So here I am directing my first music video in Raleigh and the keyboard player comes up to me and says that he is in another band and might need a music video. I was astonished. The bands that I knew in New York protected their turf like feral beasts. But Raleigh wasn't like that. Everyone seemed very happy to see everyone else succeed. I politely said, "I'd love to" and forgot about the whole thing. Three months later, Dave Adams was telling me about his band, Glass Moon and their new album and next single, ON A CAROUSEL.
Glass Moon started out as a mid-Seventies Progressive Rock band. By 1979 they were in Electric Lady Studios in New York recording their first album for a major label and leaning toward a more melodic synth Pop sound. Their remake of the Peter Gabriel song SOLSBURY HILL was an FM hit and had the rare charm of possibly being better than the original. They were such a hit in Puerto Rico that they were commissioned to perform and write a song for a 7-Up commercial - all in Spanish! Their second album, Growing In The Dark had another remake, the 1967 Hollies hit, ON A CAROUSEL. In this case, Glass Moon improved the tune to the point were the Hollies began performing the Glass Moon version.
ON A CAROUSEL, SIMON and TELEGRAM SONG were commissioned in late 1981 as a group of videos. All aspects of each song were put into production in February 1982. Due to a technical problem, the performance portion of SIMON and TELEGRAM SONG - which was shot at the same time as ON A CAROUSEL - was not usable and was re-shot four months later. But this didn't matter since both songs were not due for release until later in the year.
February became a busy month, mainly shooting the elements of storylines to three music videos all at once to save money. The total budget for the production of three music videos was $3,000. This was a wonderful increase from the previous video budgets of $100 for The Fabulous Knobs video and $240 for two Luky Owens & Revolver videos. But this grand budget also included flying in members of the band as well as housing them and feeding them and paying them. Plus paying for whatever else was involved in making these videos, including an ill-fated storyline shoot in New York for TELEGRAM SONG and re-shooting the performance of SIMON and TELEGRAM SONG. In the end, as much as I didn't loose money on these videos, there was no profit either. The profit here was in the huge learning curve I had fashioned for myself. This project created experiences I would take to major label music video projects in Nashville from 1987 to 1995.
The first problem I ran into with Glass Moon was that there was no longer a band. Nestor Nunez (bass) was not available and Jamie Glaser (guitar) was touring with Jean-Luc Ponty. Rod Abernethy (Arrogance) was asked to step in as guitarist and Steve Buslowe (Meat Loaf) was flown in from New York to play bass. After shooting the band performance I discovered that the videotape deck was bad. The CAROUSEL performance was salvaged, but the others were not. When we re-shot the performance four months later, Chris Jones (drums) had quit and Steve Buslowe was in the studio with Paul Stanley (KISS), so both of them were replaced for the video by Bobby Patterson (bass) and his cousin Jason Patterson (drums). Glass Moon was now Dave Adams - alone.
ON A CAROUSEL played on HBO's Video Jukebox throughout the summer of 1982, helping to promote sales of the album and single, but not enough sales. Glass Moon was dropped from the label by summer's end.
Dave would carry on the Glass Moon banner with the newly spelt Glassmoon and a new major label deal with the 1984 album Sympathetic Vibration. Rod Abernethy and Bobby Patterson had also become official members of the band. Sales were slim and so by 1986 Dave had become a solo artist on another major label with the album Walking In My Sleep. Both albums are fine albums, but with little promotional support, they wound up the way of the original Glass Moon LP's.
Dave Adams is still as talented as ever and can be found in the band Suicide Blonde.