Gleaming Spires

Synth pop mavens the Gleaming Spires earned a cult following for their canny blend of dance-friendly electronic pop tunes and venomously witty lyrics on tunes like "Things I Have Done to Our Love," "How to Get Girls Through Hypnotism," and "A Christian Girl's Problem." Led by songwriters Leslie Bohem and David Kendrick, the group's balance of production polish and mordant wit earned them an underground hit with "Are You Ready for the Sex Girls?," a track from 1981's Songs of the Spires and it became an alternative radio hit. While it would remain their best known tune, the Gleaming Spires would go on to make two more albums (1983's Walk On Well Lighted Streets and 1985's Welcoming a New Ice Age) that cemented their reputation as outstanding new wave pranksters. In the late '70s, Leslie Bohem was leading an edgy new wave band in Los Angeles called Bates Motel (a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Psycho), and drummer David Kendrick saw the group and became a fan. Bohem invited Kendrick to join the band, and they began writing songs together. Wanting to give the new songs a different sound, Bohem and Kendrick chose to form a new group, and they cut a series of demos produced by singer and songwriter Andrew Gold, best remembered for his 1978 hit "Thank You for Being a Friend," which later became the theme song for The Golden Girls. While the demos were well received, record labels weren't interested, and the nascent Gleaming Spires played occasional club shows and bided their time. Hoping to persuade Ron Mael and Russell Mael of Sparks (one of their favorite groups) to produce a record for them, the Spires invited the siblings to attend one of their shows. While the Maels passed on working in the studio with Bohem and Kendrick, they offered them a gig as Sparks' new rhythm section, and they accepted. Ron and Russell encouraged them to continue the Gleaming Spires during their downtime from Sparks, and even agreed to allow their Sparks bandmates Jim Goodwin and Bob Haag to join the Spires live lineup. (Haag was already familiar to Bohem and Kendrick, as he'd played in Bates Motel for a spell.) The Gleaming Spires cut more material, with Jules and the Polar Bears keyboard player Stephen Hague as producer. (Hague would go on to produce albums for New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the Pet Shop Boys, and Erasure.) One song they recorded as a B-side, "Are You Ready for the Sex Girls?," caught the attention of Robbie Fields, head of the L.A. indie punk label Posh Boy Records, and he offered to issue the group's first album, 1981's Songs of the Spires. Fields' promotion helped put "Sex Girls" into rotation on several Los Angeles radio stations, where it became a local hit, and the exposure led to the track appearing in the movies The Last American Virgin and Revenge of the Nerds, giving it a lasting audience. (To the band's amusement, when "Sex Girls" was riding at its highest in Los Angeles, they were touring Europe with Sparks, hearing about the success from thousands of miles away.) Songs of the Spires was successful enough that, after Posh Boy brought out a stop-gap EP (1982's Life Out on the Lawn), they were able to strike a deal with a larger independent label, PVC Records, for their sophomore album, 1983's Walk On Well Lighted Streets. Once again produced by Stephen Hague, the sound was more polished and made better use of the full band, rather than the synth-based approach of the debut album. While the band made a video for the song "A Christian Girl's Problem," it didn't break out like "Sex Girls," and didn't receive the same attention as Songs of the Spires. Greg Penny signed on as a keyboard and guitar player when the Spires recorded their third LP, Welcoming a New Ice Age, with Penny also serving as producer. (Penny would later work on sessions with Elton John and k.d. lang.) The album was the group's most elaborately produced and arranged work, but Tabb Records, the indie imprint who issued the LP, soon went out of business, and the album dropped out of print. A proposed tour in support of Welcoming a New Ice Age had to be scrapped when Bob Haag suddenly became unavailable, and in 1986, Sparks revamped their lineup and Bohem and Kendrick were let go. Unsure what their next move should be, the Gleaming Spires broke up. David Kendrick would go on to play with Devo and later joined the L.A. post-punk outfit Xiu Xiu. Meanwhile, Leslie Bohem pursued a low-key solo career and enjoyed success as a screenwriter. In 2021, Omnivore Recordings reissued all three Gleaming Spires albums in deluxe remastered editions with bonus tracks and new liner notes.
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