publisher as 

one of many songs for consideration by David as a possible follow up to his hit "Young Americans Talking". It was recorded in November 1983 but remained unreleased for some time before eventually surfacing under the band name Music Academy in 1985.

Wang Chung then followed up the release of Points On The Curve with a spate of soundtrack work. Director William Friedkin specifically sought out Wang Chung to score 

his 1985 film To Live and Die in L.A. The resulting soundtrack became the group's third album, and is recognisable as one of their more mainstream works. It went top ten on the US Billboard chart for soundtracks.

The band also recorded "Fire in the Twilight" for the 1985 John Hughes film The Breakfast Club. In the summer of 1985, Costin left the band. Hues and Feldman continued to record new material, employing producer Peter Wolf as their new drummer (although he never became an official member of the band).