Robin Lane & the Chartbusters: New Collection

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If you were watching MTV on their very first day in 1981, you saw music videos from Rod Stewart, The Who and REO Speedwagon. You also would have seen the clip for “When Things Go Wrong,” a video from the Boston-based band, Robin Lane & the Chartbusters. The group is the subject of a career-spanning, 3-CD retrospective, including their early ’80s output for Warner Bros. Records, called Many Years Ago, via Blixa Sounds.

Lane established herself in the late ’60s as a folk-rock artist in her native Los Angeles’s legendary Laurel Canyon scene, notably collaborating with Neil Young on the song “Round & Round” from his second album, 1969’s Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.

Lane’s direction changed with a cross-country move to the East Coast, landing in Cambridge, Mass. and into a growing fascination with the burgeoning harder-sounding scenes such as punk and new wave.

By 1978, Lane had formed her group the Chartbusters with Asa Brebner, Leroy Radcliffe, Scott Baerenwald and Tim Jackson; in 1980 the band — already making waves on the Boston circuit—released their self-titled debut for Warner Bros., which featured the wistful single “When Things Go Wrong.” The video, was a fixture during the early days of MTV and was the 11th clip they played on their first day on the air, alongside such classic rock legends as The Who, Rod Stewart and REO Speedwagon.

Lane told Best Classic Bands about a night in Los Angeles with the Warner Bros. team. “One night a bunch of A&R guys were going to the Whisky to take in this band Code Blue, who they wanted to sign,” she recalls. “We went along [because] they wanted to know our reaction.

“Code Blue came on and I didn’t like them at all, nor did my bandmates. But the opening act was a girls group called The Go-Go’s. We were enthralled and yipped around [and told] the A&R guys that they should forget Code Blue and sign the girls. They went ‘no no, they’re terrible’.”

Robin Lane in a promotional photo from her Warner Bros. Records era

Two more albums followed with the Chartbusters before Lane made the decision to pursue solo work as well as start a family. A reunion with the Chartbusters in 2001 resulted in 2003’s release, Piece of Mind. A surge of re-interest in group’s earlier work was ignited with Chartbuster drummer Tim Jackson’s 2014 documentary When Things Go Wrong: Robin Lane’s Story, focusing on Lane’s life and career, a project that won best documentary at the 2015 New Jersey International Film Festival.

Many Years Ago includes Robin Lane & the Chartbusters (1980), which features the MTV hit “When Things Go Wrong,” Imitation Life (1981), and the live EP 5 Live (1980), Heart Connection (1984), and all previously unreleased material from the Heart Connection sessions, plus the band’s first independently released three-song single and a variety of demo and live recordings.

All recordings are digitally remastered from the originals, with many never before released to the public. The set includes a 20-page booklet containing liner notes, rare photos, flyers, and other memorabilia.

Lane is planning another live reunion with the original Chartbusters for a series of events in and around Boston.

Robin Lane & the Chartbusters Appearances

Mar 01 – Harvard Square – Newbury Comics
Mar 02 – Somerville, MA – Burren Backroom (7 p.m.)
Mar 03 – Somerville, MA – Burren Backroom (4 p.m.)

Did you know? Robin Lane is the daughter of Ken Lane, Dean Martin’s longtime pianist and co-writer of “Everybody Loves Somebody.”

Listen to Lane sing with Neil Young 50 years ago

Best Classic Bands Staff

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