Face to Face — “10-9-8”

Entered Top 40:  July 21, 1984    
3 weeks 
Peaked at: 38

My wife grew up in the Boston area and maintains Face to Face got a huge local push in 1983-84, ahead of their major-label debut and their participation in the very strange, stylized movie Streets of Fire. Face to Face frontwoman Laurie Sargent dubbed one of Diane Lane’s singing voices in the film; Lane lipsyncs to Sargent on “Nowhere Fast” while the male members of Face to Face play Lane’s backing band. But Streets of Fire was a box-office disappointment, and the movie’s big breakout hit ended up being Dan Hartman’s “I Can Dream About You” (#6, also lipsynced). Meanwhile, Face to Face’s own single “10-9-8” had a brief moment.

Face to Face would record a couple more albums before disbanding in 1988. By the end they were sounding more roots-rock. Meanwhile a California punk band would adopt the name Face to Face in 1991, making later streaming searches difficult.

In the 2000s Sargent formed The Twinemen with former members of Morphine; she was in a long relationship with Morphine/Twinemen drummer Billy Conway until his death in 2021. Face to Face guitarist Angelo Petraglia won a Record of the Year Grammy in 2010 for producing Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody.”