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The 1980s New Wave Band You Didn't Know Featured Bill Paxton

In 1982, Bill Paxton and Andrew Todd Rosenthal teamed up to form Martini Ranch, according to Billboard. The band features a sort of who's who of early 1980s new wave. Two members of Devo performed on one of the band's singles and Cindy Wilson of the B-52's also appeared on the band's first album, "Holy Cow," as did actors Judge Reinhold and Bud Cort. Martini Ranch never really went anywhere, and Paxton himself went on to be known more as an actor than a musician, but some of the band's work did make it into the movies. Specifically, their song "Headin' West" appeared on the soundtrack to "You Can't Hurry Love," as well as on the soundtrack to "Brain Dead," in which Paxton starred (via IMDb).

Martini Ranch may not have made it big, but few new wave acts of the early 1980s can say that they produced a video directed by James Cameron. Bill Paxton's band, however, can make that claim: the seven-minute video for "Reach" was indeed directed by the same man who made "Titanic" and "Avatar," according to IMDb. In the Old west-themed video, a black hat-wearing Paxton pulls into view on a motorcycle, while a rattler emerges from a dusty old skull of a longhorn. After a lengthy narrative intro, the song begins blending themes from Spaghetti Western movie soundtracks with the driving beat of `80s-era pop radio. Paxton himself played a leading role in the video (pictured above).

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