The Vapors and "Turning Japanese"

One-hit wonders? Please.

Ronald Reagan is so far in the rearview mirror he could almost be a punchline, but he wasn’t to me. In 1980, I was 9. Not old but an old 9, if you know what I mean. I remember the election that year, the seas of white faces on the television screen. They were the “values voters,” and they scared me. They wanted Reagan, and Reagan wanted more nukes.

Growing up in D.C., it felt like there were giant crosshairs painted over the city. No one seemed to see how insane it all was. Even my wise and sober father was caught up in it: We had to stand up to the Soviets, or next thing we knew they’d be tramping through the Rose Garden. I felt like I was being swept out to sea.

That year, I was sent up to Boston to visit my older sister, Kate. She was cool, lived in an apartment, listened to edgy music. Knowing I was hooked on rock & roll, she showed me a record she'd picked up in Amsterdam: “It’s gonna be a big hit over here,” she told me.

I studied the cover: “New Clear Days.” The image unsettled me: A weatherman mottled with blotches of radiation.

Behind him, a map of England with symbols for rain, wind, and fallout. It creeped me out, but I got it: They saw what I saw.

“Turning Japanese” was kinda sorta a hit here (#36, late in 1980). But it’s not the highlight, not for me. The songs that spoke to me were steeped in dread—“Bunkers,” “Cold War,” “Trains”—and thick with cold, distant-sounding guitars. I’d never heard a record that sounded so tight, edgy, fearful. That’s thanks to Vic Coppersmith-Heaven, who'd give The Jam’s music new dimension and punch, too.

So don't call The Vapors one-hit wonders, please. Their transmission reached me just as I was sinking.I I heard it, pulled myself to shore, and started walking towards something brighter.