Wa Wa Nee - Sugar Free (1987)

[fsmorel123]

lmao!! i thought a brother sang this one LOL

[fsmorel123]

omg THEY did sugar free????

[suedejones]

I didn't know Nicolas Cage sang vocals?

[Darfaultner]

I didn't know Marty Friedman played drums!

[wildsidebangkok]

Hahaha that is 100% "The Sween" in this video playing drums. Never seen him with long hair before....now he has NO hair. I was out with him 2 days ago.

Anyway, he's just put together a new band and they are going to start playing 3 nights a week at Imperial Queens Park Hotel in Bangkok Thailand from Dec 9th

There are plans to put a couple of Wa Wa Nee songs in the set if the audience are up for it.....

[destruct2construct]

yeah, very WHAMish video.



[genxfrog]

Wa Wa Nee and Pseudo Echo.....guaranteed to get any party going 100%!!!!

[jq747]

@genxfrog haha, I had both albums "Wa Wa Nee" and "Pseudo Echo Long Plays", on cassette of course. I wore those tapes to a nub playing in my car =]

[RENDEZVOUSEN2012]

WHAM !

[nixongill]

Greatest Anti-drug rock n roll song.

[ritchievet]

Please, which band is playing on 4:47?

[shadylee73]

Awesome to see these clips on Ytube.... Oooo bring on the 80s

[DaveWollenberg]

WWN hit #35 in Billboard, 11-14-87. God bless ya, for postin' it. Thanx!

[notoriouskitty1]

Is that Vince Leigh from Pseudo Echo on drums? looks very similar.

[Ray0469]

@notoriouskitty1 No, can't be....the nose is nowhere near big enough.

[Ray0469]

@notoriouskitty1 Sorry, the original drummer for Pseudo was the one with the huge cronk...but it's still not Vince.

[notoriouskitty1]

@Ray0469 Yeah after watching again i can see its not Vince. Anthony the original drummer from Pseudo Echo was much "prettier" than Vince. Guess it was the hair and wishful thinking that threw me. Mmm Vince was so damn fine. Ok enough of my drooling.

[notoriouskitty1]

@Ray0469 or was Pierre the original drummer....either way its not Vince :(

[amordoJAPAO]

なつかしい！



[eboneetigress]

@boogiefever1985 - your cd cover is not the original art and the drummer is a scab. Wa Wa Nee had a black guy named Chris Sweeney ('the Sween' on the original vinyl jacket). I know this because I still own the original album. Also, check out their page on Facebook!

[GeneralG1810]

Whatdya rekon, this guy still tries to get laid using the line "Dont you remember me I was the lead singer of Wa Wa nee"

Sooooooo sad :(

[debracline]

Something must really be wrong with me because I love this shit! I'm a product of the 80's and I got this cassette one year for Christmas and am so excited that it's on here now! Don't get me wrong...80's music is an aquired taste but I love these guys. Even stranger is that Sick Puppies, Slipknot and Godsmack are also among my fav. Thanks for posting this for us to enjoy!

[debracline]

Something must really be wrong with me because I love this shit! I'm a product of the 80's and I got this cassette one year for Christmas and am so excited that it's on here now!  Don't get me wrong...80's music is an aquired taste but I love these guys. Even stranger is that Sick Puppies, Slipknot and Godsmack are also among my fav. Thanks for posting this for us to enjoy!

[tjfarri1]

I was so mad when I had to throw away my cassette!!!

[lilkenobi]

lol it may not be apparent from watching cheesy Wa Wa Nee videos, but Paul's actually a really talented musician. Works more behind the scenes these days. He's also a pretty funny guy and more than happy to have a laugh at this period of his life. :)

[Tre404]

@lilkenobi ..... I don't see anything laugh-worthy! Good music is good music regardless of the era. He should be proud.

[lilkenobi]

@Tre404 I don't believe he has any regrets, but he doesn't take himself too seriously either which I think is a good thing.

[Tre404]

@lilkenobi ... well, that's good. Yes, taking oneself too seriously is an awful thing when it comes to music, as in other things. Just look at George Michael. He was always one to REALLY take that to the extreme, and it's just so damned boring! You know?  Okay, George, you stay over there brooding. We'll be over here having a good time. Later! lol

[LUKADATAS]

IT'S BETTER THAN HEARING THE ENTIRE ACDC BACK CATALOGUE PLAYING ON A CONSTANT LOOP. LIKE YOU ALWAYS HEAR AT AUSTRALIAN PARTIES. SHAME THEIR SECOND ALBUM WAS SO PATCHY. THEY SHOULD'VE TEAMED WITH PRINCE FOR NUMBER 2. OR TRIED SOMETHING DIFFERENT LIKE WHAM DID ON 'MAKE IT BIG'

[Steptile1]

This is what happened when the pubs and clubs shut down the live music scene. This is what we got.

[lawrencehakiwai]

This is great - I'm a big fan of stimulation but this slipped me by.

Sugar free is on my hit list now!

[Nevermind7771]

I have this on cassette. The whole record was nice!!!!!!!!!

[Gabbort]

Truly fantastic song, I listen to this almost everyday.

A classic, vastly greater than the music that is on the radio today!

[DeTucciBill]

Great tight band! 80s is the best! Thanks for posting.

[boogiefever1985]

Hey nzoz, where is the black guy that normally plays drums?

[nzoz1987]

@boogiefever1985 I don't know

[Warthogfan]

@boogiefever1985 He suffered Michael Jackson disease! ;-)

[boogiefever1985]

@Warthogfan Hahah. Nice. You do know that Michael Jackson isn't the only one to have the skin disease Vitiligo. If you had AIDS, I wouldn't call it Warthogfan disease!

[Tre404]

@boogiefever1985 ... There are no black guys on my CD cover for this album. I think you're thinking of Breakfast Club ("Right on Track")... fronted by the Gilroy brothers, and the black drummer was Gary Burke. Same year. I think you've just confused the two.

[Tre404]

@boogiefever1985 ..... also, just like Breakfast Club, Wa Wa Nee had a set of brothers—Paul Gray and Mark Gray.  Which leads me further to think you're confusing the two bands.

[jktosh]

@boogiefever1985 it's the same guy - he's wearing a wig. don't believe me? watch the other videos and note the drummer's playing style.... sings along to the songs & sort of bounces his head back & forth. same guy.

[Mikeus2006]

reminds me of "Big Time" by Peter Gabriel. except that this is nowhere near as good.

[subfusion01]

Grüße Fräulein, Sturm-Verbot-Führer, I think that I remember to hear this on the radio in 1987, rocks of this shit,

[mummypippy]

my mums in this didt no see could look so young shes the ginger one in white , :)

[mattyu21]

The one at 3:01?

[raphaelkraus]

Wasn't this song actually 1986 not '87?

(And yes, Jev414, Wa Wa Nee was classed as Funk.)

[petediesel1]

Hello nzoz,

don't know this band is it Duran Duran?

[nzoz1987]

Just a sad sign of things to come in the decline of Oz music...

[Twaddle71]

@petediesel1

Duran Duran? Are u kidding? lol Its Wa Wa Nee as it says above..

[Tre404]

@petediesel1 ....No, it's Wa Wa Nee! Read the heading!

[thewealthofknowledge]

I have the same clip on my channel but not as HQ as yours....so I clicked to see what the 6:37 minute version looked like and it turned into a megamix of Aussie hits! Loved it!

Side note Steve the guitarist contacted me and said thanks for the love with all the Wa Wa Nee clips (Doesn't sound right calling them the Nee's)

[SauronsEye]

Saw Waa Waa Nee live many many years ago at "Sweethearts" in the Stardust Hotel, Cabramatta.

Can't sing, can't play.

There were more than a few boos from the crowd that night.

I remember they didn't stay on long. I said to a friend. "I guess that's it, they've played all 12 songs they know"

[Tre404]

Used to love this song! Who knew Aussies could funk?? I was very impressed. Too bad Wa Wa Nee had not other real hits Stateside. The time, the sound, and the look were certainly right.

[nzoz1987]

Who knew Aussies could funk?

Answer: Aussies.

'Stimulation' reached number 1 in Aus the year prior - quite strange how that song got ignored in the states.

[Tre404]

My question was a rhetorical one, really. Once I heard this back in 1987, I knew it too.  I do recall that "Stimulation" was on the Hot 100 here, but it didn't climb very high. Maybe #90 or so. Anyway, I made sure to find a copy of this CD. Good stuff.

[parachuteclubbed]

I used to spin "Stimulation" here in North America. Yeah, it didn't chart anywhere as high as "Sugar Free". I always thought it was because "Sugar Free" struck that Minneapolis Funk funny bone everyone was resonating to back then. If one closes their eyes and place this between a Prince production, a Jets production, and a Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis production, they'd seamlessly complement each other. "Sugar Free" was brilliant.

[nzoz1987]

The rave and the attention that 'Sugar Free' got in the States does come as a surprise to me (and I would assume many of Aussies), because as SauronsEye's comment (below) suggests, they weren't a greatly appreciated band in Australia. They were considered somewhat a teen-pop band and next to the many (masculine) bands we have in OZ, the Wa Wa's sort of look 'mousey'. 'Stimulation' worked very well in Oz, whilst 'Sugar Free' was sort of received as a 'yeah... catchy enough... nice try...'

[nzoz1987]

*come as a surprise to me (and I would assume many other Aussies)....

[parachuteclubbed]

On this Oz/Mpls note, it cannot be coincidence that in the same 12-month span, Pseudo Echo covered Lipps, Inc.'s one-hit wonder, making it their own one-hit wonder in Canada and the U.S. After "Funkytown" faded, I saw the Love an Adventure video version of "Listening" on telly late one night as the "follow-up" single, only to learn almost 20 years later that that was no follow-up down over Oz/NZ, where'd it'd been a charter already.

[GillianSydney]

Yeah, but can you imagine trying to get drunk to songs like 'Sugar Free' and 'Stimulation'? I mean, you finish a hard week off and all you're wanting is to get drunk to some serious heavy rock and instead, you have to endure this.

I bought into Wa Wa Nee when I was 13 years old, but once I hit the pubs at 17 - this stuff went way under the draws.

[parachuteclubbed]

It's entirely cos they were going for that Erotic City/Funkytown (Minneapolis) sound a little too uncannily. "Stimulation" didn't do anything in North America, and I was only spinning it years after the fact.

No, Wa Wa Nee weren't macho, but consider the day: there might've been other charting "tough guys", but there was a lot more than that going on south of Capricorn. I recall The Church were a moderate success with Starfish in North America, as were Icehouse's Man of Colours.

[subfusion01]

@nzoz1987 Grüße Fräulein, Sturm-Verbot-Führer, no, this you were, of what dry, Australia, that is wa of carreg of wa, BAR of study, of what djs in stations of radio here, what he has said that the challenge in the false radio of the industry to the

[subfusion01]

@nzoz1987 certain extremity of edges the years is used, more ahead free himself that, that were a boy sufficiently, of me the thought who 90 years was a Klipp of the tarareo of the years ', too much for this type of the man is erroneous dead in the city of the university. hé, of that is east Küken with the black hair, proven I, to control the Klipp that cagaram and that would not work,