In this episode, we continue our exploration of the first decade of MTV’s 120 Minutes. This week, we are exploring the music of February 1987, featuring a couple of college radio classics and a “mystery” song that was brand-new to everyone.
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Episode 2 – Feb 1987 (123 downloads )TRANSCRIPT
And welcome back to 120 Months. This is our journey through MTV’s 120 minutes. We’re going to month by month and just kind of paying some tribute to a. to the songs and videos that made their appearance on one of our favorite shows on MTV and we’re going in order
So this is episode number two, which puts us in February of 1987. One thing, you know, right off the bat before we get into the songs, one thing I did notice already, going through the, oh, and I should mention, so going through the 120 minuteses playlist. We are getting these from a website called 120 minutesutes.org who has spent years archiving playlists from different sources and kind of trying to put together the history of MTV’s 120 minutes
So they have been invaluable in helping us kind of figure out what we’re going to do each week or each episode. And we probably wouldn’t be able to do this without them. I don’t even know if we would have had the idea to do this without them
So giant shout out to them for doing all the hard work. If you go to 120minutes.org, they have virtually every show that’s ever aired on MTV as far as 120 minuteses goes in, like the playlist linked to the YouTube video so you can go and watch each video and kind of recreate the shows. I think as we get later on, they actually have archives of the shows themselves
So you can see like the V, you know interstitial stuff, but it initially it was, there’s less information and then kind of they get more and more information as you get deeper into the run of 120 minutes. So anyway, episode two, February 1987. We chose a song to go over and then we’re going to do a kind of a mystery song at the end
Starting off this week. Oh, and my co. Sorry, Scott Mobley, Keith Porterfield sitting in with me today, and we’re going to kick it off with Scott
Okay, so for this one, I chose Skinny Puppies Dig It, which aired several times throughout this month the month before it and the month after it. So this was kind of a staple of 120 minutes at the time. I So, a skinny puppy is one of the sort of founding bands of the industrial movement of the ’80s
This was sort of coming out hand in hand when ministry was sort of coming along allthough I think this is ahead of ministry a little bit. Now, their paths would cross, ministry would go a different direction, and Skinny Puppy would kind of just stay the same through all of that. But this is really, I think, ahead of its time for this kind of music at this time
So this is from their third album. The album’s called Mind the Perpetual Intercourse. This was the leadoff single of it
It was a college radio hit, you know, this kind of music is still relatively new at the time. This is a really solid example of it, though. It’s maybe not the best example of this kind of music or a personal favorite of mine from Skinny Puppy, but it is a good song and it was a hit for them
So all the hallmarks of the industrial sound are here. You, they have like the single crunchy guitar over the electronic beat. There’s Gregorian chants in it
There’s samples of spoken word, samples from movies and stuff like that. It’s all in there. This song is a little slower, maybe a little drony for what maybe associate with this kind of music
But, you know, I think the interesting thing about this, when I was sort of digging down the rabbit hole, I was always a fan of these guys, but I was never like a huge, huge fan. In my head, you know, this type of music really kind of started with the Germans and then bled its way into America. And in this case, Canada, skinin Puppy is Canadian
This song is on Skinny Puppy’s third album, and this predates Front 24 42’s Headhunter by almost two years. It predates Nitzerb’s Joining the Chant by a good year. I really think maybe these guys were more on the forefront of this than I originally thought they were
I really. Now, that’s not to say that they weren’t influenced by that stuff. You know, Germany had their bands out there at this time
You know, Front 24 42, even though they don’t have a big hit until a couple years later, they were around at this time. But, you know, I don’t think I knew anything of them at this time. So I really think maybe instead of these guys being influenced by the German industrial music, I really think they were more kind of walking hand in hand with them
This is sort of the start of it, though. You know definitely lyrically influenced by, I think, some of the goth music of the late ’70s, Bauhaus, Joy Division, that kind of stuff with sort of the electronic beats of like a craft work or, you know, some early German electronic music. But, you know, if you’re not into industrial or you’re always wanted to dabble in industrial or anything, this is a perfectly good place to start
The video is, particularly for this era of MTV and music videos in general, it’s pretty good. It It doesn’t say much about the song, and it’s more about emotional, you know, you know resonance or whatever, you know, trying to evoke something, creating a mood more than it’s saying anything about the song you’re listening to. But it’s really good at that for this time, you know
So I I really enjoyed kind of going back into this. I don’t think I’d ever seen this video before. I knew the song, but I don’t think I’d ever seen this video before
So this was kind of a fun watch for me. And really kind of eye-opening in the fact that I think that even though, you know, they’ve maybe sort of been forgotten or don’t get mentioned as much as some other industrial bands, you know, Skinny Puppy really was a pioneer of this kind of music. You know, if you want to make the comparison to ministry, Ministry’s Twitch comes out about the same time as this, and it’s very similar
You know what Ministry was doing on Twitch is very similar to this music. But like I said before, Skinny Puppy just continues doing this. and ministry goes on to become ministry. They get a little more to the metal side of things, less to the dance side of things
But, you know, at this moment in time, 86 or so, when this is album comes out, you know, ministry and Skinny Puppy are doing about the same thing. And I always thought they were sort of copying what the German bands were doing, but I really am starting to think maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe they were all kind of growing and morphing at the same time because, like I said, some of the big German industrial dance hits don’t come out for another two years after this song
So it’s kind of crazy that they don’t get more acclaim or whatever word you want to say. Credit, I guess, would be just more credit. For me, like, so my entry into industrial music was a year or two after what we’re talking about now in 1987
So it would have been more like 89 or 900. And of course, it was Nine Inch Nails. And Down in It was the very first song that I ever heard from Nine Inch Nails well
I mean, you can draw a big fat line connecting this song down in it. They sound like they come from the same album from the same, almost, you know, if I, if you had told me, oh, this is an early Nine Nails track or whatever back in the day, I’d have been like, oh, yeah, obviously it is. Like it sounds, you know, I don’t know as much about where skinny puppies influences came from, but I can definitely draw a line to like who they influenced after them
And that certainly runs through Nine Inch Nails. I mean it’s obvious, obvious that for sure. And I I actually, you know, before I did any research if you would have told me, you know, Skinny Puppy herd front 242’s headhunter and then started writing music, I’d go, okay, yeah, that makes perfect sense
But I think it went the other way, almost, you know, or at least at the same time. So, yeah, and you’re right. Like Nine Inch Nails, a particularly pretty hate machine, is 100% influen by this
And then probably, you know, a bunch of other bands just like them, but this has to be in that conversation as, you know, sort of creating that, what became 90 in sales. Absolutely. Abs. I will also say for those of you who maybe are like watching the videos along with the podcast are kind of checking stuff out, you, you’re going to watch this video first, probably, and you’re going to think, why is Scott praising this video? And then you’re going to watch the other three videos that we’re going to talk about later? You’re going to be like, oh yeah, for 87, this video was actually. Yeah, okay
I see I see what your see your point now. And you also, you know, you put yourself in the mindset that you are watching a video from 1987. Like this They still weren’t really sure what videos were at that time
And so when you take that into consideration, this is a pretty solid video. It’s it’s like I said, it’s all vibes. It’s all, you know, creating a mood
But it’s it’s watchable. And yeah, when you watch the other videos we’re going to talk about today, you’re going to think this is this is thriller compared to those. The video itself was fine
It’s not bad. I’m sure it was a little controversial when it was out at first. Apparently, it got banned in a few places because of the weird letterboxing thing that it has going on, and like there’s images on top and above or above and below the letterboxed area where the main video is happening
And I guess there was some thought that there was something subversive going on in there. I watched this video after reading that, like specifically looking for that to say, okay, what was it that disturbed people about the weird stuff going on in the margins? And I had no idea what that would be
I don’t have any idea why that video was considered subversive or there was banned by certain, you know, networks or whatever. I don’t get it at all. I’m not sure why that was
The video was fine. The song itself, I did not care for, as you guys probably might have said. It’s necessarily my jam, so, you know, it’s not not probably surprising that I didn’t like it
I will say, though, that if we are going to compare this song, and I really don’t know anything else about skinny Puppy, so I’m just going by this song. But if we’re comparing this to Ether Twitch, by Ministry or Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails, this is a pale, pale comparison. Those bands and those albums are far beyond this to my mind
And maybe St puppy, maybe this is not a representative example. Maybe they got better as they went along. famili more, this was not something that that I particularly cared for. You’t care for with the song, to be perfectly honest with you
Well, you know, that’s interesting you say that, because I am, you know, I’m a pretty big ministry fan. We’ve established in the past. I think this song song is almost better than anything on Twitch, maybe with a couple of exceptions
But Twitch to me is still ministry trying to figure out who they are, and Jensen is still doing that with fake British accent. And I think that what’s interesting about this band is that they, we’re basically doing electronic dance music with that sort of growly vocal, which becomes the signature of ind industrial, with all the other stuff that, you know, and industrial goes beyond them into things like Nine Inch Nails and what ministry ends up becoming, not what ministry is at this time. But to me, this stands up against anything on Twitch
I don’t know. I know you and I kind of disagree on that album, but. Yeah, I would take over the shoulder before I would take the song easily, easily
I would take Angel, I think, is the name of one of the other songs on Twips that I really like. Those are like four or four songs. To me, this one is more of a sketch, you know, There’s stuff going on, there’s a little guitar, there’s a beat
But, yeah, I don’t know. It doesn’t really strike me as being like a fully formed song. That’s where I think the Front 242 comparison comes in
Like, it’s a little bit more, almost like samples. I mean, there’s vocals, but there’s some samples thr in that. You know, it’s, Front 2442 always felt like that way where it’s just kind of like some stuff kind of getting thrown at you
And, and, and whereas like Nine Inch Nails, most of the stuff on Pretty Hate Machine are kind of more fully formed songs than this one is. Again, I don’t know. There may be other songs by Skinny Puppy that are much more kind of like fully fleshed out
There are. There’s certainly some, there’s certainly some that are more more upbeat than this, more aggressive, than this. This is more of a kind of a drone, you know, for them soundwise
But I think all the characteristics of this type of music are there. Yeah, I would, I was trying to think, like, from Funchy 14 is a good example, because that’s obviously what this is. It’s, you know, and like I said, I can’t decide, who helped who with the sound
But that sort of droning, repetitive, the rigidity of that German sound, you know, that precision of the German industrial sound or dance sound, is definitely on display here. It is a little long, I guess, and it is. It does
You’re right that it doesn’t, you feel like it’s about to go somewhere and it never does. Kind of is the same thing for four and a half minutes. But I don’t know
Being a fan of this type of music, I found it perfectly serviceable. I wouldn’t put it in my top 10 skinny puppy songs, but it’s a good one, I think. But, you know, maybe you’re right
Maybe if you’re not a big industrial person, maybe this isn’t the place to start. Maybe there’s better places to go. But I definitely think that, you know, if you want to dabble into this type of music that Skinny Puppy is one of the bands you should look into because they’re definitely at the foreground of it
Yeah, and you, I’m not an industrial person. So, you know, maybe that, maybe that’s it. And if you are, and if you want to, you know, investigate the early days of industrial, Sky puppy certainly is probably a good place to start
Like, I said, I myself am not terribly familiar with them. This is one of the first skininny puppy songs I’ve ever heard. I’ve always heard the name of the band, but I never really knew anything about them
And so, you know, maybe this was not the best place for me to try to jump in on them. But yeah, and not being a human industrial fan, I can’t say that this is not represented the genre or anything. It may very well be
It’s just not something that did anything for me personally. And if I went to hear this and you and you were to tell me, okay, so now you know something about industrial, my first thought would be, well, I probably don’t like industrial music very much. Yeah, no, that’s fair
I also just really quickly want to mention that how weird it is that when you hear the band named Skinny Puppy, it sounds like it should. It sounds dark and sinister. But if you really bring it down, Skinny Pppy, there’s nothing sinister about that at all. for some reason, it evokes that
I don’t know how they did that. I don’t know how they came up with the perfect name to instill you with that image and yet use two totally harmless words to do it. I had that moment while we were talking 30 seconds ago
I actually had the image of like skinny puppy. I’ve never actually thought those words. I’ve just.
But when you heard there was a band, an industrial band called Skinny Puppy, you were like, yeah, that’s a good name for the industrial. Like, that did not hit me until literally like 30 seconds before you said that. I was kind of like, it is a weird name
I’m also really curious about the video thing to see why it was banned. I thought where that was going to go was Keith was going to be like,. So I watched it again, you know, really closely to see what, why it got banned
And then I woke up on the floor and I was like in the middle of a pentagram and candles were lit and I don’t know. I didn’t know you could put that many schwasagers in a video. I lost two hours of my life
I’m not sure. Well, the next video we’re going to talk about is a little bit of a departure from Skinny Puppy. It’s a little different, a little different vibe, a little different vibe
So we’re going to dive a little bit also into, for lack of a better term, I saw this bandied about, so we’ll say the Carolina sound, which was popular kind of in the mid 80s and I think best personified by REM, although you don’t really hear that term applied to them. I’m not sure that term is really applied that widely, but I did, it is in like the Wikipedia page for some of the artists that surrounding this kind of nexus, which was Drive-in Studios in North Carolina. owned and operated by Mitch Easter, who was the lead singer in a band called Detective and was a co-producer on REM’s first two albums, and then Don Dick.on, who is the person we are actually going to talk about today, who co-produced those two REM albums and worked with Mitch at Driving Studios and was in his own band initially, a band called Arrogance in the 70s who are a just a really actually delightful, like kind of pop band for that time, like what pop music was in the late 70s. I was struggling to come up with some sort of comparison for arrogance because I mean, I didn’t have a ton of time to just like go deep
But I mean, almost like kind of like Eddie Money type music, you know, just like upbeat rock that’s with the good tune. Like that’s what they they were very good at. They ended up getting signed to Warner Brothers, so they were pretty good, pretty good band
And then he ends up doing stuff solo, but he plays on numerous, numerous albums that he produced and sometimes just that he just played on. He’s connected to our already favorite here at the podcast, Dump Truck was in that orbit. So we talked about Dump Truck last week and Don Dixon actually played on one of their albums
So this time we’re talking about the name of the album it’s off of is most of the girls like to dance, but only the only some of the boys like to. That is the name of the album. True story, by the way
And if there’s any like young young. Yeah, man, if there’s any young boys out there who are thinking like, man, I can never get girls to talk to me or girls hate me, learn how to dance. All girls love to dance
Very few guys do. It’ll put you in like a whole different orbit of like, it’ll be like a tin to one ratio. You’ll all be much better time meeting a girl if you learn how to dance
The name of the song is praying mantis. That’s the name of the song that we’re talking about. I feel like a praying man I can tell I’ to What to say about this song? A, it’s fantastic. It’s a great, like, mid 80s bop. It’s really well written
And so it goes kind of surprising places. It’s not as simplistic as maybe it sounds like the first 45 seconds or so, you’re kind of like, it’s got this really simple baseline and played by Don Dixon. And you’re just kind of like, what, but then it, the song just goes like in a couple different directions and I really actually enjoy it
I mean, it’s, it’s nothing super complex. It’s not one that necessarily I would, you know, put on my my playlist and listen to every day, but a really fun, really great example of, of that Carolina sound, jangle pop, however you want to describe it. The video is at
I told you, oh, man, where where to start with the video? It It’s some green screen magic with some just totally unnecessary compositing of two different people. things happening at once for reasons that aren’t entirely clear all the time. Don is an interesting example of probably kind of the video Kill the radio star problem where guys like Don, I think, 10 years after this, were never probably going to get on MTV
So it’s kind of a miracle that guys like Don and Mitch, for that matter, who were not your standard kind of, nobody is going to confuse them for Michael Hutchins, for example. I mean, they’re, you know, not that they didn’t have kind of the charisma, because I think they actually do have some charisma, but they just don’t have the look. They don’t have the vibe
They don’t have that like rock star thing that had that you had to have to get on MTV kind of moving forward. I think this was maybe 120 minutes was the last place where you still could do this, like as we get into the 90s. But, but yeah, you look at Don and you’re not thinking, oh, that’s a rock star
But he is a talented, multi-instrumentalist musician. He writes amazing music. He’s produced some of the greatest albums of the 80s, especially when you talk about like RE.M. and other bands like the DBs and Smithereens and stuff that helped kind of form the basis of what was college rock and then became alternative in indie rock
So, so, no shade at Don Dixon for not looking like a rock star because he absolutely is a rock star. But yeah, I enjoyed the song. The video is a fun 80s trinket to watch, I guess
I don’t know else to put it. But it was, yeah, it was a fun fun time to revisit something that I, I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard this particular song, but I I barely remember some of Don’s stuff from back at the KTXT days and it was it was fun to go back and check it out. Yeah, this one is a pretty good song
It wasn’t one of my favorites, but I did like it better than I did the skinny puppy song, I would have to say. The video, yeah, yeah, incredibly aings video. Like, the girl that’s dancing with him at the end, like, if you, you know, were to say, what’s the quintessential 80s get up, like, what do girls look like in the 80s? They look like that, like the stretch hands from the headband with the short hair in them everything. Yeah, it was very, very, very, very 80s. And I will say, though, that you merchant Don Dixon’s look as a guy that whose hair is thinning out on top, I totally have another option now
The bald on top mulletet in the back thing seems like a really killer way to go. So thanks to D Dixon, maybe one of these days days, you guys will get to see me sporting. them on top. We m it in the back look because I thought that was really good.
I like, I’m going to get. Please, please, please, please. Yeah
Yeah. Yeah, we will turn this into a video podcast if you do that, my friend. Yeah, I didn’t I don’t have a whole lot to add to that because I kind of agree
But this definitely is a, you know, if we talked a lot a little on the previous episode about MTV sort of created this thing where you not only had to have a sound, but you had to have a look. And this is a perfect example of seeing that part, you know, the not having a look thing start to fade out. Like this guy beat, you know, he got this out there just in time for everyone to go, wait a minute, this guy don’t look right, you know? And it’s kind of a shame because I did dig this song. It’s really, you know, there’s nothing nothing earth shattering about it, but it’s a catchy little pop song and it’s nice. And I liked it and I enjoyed it
And the video with it, it’s almost like it really kind of highlights just how much that era was defined by a slickness and a look that this just doesn’t have. And maybe that’s why, you know, he doesn’t do much beyond this as far as recording goes. You know, he becomes more of a producer, more of a behind the scenes guy, and you can kind of see why if you watch this video
But yeah, I enjoyed this one. It was a super 80s style video and a good song. I liked it
So more think about Don Dixon until I went into this, just listening to this song, and this being the only song of his, that I’ve heard at this point, you definitely can hear the through line from his production work. Like what this song sounds like and the production on the first couple of REM albums, or if you want to say like the Smitheres, like you mentioned, some of their stuff. Yeah, I think you get a good idea of kind of what he does behind the board on this song
And like if you like the sound of it, if you like, the kind of the way it’s put together and everything, I think you’re going to like the things that he has produced prior to this and after it as well. Yeah, if you have any interest at all in like REM, the Smithereens, that Jangle Pop era, Carolina Rock, Southern Rock, if you you want to call it that. Don’t forget Dump truck
Yeah, yeah, please don’t forget Dump truck. Start there. Start with Dump truck
It all starts with dump truck. It. It all goes back to dump truck
No, listen listening to Don Dixon and Let’s Active, which is Mitch Easter’s band. You know, those are the guys that helped REM form their sound and so obviously they’re not going to stray that far from it, right? that there was kind of a thing that was happening with those guys that they tapped into
And none of it was, it wasn’t radical, extreme, you know, wild production. It was it was actually kind of interesting reading Don Dixon describing some of the stuff they did for AriM, which was like, yeah, you know, we were kind of recording like conversations that were happening in the, in the studio and like, you know, street noise and mixing it into the album. Like, you really don’t hear that that much on on the early RM albums
Like I wouldn’t have thought, ooh, they were doing all these experimental production things. But what he also said is like, we weren’t really planning it or talking about it. We were just doing everything in the moment
And that to me does speak to like the production you hear on the album, which is just this like, you know, did they do it all in one take? Probably not, but it does’t feel like they spent hours and hours and hours and they surely didn’t have like Pro Tools or, you know, whatever logic or whatever the kids are using these days to like edit in, you know, notes from guitars and edit this thing and move. I mean, they win in and they played the instruments and they recorded them, you know, really crisply and cleanly and got these recordings that had the vitality that the bands had live
Because that was always a big deal. when the some of the people that I talked to who saw R.E.M. in the early days, it was like, man, they’re live shows were so fantastic. And it was really cool that Mitch and Don managed to capture that on the albums that it had that kind of some of that vitality did make it into the studio albums because a lot of times that wasn’t the case. And you can kind of hear that on Don’s album as well
And like, and Mitch’s, you know, let’s active albums. Like they really did have a style, even though the production style doesn’t jump out at you and it doesn’t make itself the important thing on the album. You don’t listen to it and go, ooh, I wonder who, you know, produced this
It’s not that kind of thing the way like other producers who kind of put their stamp on stuff do bring their production to the forefront. But yet, I think it’s really interesting that they did create kind of a template for some of these bands to follow, and each band took it and then kind of put their twist on it. But yeah, when you go back to Don’s stuff and Mitch’s stuff, you hear the basis for all of that because they did have, they had those ideas and they had they had a lot of talent themselves and they had a lot of songwriting ability to themselves and some of that stuff is really, really good
And stands you know, pretty well up against, you know, the stuff like REM and Smithereens that that got really much bigger. You make a very interesting point in that, you know, this is not a production style that you’re going to go, wow, listen to that production. You know, you don’t say that with a lot of this stuff, but it is so pleasing to the ears to listen to
And, you know, every band you mentioned, REM., the Smithereens, this song, you know, all that stuff, it’s just, it’s just a rainbow in your ears when you hear it. It’s so pleasing. And I think that’s part of the jangle pop sound, but, you know, the production helps with that
So why it doesn’t like stick out as production? It certainly works. It definitely has a very pleasing sound
Given that, it’s interesting to note, one of the things I read about Don Dixon when I was kind of doing a little background work on this, was that he was in the running to produce, Never mindind, Nirvana before Butch Vig got the job. They had actually contacted him. He was one of the guys they were thinking about
It is hard for me to get my head around the idea of that album without Butch Vig’s production, if it had Don Dixon producing it instead. I cannot imagine what that album would have sounded like with Don Dixon behind the board. Yeah, that I would actually pay money to hear him get the tapes and take a crack at it just to see what he came up with
I wonder if any of that happens if it’s produced by someone else, and that’s not a slight against Don Dixon. Just if that album doesn’t sound like it does, does that little music revolution happen? You know, we might be sitting here today talking about the new album that Cinderella is about to put out or something, you know? Well, you know, we have a whole episode. If you go back to last season about me explaining why Nirvana is not that important for the musical revolution. So for those of you, you, who remember that conversation, I’m going to have to say that it would have gone just the same way
It would have been fine. It’ have been great. No problem
But I would pay a significant amount of money to hear like the Don Dixon version of Nevermind. Absolutely. Because from the get-go, because you can say, well, he would have tweaked this and tweaked that
No, like when a producer was working with a band like that, it would have affected everything, the recording process, the songwriting, like everything would be different probably, Especially for a band like Nirirvana, who is still on the early stages. I think later on, a more mature band probably has more say and the producer is more of a partner, an equal partner. I feel like at this time, Don Dixon probably would have kind of steered the direction that Nirvana went in, much like Butch Vig did
So I think you would have gotten something that is even more different than maybe you’re kind of like thinking of just like, well, maybe the guitar would have been louder or no, he would have put the drums back. No, it would have been, I think, a very, very different album. It would have been wildly different, yeah
Yeah. No, yeah. Whether Nirvana would have been as big as they were, you know, I don’t know, I probably not, because of what are the chances that two different albums by Nirvana, you know, would have had the same effect
But the alternative revolution would have been exactly the same. The alternative revolution for sure, but the grunge thing. Like, I mean, we talked about this on that episode
If smells like Teen Spirit doesn’t sound like it does, then that doesn’t happen. You know, if that is a completely different song than it is, then maybe it doesn’t happen the same way., you know, it probably still happens, but maybe, you know, Pearl Jam is on the cover of all the magazines instead of Nirvana or something, you know, or maybe, you, a better grunge band gets launched into Superstardom. Who knows? But it definitely doesn’t happen the way it did if that song doesn’t sound the way that song sounds. Yeah, thought experiments that, unfortunately, we will never, ever know know, like the answer to, but man, wouldn’t you, wouldn’t you. What about is is fun, isn’t it? Man, you’re not kidding. You’re not kidding. All right
So a quintessential 80s song without a doubt. We’re about to talk talk about what that I wasn’t familiar with, but after listening to it, I can say also is definitely sounds like a quintessential 80s song. But before I turn it over to Keith, I do want to just give a quick shout out
We talked about Mitch Easter. Mitch appears in a documentary film called 35,000 Watt’s The Story of College Radio. I happen to direct that film and it happens to be available on Amazon Prime and Tubi and Google Play
So if you want to watch a documentary about college radio and hear Mitch Easter and British Downs talk about REM, you can hear Joey Santiago talk about the pixies and all kinds of fun stuff. Go check it out. TB, Amazon Prime, Google Play
It’s called 35,000 Watts Story of College Radio. All right. Third song in our February of 1987, 120 minutes journey is Keith’s
Yeah, so today I’m going to talk about a song called Light of the World, by the band Palum and the Angel. light of the world’s T, shine on me now You in the world Don’t find it I’m you Coming I am This one was a lot of fun to me, because I’ve been aware of these guys for a while, but let me let me get there. So first things first. Imagine if you will a teenage Keith quarter if youfield
This actually would have been my junior year in high school. When I was in school, I played on the school golf team, not particularly well, but I did play for the school golf team. In my junior year, we got a bunch of new freshmen in on the team that year
And so, you know, we practiced off campus, we had to go, to the golf course after our last class to go practice. Pretty routinely, a couple of those new freshmen would ride out to the course with me, because they obviously couldn’t drive, and I had a car, and so we had to get out there. So they rode with me
And what I actually had was a little Dodge ram pickup truck. And I just for shits and grins, I looked it up to see the current version of the biggest, baddest version of the Dodge pickup truck is the Dodgeram 3,500. The little truck that I had was a Dodge Ram 50
It looks to me that it would take the raw materials evolve for about three Dodge and 50s to construct one Dod and 3, 3500. So, yeah, it probably about one of those little pickups that was popular back in the 80s. It was over, it was huge, just a little starter car that my folks had gotten for me
Which was nice one. I appreciate that. But the one thing we did have going for it is that it had a pretty nice pioneer stereo system in it that I had asked for for Christmas or birthday or something had got gotten installed in there
It had a cassette deck, which, was critical to establishing the viability of your vehicle for a cruising option back in those days. And so on the way out to golf practice every day. We go to listen to music
It was just one of our things that we did. We’re one of those guys shows up, and he’s got a tape, a new tape he wants to listen to. And it’s these guys, it’s Bam and the Angelel
And this was the first time I had ever heard of these guys or heard anything from them. This album was actually their second miss major label album. It was the one that came after the one that’s got light of the World on it
And actually, I’ve always thought, just thought it was their second album. It turns out they had a self-released first album before their major label stuff, so I guess it depends on how seriously you want to take this or take that one. But this was the second album on Virgin
It was called Roof for Die. Boom up a Hard Rock album, I would describe it as, with kind of a tendency toward the kind of the pop metal that was so popular back in the late ’80s. It had a song on it that was called, “I Love the Things You Do to Me, which got a little bit of rock airplay
It never really broke big, but it did get some airplay. It had another song on it called “I’ll Show You Something Special, which was included on the soundtrack to the John Candy and Steve Martin movie Planes, Trains, and Honorobiles. So this album had a little bit of traction
I bought a cassette copy of it. I liked it, bought a cassette copy of myself, listened to it for however long my, attention span for a new album was back in those days, and certainly shorter than it is nowadays. They did a couple of words after that, I happened to be in a mall record store inland, Texas of all places, and just randomly came across a cassette copy of their first label, or album for Virgin, which was called The Greatest St Story Ever Told
And that’s the one that’s got this song Light of the World on it. And this one, I liked even more than I likedL Free or Die. This one was, for lack of a better way to put it, much more mood waving, a lot more sense, a lot less kind of crunchy rock guitar and more kind of the chiming, ringing, like picked guitar parts
Essentially think more echoing the Bunny M and a little less motley Crrew, and we’ll get there. It had a lot of the world, Arnold, which is probably has always been my favorite song on that album. Really good one
Having a little a song on it called Day Night, which is really good. The One thing I like about Day and Night is it’s one of those songs like, you know, usually you get like an intro into a song or like a couple of instruments start, and then the later the other instruments on. Boy Night is one of those songs where it goes from zero to 16, like right off the bat
There’s one second. It’s quiet the next second you’re fully, the song is fully played., you, fully formed. It’s kind of like you fall into the song before you even realize you’re listening to it
That one’s really good. It’s got another one called Slow Down on it that’s got some synth horns on it, which I know could be kind of a cheesy tropeope that was used in the 80s, but used to just fantastic effect on that song. So anyway, it was really, really good
I liked that one a lot, too. Like I said, probably liked it even more than I liked to live Free or Die. Not long after that, they released their third album
It was called Days of Madness. I bought that one on CD and did not care for it at all. That was just not very good
I went and looked at the track list to that album to see if I could remember any of those songs, and there was not a single one of them that stood out to me at all. And so after that, I just kind of fell out of those guys, and that copied that singing copy ofBs of Madness got sold at one point or another in college when I was poor and needed beer money. I do still have the cassette copies of the other two albums, and in fact, to this day, the cassette copy of Greatest Story Ever Told is the only physical copy of that album that I have ever even seen
So, you know what? Like I said, I fell out of them that never think much about them. Years later, this would have been back in the artus, I guess, when I was moving and going through boxes and I found a bunch of my old cassettes and found those two tapes, you know, just remembered how much I liked, and went back to the iTunes store and cherry picked you some songs off those two albums
So I’ve had them in my music library, and it came over the years when I’m super shuffling the entire library, one of those songs will come up. But largely, I just had not thought about these guys in a lot of years until a couple of weeks ago. And so we’re looking at doing this, and I’m looking through the playlist to see what I’m going to do
And I was dobsmacked when I saw this band’s name on the playlist. Like, I did not know that Light of the World had been a single. I did not know that there was a video for it
I did not know that was something that ever would have played on 120 minutes. We could have told me me when we were first doing this, that you know, some band from your past is going to come flying out of the ether during this project and who wouldn’t surprise you, and giving me 100 guesses. And I would never have guessed Baleim and the Angel
Like, this was a complete and total surprise to me when I saw this on the playlist. So which was great. It was fun, you know, to have this kind of come out of nowhere
So you know, after I found the song, you know, of course, we went back and listened to it, man. And the song itself is really good. I really liked it
It is kind of a mid-to-up tempo rocker with one of those kind of chiming lead guitar lines that runs throughout it. good guitar part. The r is about a girl who’s left home and things have not gone right for her, so she’s waiting for the light of the world to shine on her and change her fates. The video itself is a pretty generic, cheesy80s video movie a performance video
It looks like maybe they’s supposed to be red and ws or something. There’s like shifting sands and like blocks of masonry later around on the ground as they’re, you know, strutting around, playing the song with a purple or big AI’s hair going through it and all that stuff. So, you know, we not a terrible video, not a great video either
The one thing I’ll say about the video is that toward the end of it, the singer, Mark Morris, appears to be rolling the puffy shirt from that one episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry Seinfeld has to the pilot W Champoo, The Tonight Show a little over it is. Yeah, I’ been through it now is that they got that idea from this video because Mark Morris is very much wearing that shirt at the end of that video. So, good one, a pretty good video, not great, kind of like said, generic kind of 80s video
As far as the band goes, they’re a Scottish band. Middle and three Brothers. There’s Martin Morris, who plays b and sings
Jim Morris plays guitar, Baldtim Mor, who plays drums. They have had other musicians with them at various times in the past, but generally, the heart of the bandage is the three brothers. They are still active
They’ had put stuff out recently, and they actually had to EP out with last year, which I didn’t know about. And so I haven’t heard it, couldn’t vouch for it. But yeah, they’re still out there doing their thing
And then, of course, there is the main blow of the angel. If you were thinking to yourself, that sounds like it might be a biblical reference, you would be right right. That’s exactly what it means
It turns out Bam, one’s a prophet that one of the kings hired to curse the Israelites. And while he’s making this journey, he comes to a fork in the road and at which point he has a long conversation with his bkey, as one does. And Bi advises him not to take the path in the way that is currently being protected by an angel of God
So they get Bom and the angel. And to clearly take away who it is, if you ever happen to get r advice from a donkey, you should probably keep it because he may there will be trying to stop you from taking a thumping at the hands of an angel. So if you have Donkey starts tight, you make it seriously
Donkeys are the best. They are, man. They’ve got your busting interest in mind
But anyway, yeah, let me said, this one is fun for me, man. Just for the jaw dropping shock of sitting bowling and name on the list to the trip going and thinking about my very first vehicle where I actually first heard of these guys. I’ve been into a lot of booming in the over the past week or so
These guys have been in heavy rotation again for me for the first time in like, you know, a lot, a lot of years. So, yeah, this week it was awesome for me. I really enjoyed it
And I will also say that I had this band on my radar for about 37-ish years now. And this conversation, what we were having right now are about to have, I believe is the first time that I’ve ever spoken with anybody about this band, except for that woman who had their t. We really wanted to golf practice going back
So yeah, that’s what it was formed for. This was Light of the War, I Angel. Hold on MTV’s 140 minutes way back in February of 1987
Well, I have thoughts. No, a caveat or two. I had never heard of this band, and I did I did not dig into this at all
I didn’t go into the band any further. I listened to this song, I watched this video, and that’s it. So I can only speak to what I heard and saw here
What I heard, and I guess my second caveat here is, there’s a band from England around the same time called the Cult. And that is a band that I do not like. I have never understood their popularity other than the fact that it’s very impressive, you can write that many songs about fire, I find nothing about them interesting whatsoever. 30 seconds into this song, I wrote down on the piece of paper in front of me, this sounds like the cult
And so I kind of maybe give the chance it deserved because of that. I mean, I, it was funny because after I listened to it, I went to their Wikipedia page and it said that like their first big break was getting to open for the cult. And I thought, well, they opened for them and then learned how to write guitar rests from them because this song sounds like a cult song
I don’t know if that’s what the rest of their sound is. I don’t know if, you know, if that’s, you know, you said that the album or this album sounds a little different from the one after it and so and so over. So they might have done something different
But at least this song, it just brought back horrible memories of how I feel about the cult. So I kind of shove myself up to it. That said, you know, it’s definitely a super 80s video
I love that dude, the blonde dude’s hair. That’s just incredible. You mentioned Molly Cru
The guys in Molly Cru would be jealous of that hair. Yeah, overall, I just, it kind of kind of put a sound taste in my mouth because of its similarity to the cult, which I know isn’t fair. And actually, my dislike of the cult probably isn’t fair, but it is what it is
So, yeah, this one I enjoyed for the time capsule that it is, but after it was over, I felt no need whatsoever to go and listen to more of this man because I have a feeling I’m going to hear a bunch of songs that might sound like Firewoman and that’ll drive me nuts. I didn’t like it or hate it. I’m just shocked that you knew who this was, Keith
That’s where, like, my brain isn’t even really processing the music because I just can’t believe you were exposed to this band in West Texas back of the day and then you knew that them and liked them and bought music. Like I’m like, where did these, I’ve never heard of them. We didn’t play them at KTXT
I just double checked. They were never on the playlist. We, like you said, we certainly have never talked about them because I did not know this band existed until we started looking at what we were going to do for this episode
I assumed that maybe you kind of knew who they were and were just going to like dip your toe. I had no idea that you had like a history. I I’m not shocked to hear that they used to be a harder band before this song because they they kind of look like an 80s heavy metal band that, but they don’t sound like one
So I was kind of wondering if they had kind of, you know, not transitioned, but like if they had matured their music into something. That’s the cult, too. The cult looks like a heavy metal band It doesn’t sound like one
Like I think there was a definite parallel between those two bands, you know. Having known these guys all that time, I’d never thought about it comparing them to the cult. That’s funny
Oh, listen to the opening riff of this song. It’s a cult riff. Yeah, man
It’s a cult. Yeah, well, yeah. I mean
If the song was called Light of the Fire, it would be a cult song. My favorite part of this process with this band is I was reading the Wikipedia page and they have the best, so you know, at the end of Wikipedia articles, they kind of start to talk about, you know, the decline of the band if the band has in fact declined and most, you know, as all bands do, that kind of happens. These guys’ decline was summed up in one sentence at the end of their Wikipedia page, and it’s one of the funniest offhanded remarks I’ve ever read on a Wikipedia page
Their presence was largely ignored by the time that their 1993 album, Primetime, had failed to interest record buyers. Their presence was largely ignored. People just like ignored that the band even existed
It wasn’t like, well, we don’t like them or I’m not going to buy, no, we just, I can’t see you. People are like walking through them on the street. Just like, they put blinds I like, I They’re not there
I don’t see them. Maybe they were Col fans and they were like, I’m not even going to acknowledge your existence. this off there? Please go to Angel
We’re. They are not a bad band. I think if you
I don’t know how to like if you like that particular type of music, I was so I was struggling with it because I was like, okay, what kind of genre is this? Who does it sound like? It sounds like someone else besides the cult
I think that I, because I’m not really familiar with the cults. I don’t think that would have been who it was. But I I mean, I caught a little Echo in the Bunnymen there, not a lot, but a little, but I love Echo and the Bunnyman and I can’t say that I love this
So, I mean, that’s not a super strong connection, but I did hear a little of that there. Yeah, it wasn’t, it wasn’t one that I just actively disliked, but I didn’t go and listen to any more of their music for what it’s worth. So the video’s worth checking out just for the 80s andness of it all all, and the dude’s hair is magnificent
So you can’t go wrong with that. I do wonder why this band was, and we can talk about, I think the next thing we’re going to talk about, this is going to come up. You know, what made a video or a song or band land on 120 minutes? Because this one doesn’t seem like that. Like, this seems much more headbanger’s bald than 120 minutes to me. So I wonder why they got lumped in with, you know, I know an 87 alternative or wasn’t really a thing, but they, you know, this, other than being relatively obscure, there’s not much about this band or this video that says alternative to me, you know? So I wonder how they land up on planet. One thing I will say is that of the stuff on the album, create a story every told, this is probably the most over guitar rock song on that album. Now, the mul Liveering a dive, which you know I also mentioned, will had much more in that direction, a much more into the heavier guitar rock sound of it
The movie on this album, on Great Story Ever toldld, this is the warm series guitar rock song on it. The rest of it is much more neww. Like the one I mentioned day at night is almost completely keyboard driven
So, you might have to listen to the entire album to get a more of the kind of the moon toward the new wave or alternative or whatever you want to call it. because this one is more of a straightforward rocker. But yeah, yeah, the rest of that album does have much more kind of a new wavey vibe to it. So I can see maybe getting a little bit of a different kind of fl
If this song is the only thing you listen to off that album. Yeah, and it was the only thing I heard, like I said. So I have nothing to compare it to
So maybe maybe I should dig a little deeper before I start being so mean to these guys. But it just. yeah, it just, it didn’t feel like the kind of song or video that would be on 120 minutes. And that’s saying a lot considering some of the videos that, you know, we liked that the Don Dixon video
You know, I don’t know if you you’d go and say, that’s really alternative either, but I can sort of make that I can sort of draw that line on the big board, you know, how he got there, association with our REM or the Smithereens or whatever. I can’t find it with this band, you know, unless, you know, there are people that consider the cult an alternative band, so I guess that’s maybe the connection. I don’t know
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it definitely feels more in line with kind of what was happening in a certain part of the mainstream, I guess, that it wasn’t just so far out of left field at that time, but that said, there, I mean, that band, for me was super, it feels super obscure. So maybe that, you know, just the obscurity of it all
But I don’t know. I don’t know in 87 if they were, I mean, they must have been. I I just have never, ever, ever heard of this band or heard anything about this band
So, I mean, they have to be pretty obscure. Yeah, I hadn’t either. And I was, you know, I was probably more into this type of music than you guys were at the time
You know, I was a little metalhead, so, not that this is metal, but, you know, but I, this seems like the kind of thing that would have gotten on my radar somehow at that time. And it didn’t. I I have never even heard of these guys
Check out L for your Dy. It’s like I said, it is much more drifting toward the hard rock glam metal stuff that that was going on in the 80s. And I can see Light of the World, you know, is kind of looming in that direction again
But like I said, the rest of the album really isn’t that way. There is a very much of a difference between those two albums as to kind of the sound. And I think, the stuff they did after that, certain little Base of madness, and like I said, I haven’t really listened to the stuff that came after that, but from what I read about it, I think that they kind of stuck in the hard rock, you know metal genre
I think what the story I ever told was kind of the only album they ever did that kind of had that morey sound to it. So speaking of bands we’ve never heard of, this one, I think, I think, across the board is is one. And so what we’ve decided to do is we’re going to end each episode by picking a song that none of us have ever heard or are familiar with
I think that’s going to get more difficult as we get kind of deeper into our sweet spot of when we were in college radio and we were really, really just absorbing music on a daily basis. But for 87, it’s been relatively easy. For me, I mean, to be perfectly honest, I had never heard any of these songs before
I think it, well, I probably heard the Skinny Pppy song, but not in a way that I like kind of remember that specific track. I know we play Skinny Puppy at KTXT and I was kind of enough into Ind industrial that I probably would have played it at some point. The Don Dixon track, same thing, maybe I heard it, but I certainly don’t remember that one
I am 100% sure I’ never heard the Bomb and the Angels track. But so we conferred and we can certify that none of us were familiar with this next track. It’s by a band called The Wallets
And the name of the track is Totally Nude, which is what kind of drew me to it initially, because I thought that was, I was like, yeah, let’s check this out. They’re totally nude They’re totally naked Come on, come on. They’re readyread for you.
The wallets are a band We’re a band from the Twin Cities. So from the Minneapolis area, they were on Twin Tone Records, which is a relatively well known record label. Wikipedia says Experimental group, they definitely have a little bit of a novelty experimental vibe, I guess
Not that this song is way, way out of pocket or anything, but it’s funky, it’s groovy. It’s definitely got some soul to it. Like it’s it was unexpected in that way
I didn’t I don’t know what I expected. I mean, I didn’t know anything about them, but it was it was much funkier than what I would have guessed the song would be. I kind of enjoyed it
It’s, I don’t want to say amateurish because it’s not. I mean, they’re great musicians and it’s well produced. So, I mean, amaterish isn’t the right word, but it just feels like, like it kind of was recorded you know, in in like one or two takes and like just a nice quick rift that someone knocked out and all of a sudden they all started had to jam into it
And the next thing you know, they had this song called Totally Nude is what it feels like, you know, just like some guys that were just jamming and grooving and hit a groove and came up with this track. And it, I mean, it works. It’s, it’s, it’s a fun song
You can definitely dance to it. The video is is like the other ones, you know, of its time. It’s super 80s
It had a little animation, a little bit of live, a little live vibe to it. The lead singer had, it was kind of an interesting dude. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around exactly what was going on with him, I I’d like to actually dig more into that
One of the founding members is unfortunately, died in 2013, so they’re not even all around anymore, but they ended up becoming two of the guys from the band ended up forming an ad agency and doing music and ads for big clients. So they kind of went kind of the Mark Mothersbau route, but not nearly as not so much with the film stuff, but you know, getting into making music for, for ads and stuff. And I mean, that’s what comes out
They’re talented. They wrote some good songs. They, you know, they recorded this really cool song
There’s not a lot of other information out there, but I enjoyed it. I had fun. Great fun song
I think there’s several interesting things there. You mentioned that they were called experimental and I kind of agree with you that they’re not. But I think where where that comes from is, and please be certain that I am in no way comparing this man to Devo, but they do have that sound
Vocally, maybe there’s something there that kind of reminds you of Devo, a little bit of the tubes, maybe, kind of in there, too. Those bands were considered experimental, well, Devo is experimental. Those other bands are considered experimental at the time, and they kind of sound like them
They’re not that. And they’re they’re nowhere near the geniuses that Devo are. But they kind of, your ears kind of go, hey, that kind of sounds like Devo
So I think maybe where that’s where that comes from, because there’s nothing experimental about this music. I think that sort of loose sound that you’re talking about, you know, it sounds sloppy almost, like it was recorded in the studio in one take or whatever. This was produced by Alan Toussson
I’ hope I’m pronouncing that correctly. He was a famous producer of Cajun and Zido music. And although it doesn’t strike you as that the first time you hear it, if you listen to it a second time knowing that, you will kind of hear that sort of New Orleans, Zido loose people marching down the street, funky jazz kind of beat going on there
So I think maybe that’s where that comes from. I will also say that the basseline in this song is Funkky, Funkky, funky. I love that
I mean, I could just listen to that basseline on the loop for hours. Take the ridiculous song out of the equation. That is a great, great basseline
So, you know, we kind of talked earlier about what gets a song on 120 minutes at this time? Because, you know, I think something like Skinny Puppy absolutely belongs there. Don Dixon, you can make a case for it
About him an Angel, I couldn’t couldn’t figure out how they got there. And I have the same reaction to this. I couldn’t figure out how this ends up on 120 minutes, because there’s not really much alternative about it
But I think at this time, MTV hasn’t decided what 120 minutes is yet. And so what it is, is the stuff we’re not going to play during the day. You’re not going to play this video, in the afternoon on a Wednesday, so you jump it in this late night block, that’s going on, and that’s kind of where this lands
You know, you have this video, and there weren’t a ton of videos at this time. So, you know, you were looking for programming and you have this weird video and this weird song, and you plop it into this 120 minutes format. Certainly not 120 minutes becomes
The only other thing I wanted to mention was when I heard, I actually, in this case, listened to the song before I watch the video, which I normally don’t do and since we’ve been doing this, but I did in this case. And when I heard those horn breaks, I said, those are so obviously a keyboard, that horn section that’s playing in the chorus of this song. I’m going to turn on this video and there’s going to be six guys standing there with trumpets faking like they’re playing, you know
But they didn’t do that. And if you listen to the two hornbres in the song, one of them has the fake trumpets. The other one has what is clearly a real saxophone
And that’s what’s in the video. A guy playing the horn part on a keyboard and a guy playing a real saxophone. So kudos to the wallets not having, you know, seven guys standing there pretending they’re blowing on trumpets where there are clearly no real trumpets in this song
So yeah, I got to kick out of this one. I’m sorry, I probably talked too long about it, but I I really enjoyed this. I thought it was fun
I’s interesting you mention kind of what 20 minutes was at that time, the kind of a grab bag of just stuff that wasn’t getting played otherwise. That is essentially what college radio was at that time and at the time. But when we were there, you know, we had had this discussion in one of the earlier episodes, you know, about the eclectic nature of the programming at college radio and how, you, we could genres as long as we were kind of playing things that weren’t getting played, you, in the mainstream of that genre, you
And it seems like 120 minutes might have kind of started out that way. Now, as, as it goes through its evolution and gets to where it’s going to get, it establishes more of a sound, perhaps. But I think these early episodes of it just kind of look over the playlists and stuff
I think that’s kind of what’s neat about these early episodes is that you do have a really seriously eclectic mix in there, and it kind of reminds me of the old color radio days. This song in particular, I was not a huge fan of “. It’s not bad, but it’s very definitely a novelty song
You’re right that the bass part is funky, but just just a little too goofy for my taste. I will say the one thing I did like about the video was the big wooden or cardboard cutouts, you know, like with their heads, they put their heads on them, you know, like you see at the carnival and stuff and like all of them like moving one way or the other and like keeping up with the cardboard cut on outside of their heads, you know, go with their heads as they go one way or the other. That was kind of fun
Yeah, the video in general was was fun. But yeah, overall, I can’t say I really loved the song. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either
You bring up an interesting point, and we kind of talked about this before, but I think this song would have absolutely been played on college radio. I guarantee that it was. But you know, even like for us at the KTXT, we played a lot of songs that were essentially novelty songs, but the kind of novelty songs that you weren’t going to hear on mainstream radio or, you know, or maybe in mainstream MTV
This evidently falls into that. I can see somebody depending on who the music director was at the time, jumping on this. It’s a funny little song, and it’s, for what it’s worth, there’s not much going on in it, but it is catchy
It’s kind of earwarming. It gets in your head a little bit, you know, so, I mean, I definitely was, for the hour or two after I listen to, I walking around the house going, they’re totally nude, you know, it does kind of stick with you. Yeah, it’s it’s got it’s got a little sticking power to it
And it’s, yeah, it’s a fun song. It’s not harming anybody. You know, speaking about 120 minutes, I’m sure we’ll continually kind of revisit what they are doing as a as a show and what their vibe is
And we kind of touched on this and I was actually going to touch on it in the intro to the episode and I got sidetracked. What’s interesting to me is if you had asked me how they programmed 120 minutes, I would have said, you know, each week for two hours, they, you know, they picked 20 or 22 songs or whatever that didn’t get airplay or that whatever. And they picked different songs every week would have been my guess
I did not realize that they programmed 120 minutes at least for what I’ I’ve, I haven’t looked through the whole decade that we’re going to do. I’ve looked at 87 and 88 for the most part. I haven’t really doved too deep
They program it almost like a radio station where it’s, you know, because songs are coming in and and out of rotation. So a song is going to get played several weeks in a row. It’s almost like it goes, like they had kind of an internal 120 minute chart or something
And it’s almost like they were following that. Those first two or three playlists that we’re looking at are almost identical to each other. They’re very similar
Yeah, There’s songs that come in and out. But there There’s a core group of songs that show up almost every week, you know? I had no idea
I had no idea that they did that in the beginning. And maybe they carry that throughout. I don’t think they do
I don’t think so. I think as it moves on, there’s so much more to to choose from that it becomes more of a rotation. But yeah, at this time, they probably, you know, they probably had 30 videos that they earmarked for this show and they could play 22 of them
And so the same way ones are going to keep coming up over and over again. I have a feeling once you get into like maybe 92, 93 that you’re going to see wildly different playlists from week to week with a few exceptions. I mean, there’s going to be, obviously, you know, if there’s a really hot alternative song out there, like, I was trying to think of one off the top of my head, but, you know, they’re going to play that every week because they know that’s what the viewers want to see
I have a feeling those plays are going to be a little more diverse than what we’re seeing right now. They might be a little more diverse, but 9293, right around that era was my moon time of watching 120 minutes, you know, back in the day on when it aired on Sunday nights, you know, Sunday night was for me, was always MTV night because you got Rocky Moonary, you got what was it called, Unplugged. And you had right before 120 minutes, you had local TV
So, you know, that was my MTV block was Sunday nights with watching it. But watching those shows, there was a lot of carryover from week to week, and it did. Even then, it probably less than what you’re seeing in these urbine playlists, but they did program it a bit like a radio station where you kind of had your hot tracks and then you had the ones that were on their way down and the ones that were bubbling up and then what they always called their cult classics that came out of the vault
And we would see, you know, songs kind of march through there. One song, you know, has three or four weeks in a row where it plays, and then it’s off a week, then it’s back week, then it’s off a couple of weeks, and then it’s back, but it kind of, it has its serious room, and then it kind of starts to slowly tail off, but it’s still getting played. I think all the way through, they kind of program it in that way, kind of like you’re running songs through the top 35, like we did at KXT, like for a radio station like that
You know, now that you mentioned that, you’re right, because I mentioned on a previous episode when we talked about one-hit Wonders on 35,000 Watt podcast, I talked about the song Hurdy Girdy Man by the Butthole Surfers and that I had seen that for the first time on 120 minutes. I very distinctly now remember telling my best friend in high school, we got to watch 120 minutes this week because you’ve got to see this butthole surfers video. You get because I love the song so much
So, yeah, you did kind of know they were going to play some of the same stuff. So, yeah. Now now that you say that, that’s probably true
Which is kind of crazy for a two-hour, you know, per week show. I mean, I get why they did it for the exact reason you just said, actually, the exact reason you just said, oh, I love this song. I know I’m not going to hear it until next week
I’m going to tune in next week so I can hear this song. Just like we used to do. I mean, I used to do that with like KC K’s top 40 back in the day
Like when I had the boombox and wanted to record off the radio, like that’s the only time you knew for sure. Okay, probably sometime with, you wouldn’t know exactly what, where on the chart it was going to be, but you knew like, okay, this song’s probably in the top 15, so I can listen for this hour and a half and I’m going to get to hear this. So I have the tape ready and you know, I think that’s probably, I bet that’s what a lot of us did with the VCR. same thing, like, oh, I know this song is going to be on, so I have the VCR ready
I’m going to watch this week. But I, yeah, if you had asked me before we started this, you know, did 120 minutes, repeat songs week to week, or was it I would have been like, no, I don’t think so. I think it was mostly like a new show every week, but definitely not
Definitely. It definitely was not. Yeah
I would have thought in my head, it was as wildly eclectic as like a college radio station back in the day, you know. And it really, you know, now that we we’ve broken that down, it was kind of the opposite of that. It was programmed like like a mainstream radio station, just with videos they weren going to play any other time of the day
Which is I was thinking it’s a good thing that we’re doing this monthly because if we’ve done it weekly, we already. Yeah, we just struggled a little bit, probably. So, yeah, a fun set of songs
I mean, we are as firmly in the 80s as you can get all four of these songs definitely have a, a different, a different, but, but a different vibe, but where they all are similar is that they are very much of their time, I think in this case, sometimes we will hit songs that are not so much tied to a particular time, but I think all four of these are kind of pretty, pretty quintessential 80s type tracks, maybe a little less, so was totally new, because it’s just a funky, funky jam. Just a weird funky jam. You could throw that out there anytime
It’s hard to put that song into 80 bucket, but man, is it catchy? Yeah, I just liked it. I I’m so thrilled that were’re doing this like mystery song that we don’t know because we’re going to find some gyms like that that I never would have listened to or heard of or knew about
And and I checked and we did not play this one on KTXT either. So this was definitely a a curveball, but a lot of fun. And so yeah, that’s it
February 1987 of some tracks to go check out. So again, playlists are available on 120 minuteses.org. We are not associated with that website
They are just some great people who do great work, like compiling all this information, putting all the playlists together, but it’s super easy to go through and find songs and click right to the YouTube video and watch the video. So if you want to do that, we definitely recommend it. And it’s fun to just troll through their entire website
So go check it out. Join us again for our next episode, we’ll be doing March of 1987 so that should be a lot of fun for Scott Mobley, Keith Porterfield, my name is Michael Millard. Thanks for tuning in to 120 months and we will see you next time!