Enjoy this free, on-demand stream of Doug Lynner’s World of Noise Show #17 – New Year’s 2010. Happy New Year! May 2010 bring you health, happiness, prosperity and lots of good music. The video is cool too!

Join me on Thursday, December 10th, at 6 and 9 pm pacific time for a special interview show with musician and songwriter Martin Page. Special treat – we will be hearing Martin’s original demo for We Built This City! I’ll be on the station’s chat board during the shows.

Doug Lynner’s World of Noise airs on Flashback Alternatives, an Internet radio station. Tune in from the left column of this page or from the station website. World of Noise shows are also available for free, on-demand streaming from this blog and other websites.

MARTIN PAGE – BIO

MARTIN PAGE, who hails from Southampton, England, first gained recognition as a songwriter in the early 80’s with Top-40 hits for Kim Carnes and Earth, Wind & Fire, among others. With Bernie Taupin, whose usual partner was Elton John (and with Dennis Lambert & Peter Wolf), Page wrote “WE BUILT THIS CITY,” a Number One Hit for Starship (their first) in 1985. Page and Taupin returned to Number One the following year with “THESE DREAMS,” recorded by Heart (also Heart’s first chart topper). Teaming up with Peter Cox and Richard Drummie of the UK group Go West, Page wrote “KING OF WISHFUL THINKING,” which was featured in the movie “PRETTY WOMAN,” and became a Top Ten hit for GO WEST in 1990, and “FAITHFUL,” another hit for Go West. With Robbie Robertson, Page penned the critically acclaimed “FALLEN ANGEL,” featured in Robbie’s first solo album. Page has also written for, produced or worked with such artists as The Commodores, Barbra Streisand, Tom Jones, Paul Young, Brian Ferry, Phil Collins and Josh Groban, among many others. As a Songwriter/Recording Artist, Page gained success in America for his own band Q-Feel, with the dance hit, “DANCING IN HEAVEN,” which brought him to this country in the early 80’s; and later, Page’s debut solo LP “IN THE HOUSE OF STONE AND LIGHT” was released in 1994. In 1995, its title track became a substantial pop and adult contemporary hit – breaking the record as the longest charting single in Billboard’s A/C Chart history, and garnering Billboard’s “1995 Top Adult Contemporary Single Of The Year” Award, and one of ASCAP’s top 5 “most played” Awards for both years 1995 and 1996 at ASCAP’s ANNUAL POP AWARDS. In 2008, Page released his 2nd solo album, “IN THE TEMPLE OF THE MUSE”, the first release from Page’s independent label, IroningBoard Records (available at CD Baby.com and iTunes), which remained in the Top 5 of CD Baby’s Top Albums Pop/Rock chart throughout the year, returning to the No.1 position over 16 months after its release. Page is currently working on his next solo album for IroningBoard Records.

For more information go to www.martinpage.com and www.myspace.com/martinpage

Doug Lynner’s World of Noise 1st Anniversary Show Airs on October 8th, 2009 at 6pm Pacific time (US) and 9pm Pacific time (US) and October 11th, 2009 at 6am Pacific time (US) on http://www.flashbackalternatives.com, an Internet radio station based in New Jersey, USA. After the original three broadcasts on the station the show will be available for on-demand streaming right here at the show’s blog.

The show focuses on recent music influenced by ’80’s synthpop. It’s hot stuff with premiers galore, including the first new Trees (Sleep Convention) song of the century!

Though my show is normally one hour long, this special episode will be 2 hours long.

Doug Lynner’s World of Noise 1st Anniversary Show will feature my special co-host, Marisa Conover, a music business maven and important friend to my show. Here is a bit of a bio to introduce her!

Marisa Conover Bio
Although acting was her first love, Marisa Conover started writing songs when she was 13 and met her first husband, musician and composer, Steve Bonilla at age sixteen. He was a talented songwriter and piqued her interest in music even more. Married at 18, they began recording at a local Sacramento 8-track recording studio and one of their songs, “Early Riser,” rose to number 2 in their region.

Back then, you could actually get a DJ to play an unsigned song if they liked it.

At that point, never one to be shy, Marisa started to cold-call record companies. After about the fifteenth hang-up, she got lucky and they drove to LA to have a meeting with the Professional Manager at MCA Music Publishing. He told them they would be amazing jingle writers. They were young and stupid and took that compliment as an insult!

(Back then, writing commercial music was known as “selling out.”)

Marisa was not easily derailed. She built upon her husband’s dedication to the music of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Knowing that they had a local studio and an engineer named Earle Mankey, she looked the studio up in the phone book and gave them a call. Earle answered the call.

Playing with the truth, Marisa told Earle that they were in town for several meetings at various labels and asked if they could come over to make extra cassette copies of their songs, and while they were there, tour the studio. He said sure and off they went. Dubbing Marisa and Steve’s songs gave Earle a chance to listen to them. He loved them so much that he offered to record Marisa and Steve on spec in his home studio if they ever moved down to LA. So, in the middle of the night, with their one year old daughter in tow (and no money!) they moved to LA, checked into a hotel, called Earle and said, “We’re here!!”

This led to Marisa recording background vocals for the Beach Boys, working with Steve to found The Bodys, a power pop band that opened for Missing Persons and X, among others, and a day-job at Chrysalis Records. Starting as the receptionist she used her moxey to rise to the point where she could plug acts to the label. Her first success was with Toni Basil and her Number 1 hit “Mickey.” Marisa’s best near miss with Guns ‘n Roses: Geffen outbid Chrysalis 4-1.

While Marisa built her skills in the business she continued to hone her skills as a musician. She fronted a Runaways knockoff band produced by The Runaways producer Kim Fowley, and sang the children’s chorus
with Pat Benatar on her hit “We Belong.”

Ending up as the A&R & Video Manager with Sony Music International in New York, changes in both the record industry and her personal life led to an amicable split with her husband Steve. Eventually she met, again, Dane Conover of the 80s synthpop band Trees, for whose album “Sleep Convention” she had provided background vocals a decade before. They have been married for many years now and comprise the composing and recording team known as Popgems.

Divinyls – Christina Amphlett – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinyls

Missing Persons – Dale Bozzio – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_Persons_(band)

‘Til Tuesday – Aimee Mann – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_Carry

Josie Cotton – Josie Cotton – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josie_Cotton

The Waitresses – Patty Donahue – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waitresses

Nina Hagen – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Hagen

Rough Trade – Carole Pope – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Trade_(band)

Concrete Blonde – Johnette Napolitano – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_Blonde

Eurythmics – Annie Lennox – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurythmics

Cindi Lauper – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindi_Lauper

Grace Jones – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Jones

Romeo Void – Debora lyall – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_Void

Blondie – Deborah Harry – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondie_(band)

The Pretenders – Chrissie Hynde – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pretenders

Kate Bush  – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Bush