The summer of 1987 draws to a close with a couple of artists who were mainstays on college radio for years, plus a one-hit wonder that is beyond iconic almost forty years after its release.
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Episode 8 – August 1987 (159 downloads )TRANSCRIPT
And welcome back to 120 Months. We are doing a deep dive month by month through 120 minutes. MTV’s 120 minutes.
One of our favorite shows from back in the day. in 1987, and this week, we’re on August of 1987. So making our way through the year. Yeah, some interesting songs where it feels like already.
I thought it would take a little longer to get to this point, but it feels like we already are just like hitting a lot of heavy hitters now. Like it felt like right off the bat. It was like, I didn’t necessarily even know, there were no songs of the playlists that I felt like, you know, were just really huge, huge songs like early 87 and there’s a couple playlists from 86 that we didn’t actually do for the show.
But now it’s like, I mean, you know, last week, this week. Just some really big bands that are already making their way out of 120 minutes. And maybe that maybe I’m thinking about that in retrospect, because maybe in 87, they weren’t.
And I guess I kind of know for a fact that in 87, some of them weren’t, but looking back, like, yeah, we’re already getting into some heavy hitters. I’m here with Keith Porterfield. Scott Mobley.
I will kick it off this week with a band called Yellow and a song called Oh Yeah. This is a Swiss electronic duo. They formed in the late ’70s.
Kind of more, I guess, kind of more on the art rock side of things in a lot of ways. They kind of remind me of like the KLF in that way, where they’re making some really cool music. Like some of these songs are bangers for back in the day, but it felt like they were almost more interested in music as like an artistic statement as opposed to like trying to fill a dance floor or whatever.
And the video certainly kind of plays to that sense of like experimentation and these guys obviously do not look anything like rock stars or DJs or anybody involved with music at all. They look kind of more like kind of like Salvador Dali look-alikes, I guess, in a way. They look like sparks.
They look like sparks. Another band who kind of falls in that, like, straddling the line between electronic and uh, electronic and art rock. So look, these guys recorded 14 albums.
Uh, they had a couple songs besides, oh, yeah, that had a little success that got played a little bit here and there that maybe got used uh, in a movie here or there, but I mean, oh, yeah, is as iconic a song as exists in our modern world, is that overstating it, like, that song is a signifier, immediately for a lot of things, and it’s across the board, I feel like there’s, I mean, I don’t want to, I don’t want to go into too much like worldwide. Maybe there are countries that aren’t as familiar with this because they’re not as familiar with some of the movies that we’re about to talk about, but like, in the English speaking world, certainly in America, like, this song is known pretty universally, I think, and not only that, but it has, like, kind of a connotation to it, and I think that’s because of its association with too huge 80s movies. I would imagine most of us our age probably came across the song for the 1st time in Ferris Bueller’s day off.
It plays during the famous car. I guess a couple times, like it basically represents that Ferrari musically. I mean, essentially it’s like the musical equivalent of that car.
When that song is playing, you’re supposed to be feeling like all these feelings about that car being amazing. And it works. Absolutely worked on me.
I was 12, 13 years old when Ferris Bueller came out and 100% I got it, like that song, I couldn’t. I mean, it’s very different for… I mean it’s very different now.
It still is a very unique song, but like back then, I don’t think I’d heard anything really quite like that. And this is someone who whose older brother listened to Devo. So I mean, I grew up on Devo, and I still like this song was very different for me.
But I mean, it just it got the point across, and that’s a credit to the filmmakers, and that’s a credit to just the concept of putting that together in that movie. But I mean, again, it just works. And then being a huge Michael J.
Fox fan, I also was a massive fan and watched over and over again just as many times as I watched Travis Bueller, I watched Secret of My Success, and this song is used in the same way in Secret of My Success. So at that point, this song is hammered into my brain as like luxury and wealth and and coolness and like when that song plays, that means something really cool and really expensive, it’s probably on screen or being talked about or whatever. Not to mention that I would say, by the time Secret of My Success comes out, I’m 14 years old, I think, I mean, I’m probably shooting, like the personality that I wish I had or that I was shooting for is probably halfway between Ferris Bueller and the guy from Secret for My Success.
I can’t remember his name off top of my head, but, you know what I mean? I was shooting that gap between Ferris Bueller and like a Michael J. Fox kind of thing.
I think personality wise. So, I mean, this song was foundational for me. Like absolutely fucking foundational for a lot of reasons.
Am I overstating it? I don’t think so. I mean, this really lives that deep in my lizard brain.
Um, and I think in a lot of people our ages, you know, that, that, that love those movies and, I mean, it’s been used now in The Simpsons, it’s been used, again, over and over again because it’s a signifier. It’s shorthand and it gets you there immediately into a mindset because of the way it was used in those movies and just because of the kind of song it is, it’s unique, it just, boom, hits you right away. Okay, so the video, I think I’ve maybe seen this once or twice before, but it’s, you know, it’s a couple of guys who are pretty arty playing with the video equipment and video skills they had at their disposal in 1985, let’s say.
It obviously isn’t like a big budget, but they were they were doing some cool, fun stuff. It’s kind of psychedelic. They doing a lot of compositing, they’re doing a lot of green screening.
They doing some like slow motion here and there. They’re doing a little bit of stop motion, like Peter Gabriel sledgehammer type stuff for a few seconds. You know, isn’t anything to write home about?
Not really, but it’s a it’s a cool look at what the technology was in 85, what a band who had like a small budget could pull off in terms of like visual effects, you know? There really was no CGI. certainly not that was affordable at that time. So, you know, interesting video, but, you know, you probably need to watch it once or twice and then you’re good.
One thing I’ll say, and then I’ll get you guys’ kind of take on this song, is that I’ve, I feel like I’ve heard the song a 1000 times in my life, at least. I feel like I’ve heard it front to back, but watching this video, and maybe it’s because it’s a different mix. Maybe it’s because it just I’ve never actually really heard the song front to back all the way through.
So there’s a line that he says in this song and it’s written… I’ve seen a couple lyrics. This one says such a good time, a really good time.
I also saw like such a fortune, a really good time or such a good fortune. It was like, what’s a good example of like when you think you know something inside and out, like the back of your hand, and then all of a sudden you discover something that you never have discovered before. Like, it really kind of hit me, like, it was almost jarring, because I just don’t remember that line.
I’m almost positive it’s not used like in the Ferris Bueller cut or in the secret of my success cut, which is maybe why. And it may be that I’ve never actually just listened to this song front to back before. And maybe why, why would I?
I don’t know. Anyway, that was my take. You know, again, it’s a foundational song.
I still love it. It’s a classic, but yeah, what did you guys think to revisit this? So I’ll start there because I think I know the answer to that question because it’s probably the same for me.
Every time you heard this song, You were probably watching a movie. Like, I don’t think I’d ever seen this video, and I certainly didn’t like, ever sit down and listen to this song like on, like, put the CD in and listen to it, whatever. Every time I saw this or heard this song.
It was being played over, you know, like the end credit sequence of Ferris Bueller’s Day off, which is, you know, Ferris Bueller’s Day off is a lot of things. That movie is relentless. It’s like constantly throwing things at you.
And yes, there’s music playing, but you’re not going to hear the lyrics of those songs. I think that’s probably what it is. So I had kind of an interesting little journey with this this week because in my mind, this was always a novelty song.
It was never anything more than that. It was that that goofy song from Ferris Bueller’s Day off. I kind of forgot it was in secrets of my success, but yeah, it was definitely a big part of that movie, too.
And so in my head, I guess I had dismissed it as this weird novelty song from the 80s that was in these movies and, you know, kind of not forgotten about it, but, you know, just sort of accepted it as part of the cultural zeitgeist is this song you used for, as you described. Like, you know, if a guy pulls up in a Ferrari, this song is going to be playing, especially if the movies you’re watching in the is in the 80s. So going back and listening to it again and watching the video and stuff, I was reminded of something that, and this really threw me because when I was this age, when I was in the 80s, you know, I was very into an electronic band from England called the Art of Noise.
They were kind of the same thing as yellow, like this sort of art collective that put out a lot of electronic music. They’re kind of the line between something like craft work and what electronic music becomes later, like techno and EDM. And I love those guys.
I had their albums on vinyl. I would plan for my friends. You just don’t understand.
This is the future. You know, that was me with the art of noise. Art of Noise had one big hit.
It was called Close to the Edit. And it is almost the exact same song as this. It even has little horn wiggles in it and all that stuff.
And so why I thought that was this brilliant electronic art music and yellow. Oh yeah, was goofy novelty music. Don’t ask me, I couldn’t tell you, but listening to it again, I was like, you know, this was the same stuff and I just didn’t, I never, I never got that, you know?
fine line between clever and stupid. Yeah, it’s weird. Why does your, you know, we’ve talked before on the podcast about, you know, why this band and not that band?
It’s the same thing. You know, why that song and not this song? I don’t know.
And I think maybe if I really had to think about it, it probably is the fact that it was in all these movies and I just associate it with, you know, when I hear, oh yeah, I picture Ed Rooney sitting on the bus with the kids staring at him and, you know, that kind of stuff. And, you know, art of noise for me was always this, you know, this high-minded, you know, art music. I don’t know.
That’s a stupid thing, but it’s just kind of the way it is. So this was interesting to go back and listen to again and go, you know, I don’t know why I didn’t like this more back in the 80s because, you know, maybe it was just played out or something like that. You know, the video is what it is.
These guys did not look like I thought they would. I thought they’d be a little cooler and hipper than that, but they definitely look like Sparks. The video is just sort of, it looks exactly as you said, like, the record label went, here’s a few bucks, and go make a video, and this is what they came up with.
So, yeah. But yeah, I just kind of kicked to listen to again. And yeah, this song, if you’re not a child of the 80s, I don’t think we can put into words how ubiquitous this song was between 1984 and 1990.
It was everywhere. You either got tired of it or you loved it or whatever, but it’s a good one. It’s a much better song than I probably have given it credit for over the years.
Speaking of the success before I turn this over to Keith, I have to say that one of the guys, so Yellow is a duo. They started with 3 guys, but one of the guys left in like 83. Uh, Dieter Meyer, uh, used this song and the money made from this song to start like an investment empire.
He’s actually worth almost 200 million dollars. Uh, not, not strictly from this song, but the money from the song basically funded, funded his empire. Also, weird fun fact that I also want to slide in real quick.
This album, Stella, went to number one in Switzerland in 1985. It was the 1st album by a Swiss group to go number one in Switzerland. There’s there’s a story there.
Like, I want to dive deeper on that. I don’t want to just dismiss it as like, that’s crazy because maybe there, I, but it sounds kind of crazy. Like, it seems like it would have happened.
Yeah, I saw that too. and that is that’s wild. How could you possibly go? I mean, I don’t know when charting started, but how could you go that long and not have a, you know, from your own country ever hit number one?
That’s crazy. It was yeah, that was wild. Anyway, some fun facts for you.
Was this song a single, like, was it, I should, of course, it was a single. Was it a hit before John Hughes got ahold of it or is he responsible for it? I know he’s probably responsible for its popularity in the US.
But was this song I hit before he got his hands on it? That’s a really good question. And the way Wikipedia puts it is that the song gained worldwide attention after it had been placed in Ferris Bueller’s Day off.
That part seems obvious, but I’m wondering, like, was it a hit in Europe before? Yeah, I mean, the way that Wikipedia is written and I really, yeah, I should have looked at the dates to see exactly how it played out, is that it went number one in Switzerland 1st and then it gained worldwide attention because I think it said it went number one in Switzerland in 85. So Ferris Bueller doesn’t come out till 86.
So yeah, it had, oddly enough, just in Switzerland. And oddly enough, the 1st time a switch group had success in Switzerland. But that makes sense because, you know, of all the things you can say about John Hughes, the guy could put together a soundtrack and he was good at finding music that was a little under the radar.
And so I can see him, you know, especially at this point, he’s he’s already a success when Ferris Bueller’s day off goes out. So the idea of him like touring around Europe and listening to music and finding new things to put in his American films is it makes perfect sense to me. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it would work if somebody told me that was the story.
So that’s that’s interesting. Yeah, I have to believe it would never have been anywhere near as big had it not been in Ferris Bueller. It might have been a number one hit in Switzerland, but I don’t know that anybody else.
Well, certainly not in the US. It was never going to get that popular, yeah. Yeah exactly.
For me, I am a huge Simpsons fan have been since the Tracy Ellman show, way back when, have seen every episode up until the one that ran this past Sunday. So for me, this is Duff Man song. You know, I, I, I like, uh, you know, I remember it from Paris Bueller’s Day off and remember it from the 80s and all that.
But yeah, this is the Duff Man song. Yeah, I don’t have a whole lot else to add to this. I think you guys covered it pretty well.
I was surprised by the look of the band would see in the video. Um, and one thing I also thought was funny to you about him was that, um, he was listening to the breakdown of what they do and the one guy does the music and I, what I, I think his name was Dieter Myers. Mike?
Yeah. And he’s listed as the singer and the lyricist. Well, all right.
This song has all 4 or 5 words in it. So I’m not sure that the lyric writing took him a long time, but sure, he’s the lyric. Bob Dylan, folks.
But he still gets that sweet 50% cut of the songwriting, baby. Yep. But no, he made an empire on it.
And the one thing I will say about it, the other guy’s name is Boris Blank, I think. And I was reading a little bit about it, and a lot of those sound effects in that song are the, like, the, the, are things he did with his, his mouth, his voice. He just like got a microphone out and just recorded a bunch of stuff, a bunch of weird sounds with his mouth and then sampled them and put them into the song.
And so a lot of those sound effects are Boris Blank, just making noise with his mouth, which I thought was pretty funny too. But yeah, man, what a great song. And you’re right, like, anytime in the 80s or really at any time that you’re wanting to have, like, convey that in this movie or this scene.
We having a good time. Everything’s great. Like, yeah, it’s got to be this song.
I mean, or at least this one’s got a good chance of being because that is, yeah, absolutely what it is. It’s immediately takes me to a good place where everything’s fun. We’re having a lot of fun, you know?
Yeah. I liked it. I liked the video, thought it was cool, but yeah, just an interesting little time capsule to go back to that time.
And then, of course. Oh yeah, Duff man. That was my main takeaway.
Yeah, it really is. It’s fun and about as nostalgic for me as songs get, I’d be hard pressed to think of another song that I’m more nostalgic for just because of my association with those movies in particular. But yeah, good fun.
And speaking of, well, I don’t know. Keith will tell us. I feel like this song that we’re about to talk about also made an appearance in a 80s film, but I can’t think of it off the top of my head, but let’s find out.
Keith Porterfield, what’s up? Well, I will say, if it did, I don’t know that it did, so I’m not going to be able to help you out on that. I don’t know why I’m thinking that now.
Like, I just, I think I just, maybe I just made that up. don’t know. Maybe I’m not sure. They did have at least one song on the soundtrack.
I’ll mention it here in a second, but to get into it, You know, as we’ve talked about some other bands, we have compared several bands, as we’ve been doing this to Echo and the Bunnymen. And so this week or for the August of 87, the playlist allowed us an opportunity to actually talk about Echo and the Bunnyman. So today, we’re going to discuss these guys.
For me, going, echoing the Bunnyman. I knew of them in the 80s, but was not really a big fan. I never had or still don’t have any of their 80s albums.
I ended up getting a couple of their later era albums, and I’ll mention that here in a little bit, but to me, these guys in the 80s were largely a singles band. I know they’re singles a lot more than I know their actual albums. And they got a bunch of good ones.
I mean, bedbugs in Balihoo is a good song. The cutter is a great song. But for me, Echo and the Bunnyman, the 80s comes down to the big three.
And that’s the killing moon. Bring on the Dancing Horses, which was on a soundtrack, Pretty in Pink, I believe. And then the one we’re going to talk about today, which is looks like sugar.
Sugar kissing. And so, uh, this song is off their, uh, self title album. It was their fifth album.
These guys are an English band formed in Liverpool back in 1978. They’ve had a lot of members over the years. It’s largely been mainly just 2 guys were Will Sargent and Ian McCulloch.
Will Sargent’s the only guy that’s been on every album. He’s the guitarist. Ian McCulloch’s been the singer for all but one of the albums.
There was a period in the late 80s, early 90s, where these guys weren’t getting along real well and Ian McCulloch was out of the band for a little bit, but he ended up coming back. The other 2 founding members were the bass player Les Pattinson. He’s been with the band through the entire 1st part of their run and then came back for a little while.
He’s not with him anymore. And then the original drummer was a guy named Pete Defratus and he actually passed away in a motorcycle accident in the late 80s. So, as I said, they’ve had a lot of other members over the years.
But really, when you break it down, It just comes down to Will Sargent and Ian McCulloch. those are the 2 guys that have been mostly echoing the Bunnyman through the years. One thing I thought was pretty interesting in reading a little bit about these guys is that Ian McCulloch was in a couple of early bands with a guy named Julian Cope. And those bands were one of them was called Crucial Three.
The other one was called a Shallow Madness. I’d never heard of anything by those guys, but Julian Cope then will go on to form a band called The Teardrop Explodes. which had a couple of hits in the 80s. And then he has a long solo career after that.
So I had no idea that those 2 guys had ever worked together, and I’m not a particularly big Julian Cope fan or anything, but yeah, it was surprising to me to find out that Ian McCulloch got his start in bands with Julian Cope. I thought that was pretty interesting. This song, man, what to say about the song?
This is one of the most perfect guitar pop rock songs that I have ever heard. I mean, this is a excellent, excellent song in my opinion. You know, it’s it’s pretty straightforward.
It’s got a pretty killer lead guitar line. some the vocals for me and McCulloch are kind of a little more like spoken and kind of mumbled through the uh, through the verses and then he just lets it fly when he gets to the chorus with uh, just kind of really um, theatrical, uh, you know, belted out vocals, which are really, really worked for me. It’s a good song in that it’s got some neat little guitar things going on in the background. You know, you get the main guitar lick, but if you listen, there’s a 2nd guitar that’s playing through the background through a lot of it that’s doing some neat little stuff.
Uh, and then also the uh, the use of the echo on uh, his vocals, like that’s a, you know, a tool that gets used on a lot of vocals and rock music, but I don’t know that it’s ever been used quite as well as it’s used in the course of this song. It just really, really works with the echo coming back after he belts out the chorus of each song. So it’s got some neat little things going on in the song itself that I really liked.
The video is fine. You know, it’s was done by Anton Corbin, which is kind of interesting. Um, He, uh, did some videos from YouTube later on.
He’s done some photography and stuff like that. I don’t know, I guess this was pretty early in his career, but I did think that was kind of interesting that he was the one who directed this video. A lot of his black and white, mainly a performance video that’s going on in kind of like a warehouse or something like that.
But occasionally in the video, you’ll see these 2 girls dressed in like these silver space age kind of costumes, like peeking around the corner, looking at these guys as they’re playing the song, and then all of a sudden, they’re on a different planet with these 2 alien girls that have kidnapped them, and the other members of the band have got planets on their head, which had been fun trying to hold your and play your guitar with some sort of big, like planet looking thing on their heads, which was kind of weird. So, yeah, I don’t know. It seemed like maybe they recorded 2 videos for this and at certain points, I’d like, well, maybe we should just splice this part of this one onto part of the other one and we’ll make it work somehow. because yeah, there were 2 like completely different things going on in the video.
But aside from that, it was pretty good. The one thing I did think, other thing that was interesting about the video, though, actually, that I will say is that they break up right after this record comes out. Ian McCulloch goes his own way.
The rest of the band bring in a different singer. And if you watch the video, you’ll see all 3 of the other guys are together through most of the video, and Ian McCulloch is off by himself singing through most of the video, 1st in the warehouse, and then on the planet or moon or whatever it is that they’re supposed to be on after that. And I kind of wonder if that, you know, was a little bit of a harbinger of what was about to begin, if the distance between Ian McCulloch and the rest of the band was kind of foreshadowed a little bit in that video as to what was going to happen later on when he ended up leaving the band for a little while.
And the last thing I will mention, I did mention that I’ve got a couple of their later era albums. Ian McCulloch does end up coming back to the band and they record more albums after he gets back. I’ve got one of them.
It’s called Siberia. It’s pretty good. It’s got a song on it that’s called All Because of You Days.
That’s really good, but it’s not a great album, but it’s okay. The other echo in the Buddyman album I have is the one they did with Noel Burke, the other singer, which in 1990, I was going to school of my 1st year of going to school up in Austin, going to University of Texas, and they had some great record stores down around the campus there. And I remember going in one day to one of them and seeing a new echo in the Bunnyman album.
And I had no idea that they had gotten rid of Ian McCulloch that he wasn’t part of the band anymore. So I just bought it, knowing that I liked some of their 80s songs, you know, took it and listened to it, uh, and I pretty quickly realized that they had a different singer there and went and kind of, you know, did the dig in and found out what had happened, that they had the new singer named Noel Burke. The one thing I will say about that album is that it has got a terrible reputation, it’s not that bad.
It really isn’t. It’s very psychedelic. Got kind of an Eastern flavor to it, but it isn’t, it’s not great.
I mean, it’s not one that I’m going to like consider for my desert island album list or anything like that, but it’s nowhere near as bad as its reputation might suggest. So if you’ve never actually heard the one Noelbert echoing the Bunnyman album. Go check it out.
I don’t think it’s going to be your favorite echo in the Bunnyman album, but I do think it’s better than its reputation suggests that it is. But yeah, as far as this song goes, like I said, I, you know, I cannot say enough about how much I love this song. I played it on retro radio back in the day.
I listen to it occasionally even now, especially, you know, if it comes up on the super shuffle, if I’m shuffling my music library. I absolutely love this song. This is my favorite echo in the Bunnyman song, and I will brook no no ill will against it.
So I hope you guys will have good food to say about it. But yeah, so that’s Echo and the Bunnyman. Lips like sugar.
Well this is awkward. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.
I love the song. It’s not my favorite echo in the Bunnyman song, but I do really like this song. I’d say of the big three, it’s my number three.
I like Killing Moon and bring on the Dancing Horses better. I also have their album. I think it came out in late 90s Evergreen. and I actually really like a couple tracks off of Evergreen.
That was, yeah, it’s got, I want to be there when you come and the title track is really good. There’s one or 2 other songs that I really, like I, that was in like a regular rotation for me in the late 90s. So that one’s worth checking out as well.
I mean, most of their catalog is pretty solid. Like you said, I think maybe a little singles heavy and some of the album tracks tend to drop off. I know from my memory, that’s the case.
I didn’t go back and listen to the albums for this episode, but yeah, I mean, it really is a good song. It’s a classic for a reason for all the reasons that you mentioned. The video, yeah, boy, really had me in the 1st half.
Like, I thought I knew exactly where that video was going. Even going into it, I thought. I was like, okay, we’re going to get performance video, and there’s going to be a lot of big close-ups of lips, which I’m never really a big fan of, and sure enough, that was kind of how it started.
I was like, ah, man, I could do without this. And then the lips kind of take on a different, they, you know, they do the lips a different way. And the, you know, the girls pop up and all of a sudden, yeah, it takes wow, like a left curve into a whole other video.
I did not see that coming. I really thought they were just going to stay in that one lane and they absolutely did not. So kudos, I guess, to Anton Corbin for taking it in a new direction.
So kind of weird, and I mean, uh, you know, like they were, I, yeah, they were in a perfectly good vibe before I wasn’t expecting. I, let’s just say, blanket statement. I’m not ever expecting much from like a 1980s video, like for the most part, they’re not usually great.
I think, you know, if you’re if you’re playing the odds. Yeah, at least it was unexpected, it was kind of like a, yeah, a little bit of a twist in the middle, so that, that’s interesting. I didn’t know about them breaking up or releasing an album.
Never heard the album without Emacola, but so I can’t speak to that. But they’re one of those bands that like, when you hear a song by them, you kind of know it’s them. They’ve got a, they’ve got a sound, they don’t stray super far from that to my memory, but when they nail it, they nail it.
And there’s probably a solid. I don’t know if I go a dozen, but there’s at least like 6 to 10 Echo and the Buddyman songs that are really, really, really good. Uh, and then everything else from my memory is, you know, kind of average after that.
But yeah, always good to go back and revisit this one. As much as I’d love to take the opposite opinion here, I cannot. This is an all timer for me.
Yeah, I figured we… It’s agreement on this one. Yeah, this as this era of British pop music goes, this is probably like a top 3 song for me.
This is just an all timer for me. And I love, I am not the biggest fan of Echo and the Bunny Man. Only in the fact that I don’t know a whole lot about them.
It’s never a band that I dug into a lot, but this song is so just perfectly executed is the only way I can describe it. It is just pop perfection. And what I love about this sound.
And it’s the, you know, we’re starting to see the advent of electronics at this and you’re seeing the technology of electronics start to drip into some of these songs, but at the core, This is still a rock band. You know, this is this is a bass, a guitar, a vocalist, and a drummer, playing rock and roll music, and then they use those electronic things as sort of flourishes rather than the anchor of the song. And that’s not take anything away from electronic music.
It’s just, I like this sound where you’re hearing a rock band playing rock music, and then the chorus hits, and there’s this big splash of electronic behind it, and lots of great production, and just, this song is just as perfect as a pop song gets. There’s other bands that I think, you know, sort of do that well too. The cure is definitely one of them.
You know, Duran Duran at this time is doing that. Being a rock and roll band with some electronic flourishes behind them. But yeah, this song is just as good as it gets.
I can’t imagine anyone listening to this does not know this song, but if you don’t, you need to fix that problem immediately. This is just an all timer for me. The video, the only thing I wanted to say on the video, yeah, it is bizarre.
I mean, you said kudos to the director. I think kudos to cocaine might be a better way to go with that. I did love Theres a trope at the beginning of the video that I just love.
The guy, like, gets off. He got his guitar on, you know, and he’s walking around, and the 2 girls run up to him, and he’s like, no time now, ladies. I got some pocket to do, you know?
I loved that. Put a big old smile on my face. Yeah, this was a real treat.
And I don’t think I’d ever seen this video. I would have bet that I had, but I never had. So yeah, just a wonderful chance to get to listen to one of my all-time favorite songs.
All right, that is Echo and the Bunnyman, a college radio standby. I guess you would say definitely during the late 80s. And up next, another band that I think falls in that category from Scott.
So I chose for this week. 10,000 Maniacs Peace Train. Peace Stain sounding louder, live on the beach.
Come on, beast day. Beast stays a holy roll, let everyone jump upon the beast day. Which was a big part of my musical taste around this time in the ’80s.
So just a, I’m not going to go too deep on 10,000 maniacs, if you know, you know, but this man forms in 1981. They’re from Jamestown, New York. They start getting popular for being a cover band at first, and one of their most popular covers is this one at Peace Train.
But they really are more of an alternative band. It’s just that their original stuff is not really going anywhere. But if you listen to that music from that time, it really is pretty interesting stuff.
It just never really took off. But the one thing that people are noticing about this band is their vocalists. This is Natalie Merchant’s band before she was, you know, Natalie Merchant.
She has what I can only describe as a distinctive voice. It is pretty, and it’s good, but there is really not a whole lot of vocalists that sound like her. It’s very unique and very distinctive.
So that starts to become their their thing. They put out an EP and one album for electro records, neither one of them gains any ground. The album does do a little bit in the UK.
So in 1987, they’re still not making a lot of ground, that if they want to focus on original music, Electro hires Peter Asher to produce their album and they put out the album in my tribe, which is the album that this song appears on or did appear on, now, get to that part. This album, for me, at this time was just one of my go-to albums. And I’ve said it before.
I was a metal kid in the 80s. I liked, you know, if you had spandex pants and teased hair, that was my bands, you know, but for some reason around this time, I started to get into this sort of female driven folk rock. Um, you know, I liked Edie Brikell and Nubohemians and the Indigo Girls and and this, you know, this, I just, something about this sort of folky rock sound with female vocals really got to me.
But of all of those things, this was my favorite album by Leaps and Bounds. I love every track on it. Did have a couple of hits.
What’s the matter here? and like the weather, were both hits, but this was the big song off of it for a little while. And that’s what I thought interesting was, so 10,000 Maniacs goes to their record label and says, get us a good producer.
We have all this great original music. We’re tired of being known as a cover band. Here’s the album, and the album goes, great.
For the 1st single, we’re going to put out the cover song that’s on it. But Peace Train does gain a little ground. And the album is huge.
It’s great, whatever. If you’ve never heard it, I recommend listening to it in my tribe, just kind of in its entirety. It’s just got a great flow to it, but particularly the last 3 tracks on it.
Campfire song, City of Angels and Verity Kreis, are just fantastic songs that they never put out as singles as you wouldn’t hear them unless you had the album. And just quick note, Campfire song. features guest vocals from Michael Stipe, who has come up a time or 2 on this podcast. I looked for a connection.
Like, did they know each other or was he a fan of the band or, you know, anything like that? Couldn’t find it. I’m really starting to think the more we do this, that Michael Stipe was just kind of a vocal gun for hire at this point.
And, you know, if you wanted him to do a guest shot on your album, he would do it. But he does appear on this album. I always thought there was a connection between the 2 of them.
On to Peace Train. So this song is by Cat Stevens. It was released on his 1971 album, Teaser and the Firecat.
I was raised by a mother who adored everything Cat Stevens ever did, so I knew this song very well when I heard 10,000 maniacs do it. Their version is fantastic. It is nice and slow and folky and highlights Natalie Merchant’s vocals very well.
It’s perfect for what it’s trying to do. So it is it is a great cover song. The video is a little hard to find.
And I, uh, if you link to the 120 minutes.org. takes you to it. But if you Google the 10,000 Maniacs peace stream video, nothing comes up on Google. The video itself is just the band on a river floating down, you know, floating down the river singing this song about peace and love and harmony.
It’s not much to it, but it does work for the song. So the controversy. Around this time or maybe a year or 2 after this, a gentleman named Salmon Rushdy wrote a book called the Satanic Verses, which was deemed by the Muslim community to be very anti-Muslim.
I don’t know a whole lot about it. I never read the book. I don’t know you know, I have no details on that.
But they called for Salmon Rushti to be murdered because he had written this book. Cat Stevens, who, at this point, has changed his name to Musop Islam and has become a Muslim, comes out publicly and says, yeah, we should definitely kill that guy. And so a lot of people kind of turn their back on this guy who wrote all these songs about peace and love.
And why can’t we all get along, the ultimate hippie, saying, yeah, we should definitely kill this guy. In response to that, 10,000 Maniacs takes this song off their album, like any versions of in my tribe published after 90 or 89 or so, do not have it on there. Best I can tell, they tried to scrub the video too.
I don’t know why, but they apparently they want this to disappear. I think that’s a mistake. And this is just my opinion, take it for what it’s worth.
I think they should have steered into it a little more and said, you know what? The guy that wrote this song kind of went south, but the song, the message of the song is still good. And so let’s just make it our song, and play it more, and get it out there more, and embrace what the song is about rather than the person that wrote it.
The only thing I can think of is that they wanted to make sure that he did not get any more money from the song. And so for that reason, I can understand why they did it. But I kind of wish they would have turned into it a little bit and just said, hey, you know what?
This is our song now, and you can still appreciate the good vibes this song is putting out without having to, you know, embrace what Cat Stevens said. So, um, that’s uh, peace train by 10,000 Maniacs. I just wanted to say if you’re, um, if you’re like me, right after this, uh, 10,000 Maniacs turns into a pop band and then Natalie Merchant goes off to be a pop diva.
That stuff doesn’t interest me very much. This album is kind of their sweet spot. But, um, Electra put out a compilation of all the stuff they did before in my tribe.
It’s called Hope Chest, I believe, or something along those lines, and it’s basically like all the singles they put out when they were kind of a struggling alternative rock band. It’s really pretty fantastic stuff. So if you’re interested in 10,000 maniacs and I’ve never heard what they were before they got famous.
I would recommend listening to that. But yeah, so there you go. Peace Train.
This one, I was not really aware of. was not a song that I really knew by these guys. I just don’t know much about 10,000 maniacs. I know a few other songs, but not very much.
So I was completely in the dark going into to listening to the song, reading about it and finding all this stuff out. Really liked the song. And then, you know, of course, then go back and read about it that it’s a cover and it’s a Cat Stevens cover and all the weird stuff with him seeming to endorse the Fatwa against Salmon Rusty, which is weird.
I like that idea that you that you mentioned of them, maybe you leaning into it and making the song their own. I think that would have worked really well because I think the song, you know, obviously it did get some traction and may have gotten even a little more, had they done that. Um, but you’re probably right.
I would guess that you’re right about the fact that they were just trying to keep the royalty money from going to this guy that they, you know. like, yeah, exactly. I, I, I can’t understand. I can’t imagine that there was anything other than that. you know, motivating that.
And I thought it was strange that they, that they took that track off subsequent pressings of the album, you know, I mean, you take the time to record a song and you do a pretty good job of it and you put it out as a single. And even if it’s a cover, I mean, at that point, it’s kind of your own thing. And, and it is kind of strange to me that they, they chose just to, just to completely ignore it.
And, and even to take it off the album. I mean, that, I don’t know, they were obviously intent on making a statement and you can’t argue with them about that if they had something they wanted to say, that’s, you know, they’re right and and obviously they did that. But I do think it robs everybody of this great song that they that they did, even though it’s a cover, that that could have been bigger for them, and that more people could have heard and enjoyed, and that’s got a good message to it.
So I don’t know. I mean. what I was going to say. The message of the song doesn’t change. you know, because the guy that wrote it turned into an asshole.
I just, I don’t know. But it was kind of half a one, you know, or 6 of one, half a dozen of the other, you know, I mean, you don’t want the guy to get the royalties, but you do want the song to continue on and have its life as your song. I don’t know.
So obviously they ended up doing what they did. So, uh, that’s kind of its own story and I found that to be really interesting. The only other thing that I would mention about finding this video.
If you guys clicked through it on the 120 minutes.org website, it takes you, it doesn’t take you to YouTube. It redirects you to a different site that actually has the video on it, or at least, you know, that’s what it did for me. There was exactly one comment on this video and it was the dude says, hey, it’s great to see this video again.
They filmed this in the film in the field behind my house. So this guy, the one comment on the video is the guy who apparently lived in the house where it was filmed. So I thought that was kind of funny, but yeah, a great song that I had never heard before.
Like I said, not a huge 10,000 Maniac song, but I really like the weather off that same album. That’s the one that, for me, is their best song, but I enjoyed this. I liked the song and it’s definitely an interesting story.
Maybe not the way I would have gone with it, but you got to give them their credit for doing, you know, the straight, having the strength of their convictions, I guess, is the best way to say it. I like that that guy tracked this video down just so he could say that. That was filmed behind my house.
Because it’s not easy to find. Like, if it hadn’t been linked off of 120 minutes.org, I don’t know, it didn’t really show up in Google Resorts, I didn’t dig like super deep because I was like, oh, I just need to go over there. But like, they did a fantastic job of scrubbing it off the internet.
It’s hard to keep stuff off the internet these days. And, I mean, you can never win that battle, but they did a, they did an admirable job because at 1st I was like, ooh, I don’t know if I’m going to go watch this video. I was getting ready to message you guys and say, I can’t find this video.
And I forgot they do the hyperlinks on 120 minutes.org. Yeah, shout out to 120 miss.org. They’ve compiled all these playlists for 120 minutes that we’re using, and they also link to the videos and almost, I’d say 99% of the time. on YouTube.
I think this is the 1st time that it’s, it was on a, an alternate vendor, shall we say? I was going to say that until you told that story, I assume that they got a scrub from the video because it was evidence of Natalie Merchant kidnapping all these children and taking them down the river because it’s kind of a weird, a little bit of a weird vibe. You guys kind of gloss right over the video, like, oh, yeah, you know, it sits now.
The merchant is dancing on the river. And she is. Collecting children, yeah.
She is dancing the whole time and having a great time, but she’s also collecting children. The entire, from the, from the, like the 1st frame of the video, she catches the eye of the little kid, the little kid starts following. Next thing you know, it’s a little odd.
I mean, I think she’s just trying to get everybody to jump aboard the peace train, but sure, but you could be right. don’t know. Little did we know we were going to expose the dark side of Natalie Merchant. Of Natalie Merchant.
The most harmless person in pop music. Yeah, she’s way too squeaky clean. And the fact that they just did it on film.
Also, peace train, could they not have filmed it on a train? Instead of a raft? I, like, ah, anyway.
I don’t think, you know, this is the 1st single off what would become their 1st even remotely successful album. I doubt they were throwing a whole lot of money at them. They didn’t have train money?
Yeah, they didn’t have train money. They had raft money. Yeah, they had raft money, but and I, you know, looking at the video, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was shot very close to where they’re from in upstate New York.
So they probably found this guy who goes around commenting on the video when he finds it and says, can we hop on a raft and film ourselves floating down the river and perhaps kidnap your children while we do it? And could the children bring their own kayaks, please? We don’t have money.
Our budget was blown on the raft. We don’t have kayak money, so tell them to bring their own kayaks. That aside, I don’t think also, I don’t think a lot of people realize how big 10,000 maniacs got after this.
And then how big Natalie Merchant got after that. You know, 2000 Maniacs definitely has a moment after this album comes out. And, you know, there was a time when that unplugged album hit that they really got a huge…
I mean, they were that was huge. And then Natalie Merchant’s solo career took off kind of simultaneous to that. The unplug may have even been a little bit after her.
So, I mean, they were kind of at the same time, if I remember right. But yeah, carnival, like that song was unescapable for like a year. I mean, it was in constant rotation.
I know we played stuff like that on KTXT, but I think maybe at that point we had started to back off of it a little bit just because she did not need any help getting airplay at that point. There was at least 2 songs off of that Natalie Merchant album that just absolutely got played high, high, taught, like full, full, full rotation, like whatever the highest rotation was on a pop station at that time, she was on it. And I know that because I was DJing at one of them for a while there in Lubbock, FM 99, was playing the bejesus out of this song.
So yeah, this was, this is like a glimpse of kind of, I guess, based on what the story you were saying, kind of the transition from the, the underdog indie, you know, folk band into the 10,000 maniacs and then. And that’s why I mentioned, you know, specifically this album, because what they turned into was very poppy and very mainstream and very top 40, you know, that, that’s what 10,000 maniacs becomes right after this album. And even the song, there’s songs on this album. like, you know, Keith, you mentioned, like, the weather and what’s the matter here.
Those songs were big hits. They were. But somewhere between the super weird indie band of the early 80s and the album after this, which I think is Blind Man’s Zoo, which was a monster, monster album, in my tribe, is sort of just this sweet spot of the, of, if you like this type of music and it is of a thing.
It’s that sort of mid 80s folky rock with a female singer. There was a lot of it, and you either liked it or you didn’t. But if you liked it, I think this is the old standard of it.
I think this is about as good as it gets for that particular genre of music. So I recommend to anyone who says, you know, 10,000 maniacs, you know, Natalie Merch that that’s this big, this big pop diva from the early 90s, right before that happens, they recorded what, in my opinion, is a masterpiece of an album. And so I would recommend you check it out if you like that kind of music at all.
It’s really good. Yeah, it is really good. Like I said, I don’t know a lot about these guys, but Blind Man Zoo does have trouble me on there.
And that was, I guess, it was a single if it wasn’t the big single. I don’t necessarily think of that song as being particularly poppy, but I don’t know the rest of that album. Maybe that album’s pop poppier than I’m given it credit for being.
I love Trouble Me, but I don’t necessarily, and it was a hit, but I don’t necessarily think of it as being a particularly pop song. Was that kind of a, did that one kind of a stick out a little bit on that album or is it kind of representing? I think what it is for me and it’s, you know, like this is just my opinion, but that album is just a little more polished, a little more poppy sounding than in my tribe business.
So for me, it was a disappointment when it came out. I just never got that album very much. I do like Trouble Me.
That’s a good that’s a good sign. There were actually several singles off that album. All of which are escaping me right now, but it just has a little bit more of a of a gloss on it, I guess, than what they were doing before.
It’s a little more electric, a little less acoustic. Maybe that’s the best way to describe it. What they were doing before was a little more folky.
And Black Man Zoo is probably a more polished version of what they were doing. It just didn’t work for me when it came out. And I admit, I haven’t gone back and visited it very much, but…
I just realized the irony too. You were talking about them being a cover band first, trying to get away from that. They released their 1st big single is P Strain, a cover.
Their last really big hit as 10,000 Maniacs. To my memory was a cover, because of the night, off of Unplugged. Like, that was the breakout song off of Unplugged.
The Patty Smith song. Yeah, also, and a great rendition of it, but yeah. Well, and the other interesting thing, I didn’t know this either.
10,000 Maniacs still exists. They are touring around. I don’t know if they put out much music like recorded, but they still tour around.
They have hired a girl who’s kind of sounds like Natalie Merchant on vocals. My curiosity is, are they doing peace train? Because now it’s been, you know, almost 40 years. nobody really, I think Cat Stevens has been forgiven.
You know, he, I, you don’t hear much about the backlash against him anymore. And I think he came out and said, sorry, you know, I didn’t mean it. So I wonder if they’re back to performing this live, you know?
My bad. My bad. You know what?
Remember I told you to kill that guy? Don’t kill that guy. Moving on.
Uh, we come to our, our favorite part of the episode sometimes. Maybe. I think a lot of times it is our favorite part.
For me, it’s exposing my ignorance of music yet again. I was really embarrassed about the last episode with Michael Stipe showing up in places that I did not know. Michael Stipe had been.
Is that? Sure, yeah. We’ll leave that in.
Uh, and now, uh, we run across a band that I actually chose the band this time and I chose it. I thought for sure this is going to be silly, right? Waxing Poetics is the name of the band.
If you know sushi, is the name of the song? She doesn’t even want know you An Internet, give a couple of things that we’re getting over. We’re going to change our missions using a funeral soon, should I?
I thought this is a home run. It’s gonna be silly and stupid, and all the things that I thought we were gonna get out of doing random mystery songs every week. Instead, it has once again exposed my ignorance, and also sucked me back into the orbit of Mitch Easter and Don Dixon and REM and Drive-in Studios and that Carolina Jangle Rock scene that I keep talking about, even though I’m I was consciously trying to stop talking about it because I kind of, I didn’t mean to keep going there like for the entire year of 1987, but I accidentally did.
That is absolutely what we are up against this week with waxing poetics. It’s a four-man combo. They formed in Norfolk, Virginia, so they are from a little north of Carolina, but this particular song is off the album Hermitage, and that album was produced by Mitch Easter and Mike Mills.
So Mike Mills actually stepped into the producer role on this one as well, and it’s certainly it’s not shocking. If you hear it that it was produced by Mitch Easter and Mike Mills, is right in the pocket of that sound that we keep talking about that was coming out of that that area and that studio, you know, in the late 80s. I mean, their story.
I feel like we’ve already covered the story maybe 2 or 3 times on this podcast and I’m sure we’re going to cover it again, but they had some regional success. They played a lot of live shows and and a lot of people went to see them in that area. They recorded like 3 studio albums and then a live album.
They just never quite made it over the hump. They made it on to 120 minutes, which is its own kind of success beyond, you know, the regional success that they already enjoyed, but that exposure didn’t quite get them into that like upper tier. And based on the quality of the song, it’s not necessary because they weren’t good enough, like this is a perfectly great pop song.
It’s there’s nothing wrong with it. The video also kind of cool. I like that they’re doing the, you know, the Bob Dylan slash NXS Polden lyrics on cards thing, but it’s all lyrics to other songs randomly.
I think I didn’t really notice a pattern, but I only watched the video once or twice. So maybe there was more to it than that. But basically just the band hanging out in all these places, black and white and holding up lyrics.
I think I caught on pretty quick, but anyway. I think it was the 2nd one that was, she was a fast machine. She kept her motor clean.
I think it was actually pretty quick. Yeah, I think it was actually pretty quick that it was obvious what they were doing. Yeah, I won’t go into, there’s not a lot about this band out there.
This is maybe is the 1st band we’ve run across that didn’t even have a Wikipedia page that I could find. So had to dig a little deeper to get a little information on him. What can I say?
There were so many of these, and I think we’re going to keep discovering these bands that should have, could have, would have. You know what I mean? Like, what is it that keeps this band from exploding?
We talked about this a while back when we were talking about one of our favorites, Hagfish from Dallas, and how they recorded an album that stood right next to any blink-182 album in terms of pop punk, but they never quite made it to that tier where they, you know, they’re they’re a nationwide, like bona fide success. And these guys, I think, fall in that category as well. They had the right producers.
They had the right sound. They could write a song, clearly. The playing, as with a lot of these bands that we’ve talked about that were in this orbit, they play their instruments really well.
They’re right in the pocket. Sounds great. Why didn’t they break big?
Who knows? I don’t I don’t remember playing these guys on KTXT. I meant to check.
Once again, the mystery song never fails to impress. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Yeah, in agreement.
This was a banger. I really liked it. The video’s great.
Like you said, it’s, you know, they’re definitely doing a play on the Bob Dylan subterranean homesick blues in the NXS video. All those lyrics, I think, are from other songs that were popular at the time. I mentioned the ACDC one.
There were a couple others. There were some, though, that I didn’t recognize. And then, but I’m going to say that they’re probably from a famous song.
I just couldn’t place them. They go by pretty fast. The song itself, I got, I was kind of surprised when you said that this was from that area because to me it didn’t have that sound.
To me, it sounded like Elvis Costello attraction era, Elvis Costello. Like, like that sort of like ratty punk, you know, sort of sort of thing. And it also reminded me of another song that not a lot of people may know, but I know you guys know.
And that’s a New Age Girl by Dead Eyed Dick. It kind of reminded me of that song. The riff, maybe, or something about vocals, something that, so that just, it just kind of, you know, perked up my ears a little bit.
But yeah, I love this one. I had trouble finding anything about these guys. I’m glad you were able to find something.
And but yeah, this is a this was a really, really pleasant surprise. As far as, you know, we talk about how these things point out our ignorance and they do, I’ve been embarrassed by some of the things we’ve found doing this, you know, like Dump Truck, for sure, and a couple others, this one, I don’t know that we should be too embarrassed that we don’t know these guys. I think they were fairly obscure.
I don’t think they did enough to where they should have been on our radar. Other than the fact that this is a great song and someone in our orbit should have found it and said, check this out. That didn’t happen.
You know, they obviously were pretty short-lived and never really did much. But man, this just based on this song alone. This is good stuff.
These guys were good. Yeah, I didn’t know these guys either. And yes, this song is a jam.
I think we’re all in agreement on that. I really liked the song. In fact, I might even have liked it more than you guys, because, yeah, I mean, I thought the song was really, really good.
The video, I loved this video. And so, you know, I liked the conceit with the, you know, the Bob Dylan NXS thing. And so I think, I don’t guess you guys maybe didn’t do this.
I went through it as I watched it and paused each card to try to get the lyric to see if I could get it. Here’s what we got in this. I didn’t get all.
I didn’t get the songs. I just put down the artists, but we had prints. The Beatles twice, ACDC, Led Zeppelin, Iggy Pop, Casey and the Sunshine Band, REM, The Doors, Talking Heads, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Jefferson Airplane, David Bowie.
I put down Creedence Clearwater Revival. It was from, I put a spell on you, which I don’t know who did that originally, but I know it as a Creedence song. And then I also put down Elvis because Suspicious Minds is on there, and I know that is an Elvis song.
I don’t know if other people have done that as well. And those were just the ones I knew. There were a handful of them that I didn’t recognize the artist or the song from.
But what a fun idea. I just, yeah, I like I spent, you know, a good half hour, you know, reversing and going forward and pausing and looking and trying to figure out what each one of those lyrics was. Yeah, I had a blast with this video.
This might be the most fun video of all the ones I’ve looked at for me anyway. So, yeah, loved the song, loved the video, just another one where we really knocked it out of the park with our mystery song this week. I’m so glad.
Yeah, I’m so glad that I, that I chose this one and, and, and you’re right, Scott. Like there is, I mean, I do see the connection, but I, to that scene, but you’re definitely right. Like the Elvis Costello kind of smithereens vibe is what was making that unique from some of the other bands.
Especially when that 1st chorus hits. There’s something right there that just made my ears go. Elvis Costello. like it just it pops with it.
Yeah, they definitely, definitely, it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s an Elvis Costello lyric tucked in there and it just passed me by because I don’t know his catalog well enough to know like all the lyrics that might pop up if they were to go that direction, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t. They weren’t fans of Elvis Costello. But that’s that’s kind of the thing is like those bands, you know, they had a vibe and and it’s maybe the instrumentation and a little bit of the production values and and lyrically, you know, they they tend to be kind of, you know, just not just, it’s not just cliche after cliche, after cliche, they tend to be a little more.
But each of those bands that came from that scene also definitely had, you know, their take on that sound. And REMs is just kind of, I think they just kind of owned their own sound, but then some of these other bands, you know, borrowed and recombined stuff from their mentors or from the bands they liked. And I think in this case, yeah, again, you can definitely draw a line to the to Elvis Costello or the smithereens and that’s maybe why I like it even more than some of the other, you know, songs that we’ve heard on this podcast that there hasn’t.
We’ve been nailing it. Like all of them have been pretty good, but this may be my favorite, because I love the vibe of it. Like you said, when they course hits, it’s like you’re definitely in.
And just like you said, the video is one of my favorite videos that we’ve looked at so far. I was talking about how bad 80s videos are and like this is the exception to the rule. Like, they, it’s simple, they didn’t cost any more to make than some of these other videos.
It probably cost less to make than a lot of the videos that we’ve seen, but they didn’t try to do too much with it. They just had a good idea. It’s just clever and fun to watch.
Yeah. Clever, well executed, and like music nerds like us are gonna, of course, like be like, like Keith. I’m going to pause this and like, I need to figure out what all these are.
That’s exactly what they were probably going for. Like they wanted to kind of, you know, show off their their roots maybe a little bit and just kind of have, you know, have fun with it and and job accomplished, mission accomplished, well done, guys. I just wanted to throw out real quick just for fun.
I looked up. I put a spell on you, because it’s one of those songs that I think there’s more bands that haven’t covered it than have. But I think originally, far back as I can go.
It looks like Screaming Jay Hawkins, the original artist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, imagine if you were someone like me that is obsessive enough that you wanted to look at every one of those cards individually, imagine that back in the day when you only could see this on 120 minutes and would have to record it with your VCR if you wanted to do that and pause and stop and yeah, all that stuff made much easier nowadays by modern technology.
But man, yeah, I love this video. so cool If you didn’t catch it the week that it was on. I don’t think this one is one that’s going to show up again next week. I haven’t, yeah, I haven’t, I haven’t looked ahead to see if it repeats, but I don’t, this one, I don’t think so.
So you maybe had one shot at this one, but if you caught it, somebody did. somebody caught it at some point. the video that… Well, no, I don’t… I was going to say it was VH1, but I think that was actually the 10,000 Maniacs one.
So yeah, I didn’t see what the little like where this was recorded from that was then uploaded, but it is on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah, the lettering on the 10,000 Maniacs video was interesting because it almost looked like Beavis and Butthead.
You know, like, where they would do that here, grab it. It almost had that anything. I don’t think they mess with that.
Yeah, I feel like maybe it was much music or something like something or other. Uh, this one actually, now that I’m thinking about it, it starts, I think, with the actual title card, like it’s like the, like a copy of that. Yeah.
Yeah, so somebody uploaded like the original… Yeah. it got it got leaked out. Okay, the mystery band.
Waxing Poetics, the song, if I, I keep, why do I keep saying that wrong? Yeah, now for English. We know sushi.
Yeah. If you know sushi, I know what it sounds like. I know you, believe me, I was expecting something 180 degrees from what we got.
I didn’t mention that either, but when I saw the name of the band and the song title. This is not what I thought I was about to listen to. I really thought this was going to be a silly one.
I was going to say, I’m not trying to do that, but I think, I mean, we’ve talked about this before. When we choose these, we’re trying to choose them just completely blind. We go basically just on the name of the band and the name of the song and whatever speaks to us is, you know, the, and if it’s our week to choose, that’s what we choose.
I mean, I do lean towards kind of the weirder, sillier sounding ones. There was probably four. I think this that I could have chosen that I had never heard or knew absolutely nothing about.
And this one just I tried to pick the one that I think is going to be the most off the wall, the most out there. And I don’t think I’ve really succeeded. I feel like every time I’ve nailed this like just straight down the pocket Jangle Rock jam, but like…
We haven’t really found one yet, have we, that was like super bizarre. I mean, I guess swing and pisson. is probably the weirdest thing we found, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, and surely we’ll break that streak. It might be weird, but it was wonderful. It was awesome, yeah.
Yeah, I highly recommend just randomly picking songs off the 120 minutes.org playlists and following a rabbit hole because it has not let us down yet. So thanks to those guys for compiling the list. once again, we appreciate it. Don’t forget, if you’re a fan of indie rock and college rock and all this stuff that we’ve been talking about, there’s a movie out called 35,000 Watts, the story of college radio.
You can watch it right now. It is actually now on YouTube. So you can, there’s no excuses anymore at this point.
You can watch it on Amazon Prime. You can watch it on Google Play. you can watch it on Tubi. And now you can watch it on YouTube.
So if you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it 35,000, watch the story of college radio, I think you’ll enjoy it. Join us next episode. We are going to start doing episodes every 2 weeks instead of every week.
So just be aware, usually on every Tuesday, we will release a new episode, next time we’ll be doing September of 1987. So join me, Keith Porterfield and Scott Mobley 4, 120 months. We see you next time.