Video: Oswald And The Herringbones "Be By Yourself"

Video: Waiting Here Forever at Newport Music Hall

New Additions: This Is Not A Christmas Album by Oswald And The Herringbones (1987)

One of my favorite things while crate-digging at local record stores is stumbling upon albums or singles that I had no idea existed. In this instance, I was well aware of the 1992 album Time Doesn't Matter by Oswald And The Herringbones. However, the 1987 album This Is Not A Christmas Album was not on my radar when I stumbled upon it at Elizabeth Records here in Columbus. This, of course, is the album that would produce the single and video for Be By Yourself that ended up on MTV, a nice slice of catchy 80s synth-pop.

Know Yer Band: Oswald And The Herringbones

Band: Oswald And The Herringbones

Members
Neal Havener
Michael Barone
Thomas Boyer
Steve Sims
Andy Harrison
Rick Ziliak

Releases
1987 - This Is Not A Christmas Album album (OATH Records)
1992 - Time Doesn't Matter album (OATH Records)

The Q-FM 96 Hometown Compilations

As mentioned in a few previous posts, Q-FM 96 put out a number of "Hometown" compilations throughout the 1980s featuring an interesting variety of artists over the years. Q-FM keeps a Q-Seum page of their history and includes some screenshots. Nine total compilations were released between 1980 and 1988 - eight on vinyl and the last on cassette.

A lot of the material is expectedly radio friendly 80s AOR, pop and singer/songwriter. Occasionally, some more diverse material made the cut, such as the Willie Phoenix band The Buttons (Vol. 1), Rosie and The Jetboys (Vol. 3), Oswald And The Herringbones (Vol. 5), as well as discoveries like The Guise (Vol. 3) and Columbus (Vol. 4).