Shocking Innocence

Yet another great song from the debut record from The Cars:

The Cars are such an underrated band. Band leaders Richard Otcasek and Benjamin Orzechowski met when Benjamin was the bandleader on a Cleveland TV rock show that Richard watched.

They played together several times in different unsigned bands around Cleveland, Columbus, New York, Michigan and Rhode Island in the 60’s and early 70’s.

They even got signed in 1972 as a folk trio out of Boston (along with Jas Goodkind) as ‘Milkwood’ and put out a record full of hippie jamming the likes of CSN&Y and The Moody Blues!

But as cool as it was it failed to chart and they went back the drawing board. Ben Orr moved to Boston and Ric Ocasek headed back to Cleveland.

At some point Richard Otcasek and Benjamin Orzechowski became Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr. Orr called Ocasek and invited him out to Boston bragging about the music scene.

They performed early versions of Cars songs as an acoustic duo, then as Cap’n Swing, and by 1976 Greg Hawkes and Elliot Easton were added to the lineup and The Cars were launched.

In 1977 their demo Just What I Needed was the number one requested song on Boston rock radio, and by the end of the year they were signed to Elektra Records. Their debut record was released early 1978.

At last count, The Cars have sold over 23 million albums worldwide.