Songoftheday 6//16 - All around the big bad world on the CIA machine, Ten ten the President's men In a big black limousine...

"Shake For The Sheik" - The Escape Club
from the album Wild Wild West (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5

Today's song of the day comes from the British modern rock band the Escape Club, who had shuffled up to #1 on the American pop chart with the gun-toting novelty "Wild Wild West". The second single from their eponymous debut album took them to another dry and arid part of the world. "Shake For The Sheik". written by the band and produced by Chris Kimsey (engineer for the Rolling Stones and Peter Frampton in the 70s), was another bouncy light-funk/rock jaunt that through out current topics like tweets over an INXS-ish beat...

"Shake For The Sheik" became the band's second top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in January of 1989. The single also was a minor hit in New Zealand at #46, but like their other single never hit the chart in their native UK.

Up tomorrow: A prog-rock side-project gets paternally nostalgic.