Got a Pocket Full of Quarters and I'm Headin' to the... Record Store?
Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia
April 15, 1999
Courtesy of Gamespot.com
Back in early January, I received a telephone call from Lauren Fielder, the editor-at-large for videogames.com in San Francisco. She had seen a VH-1 program about 80s music groups that included a segment on our song, Pac Man Fever. She had been one of more than two million kids back in 1982 who decided to spend some of their quarters on our album instead of feeding them into another video game. Buying records was not something kids were doing a lot of that year. In fact, a CBS record executive told us that Pac Man Fever was single-handedly responsible for its profits that first quarter. It turned out to be a hectic year for us, but we had a great time. That's why it didn't take us long to say yes when videogames.com invited us to write a guest column about the record and how the whole thing came about.
In the fall of 1981, Gary Garcia and I were bitten by the Pac Man bug, just like everybody else. As songwriters, it occurred to us that this might be a good idea for a record. Two days later, we sat down in the front room of my apartment and wrote Pac Man Fever in about an hour. We took the song to The Buie Geller Organization, which at that time was a successful artist management company in Atlanta. Arnie Geller loved the song and sent us into the studio to record it. When it was done, we were all convinced we had a hit. Unfortunately, none of the major record companies agreed. We were turned down by everybody. Arnie, however, believed in the record and put it out locally on the Buie/Geller label.
A disc jockey named Jim Morrison debuted the song on his morning show and was besieged with telephone callers requesting he play it again. The calls didn't stop. The station had to play it again that hour and throughout the rest of the day. Morrison went on the air proclaiming it a hit and urging Arnie to hurry and get records into the stores. He was right. By the end of the week, we had sold more than 10,000 singles. At the same time, one of the executives at CBS Records happened to take our demo home with him. Somehow, his son got hold of the tape and would not stop playing it. The next day, the phones were ringing. CBS decided it wanted to release the single. Suddenly, we were hot. By the end of the week, CBS vice president Mickey Eichner flew in, and we signed a contract. The contract called for an album full of game songs within 30 days. I can tell you that we spent the next three weeks learning how to play every video game we could find. We would pick a game out, write the song, and by the next day, we would be in the studio recording it. I suppose we could have just thrown some sound effects over any music, but we really wanted to write great-sounding pop songs that could stand up on their own.
To help do that, we brought in top-shelf musicians: Chris Bowman and Rick Hinkle on guitars, Larry McDonald on bass, Mike Stewart on Moog, Danny Jones and David Cole on vocals and percussion, and Ginny Whitaker on drums. They all played great, and we think the album has held up well over the years. Sadly, Ginny passed away recently. She was a gifted musician and wonderful person. We are dedicating the rerelease of this album to her. She was a good friend whom we will miss.
Securing the sound effects was a challenge. We had no way to get clean copies of the games' sound effects, so the engineer would simply walk into a bar or video arcade and record the sounds live off the machine. The Pac Man sound effects were recorded off a machine in a deli. If you listen really closely to the beginning of Pac Man Fever, you can hear someone ordering a pastrami sandwich. We completed the album during the Christmas holidays; we even spent New Year's Eve in the studio.
At some point in the middle of all this, a local TV station did a story about us. Entertainment Tonight picked up the story, and that's when the floodgates opened. We learned just how powerful television could be. Suddenly, we were getting requests for interviews from every major news and entertainment show in America, including 60 Minutes. The song took off like a rocket. We flew to New York, where, among other things, we spent the morning at MTV participating in Pac Man Fever day. We were going everywhere promoting the record. They sent us to Los Angeles to do television appearances.
The highlight for us was doing American Bandstand. We had grown up watching it, and now, here we were appearing on the show. I remember how mesmerized we were when Dick Clark walked into the dressing room. For years, we had seen him on TV wearing that familiar suit and speaking in that unmistakable voice. It was odd to see him dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans. His voice sounded different from the way it did on TV. I know that sounds trite, but it really threw us off. He sat down, put his feet up on the table and talked to us as though we were old friends. We were nervous, and he knew it, but he made sure we all looked good on camera. At the time, he was also doing a national countdown radio show, which was tied into K Mart. He featured our album on the show and in the stores, and he even promoted our next single. Dick Clark is a very nice man, and to this day we appreciate all he did for us.
We had a funny thing happen on a show we did for Nickelodeon. It was a program devoted to the video game craze, and the producers brought in a diverse collection of guests, including industry executives, child psychologists, and an anti-video game organization made up of angry housewives. These women believed video games were corrupting their children's minds. They were on a mission to destroy the industry and anybody connected to it. They had crammed us all together in one dressing room, and it wasn't long until the housewives and the industry people got into it. We started slowly moving our chairs toward the door as things heated up. They didn't know who we were yet, and we're thinking, "Wait until they find out who is within choking distance; the guys who have really helped promote this evil." Suddenly, one of the women turned to me and whispered, "Aren't you the ones who do the Pac Man Fever record?" As I cautiously said yes, she begged us for autographs for her kids. She told me, "I'll get in trouble if my children see me here with you, and I don't get your autographs." We signed our names; she smiled and politely said thank you. Then she turned vile again, went on the show, and attacked the video game industry. So much for sincerity.
Now, there is one thing I want to clear up about our appearance on a show called Solid Gold, which was very big at the time. For those of you who don't remember or never saw the show, it featured current top 40 acts lip-syncing their songs while a squad of the most beautiful women they could find danced around the stage. Their choreography was not always the best, but who cared? The week before we were to do the show, Gary suggested we wear some crazy outfits. I said OK, and we agreed to wait and surprise each other at the first show. Well, it turned out that Solid Gold was the first of many crazy outfit shows. We arrived late, so they rushed us into separate dressing rooms and told us to hurry. My outfit consisted of a Groucho Marx mustache, white lab coat, and a pair of white cotton garden gloves. As I stepped out, Gary was standing there in regular street clothes. The only thing he was wearing different was a hat and a pair of sunglasses. I urged him to hurry and get ready. He said, "I am ready." His idea of crazy was a tiny little Pac Man glued on the corner of his sunglasses. They rushed us out to the stage before I could change. There I stood in front of all those people looking like an idiot in that ridiculous outfit. The host, Marilyn McCoo, looked at me in complete amazement and said, "Who are you suppose be?" I had an answer for that but kept it to myself. Gary said it was no big deal. He could say that because he wasn't wearing the outfit. Naturally, it was the clip VH-1 chose to use recently. I guess I never will get away from it.
As you can imagine, we had requests to appear at video arcades too. Anytime we made an arcade appearance, the same thing would happen. They would want us to play Pac Man against the best player there. Every PR person in the world thought he was the first to think of it. It was embarrassing to be beaten by eight-year-old kids. Occasionally, one of the kids might feel sorry for us and let us win. But mostly, they enjoyed humiliating us. The print media did a lot of stories on us. Time, People, Gallery, and US did some good articles. It seemed as though we gave interviews to every newspaper in the country. But we really knew we had made it when we found out we were the answer to 51 across in The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle. And if that doesn't impress you, how about the night we were an audio daily double question on Jeopardy? One of the nicest things to happen to us was being included in an exhibit at The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland Ohio.
I do not think most people realize how big the video game craze was back in the early 80s. Now it's coming back around for a second time. About two years ago, we noticed a renewed interest in our record. Web sites started popping up, radios started playing our song, and we began receiving requests for interviews. No one could find the album, and people wanted to buy it. That is why we are now rereleasing the album on CD. It has all the original cuts, including Pac Man Fever, Froggy's Lament, Ode To A Centipede, Do The Donkey Kong, Hyperspace, The Defender, Mousetrap, Goin' Berzerk, and those highly sought-after game patterns on the inside liner. For those interested, you can visit our web site and order the CD directly. Even if you don't want a CD, please visit the site anyway. We would love to hear from you.
Originally appeared in Gamespot.com guest column 4-15-99
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Apr 4, 2008, 07:05 AM
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