Happy Halloween from Little Hits
(from the LP Torn Together, Columbia Records 1981)
Back in MTV’s early days, they used to show “spooky” videos on Halloween night. I tried to make a point of watching, because they played videos then that they pretty much never played otherwise. Landscape’s “My Name Is Norman Bates” was a perennial that night, as was that weird truncated version of Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi Is Dead” that was some sort of trailer for that really crap David Bowie vampire movie. And so was the Hitmen’s “Bates Motel,” a song whose video I swear I never saw other than, like, Halloween nights ‘82, ‘83 and ‘84. The Hitmen only released two albums (the earlier Aim for the Feet was the other one), and “Bates Motel” is something of an anomaly for them. Most of their other stuff has a slight mod-revival quality to my ears. But I’ve always loved this song, particularly the truly great bass line.
The Hitmen split up after this record. Dunno what became of the rhythm section, but singer Ben Watkins went almost immediately into an electronic group called the Flowerpot Men, and later wrote and produced an album by Traci Lords that proved only that she was no Andrea True. Guitarist Pete Glenister had a much, much better later career path, co-writing songs with Alison Moyet and my beloved Kirsty MacColl. “Innocence,” one of my favorites of Kirsty’s songs, was one of his co-writes.
–Stewart Mason
