In this episode, we look at some lesser-known artists played on 120 Minutes in March of 1988, including our first “repeat offender”. Will Keith be able to bring Scott and Michael over to his side? Tune in to find out!
welcome back to 120 months. We are doing a month- five-month deep dive on MTV’s 120 minutes. Everybody’s favorite alternative video show from back in the day.
I’m here with Keith Porterfield and Scott Mobley, and we are on the month of March of 1988. And kind of an interesting lineup. I think we have our 1st repeat offender.
Keith is gonna try to convince us to come over to his side and spoiler alert. He’s got an uphill climb, but we’ll see how that goes. And we’ve got a mystery artist that, as usual, is just tickled by fancy in an interesting way.
And so we’ll talk more about that at the end. Those mystery artists. Boy, you just you just never know what you’re going to get.
Yeah, this was a holiday. Yeah, this was a humdinger and no exception to that rule. But, yeah, March of 1988, and we are kicking it off with Mr. Scott Mobley.
So for this week, I chose the song Bikini Red. It is by the band Screaming Blue Messiahs. 24 hours ago. The reason I did pick this one is because I do remember these guys a little bit from around this time.
I thought this would give me a chance to do a little bit deeper into them. I had a friend in high school that was into these guys. So I knew a little bit about them, but not a whole lot.
So the Scream Blue Messiahs, and, you know, shout out to that name. It’s a good one. They were a London power trio.
They formed a 1983. They are guitarist and singer Bill Carter, bassist and backup vocalist Chris Thompson, and drummer Kenny Harris. That’s the only 3 people that have ever been in this band.
So they got a little songwriting help for some outsiders time or two. But other than that, those 3 dudes were the band, and even though they only lasted for about 7 or 8 years, you don’t see a lot of that. So good on you, screaming Blue Messiahs, for not being a revolving door, like a lot of these bands we’re talking about, some we’ll talk about today.
They have an album called Good and Gone. It comes out independently in 1984. They call it a mini album, but it’s 14 songs and 41 minutes long, which is longer than a couple of their main albums, so I’m not sure why they came up with the name mini album, but that’s what they called it.
Right after that on the strength of that, they signed to a major label in 85 and released their 1st album, Gun Shy, in 1986. Those 1st 2 albums, the mini album in Gunshot, I do share a few songs. And they’re pretty much straight up rock and roll.
Uh, touch of punk, maybe a touch of rockabilly or what, you know, what British people thought rockabilly was at the time. When people talk about these guys, those descriptions get thrown around a little, I think it comes from those 1st 2 albums. There’s definitely a little bit of American punk influence going on here.
You know, we talked about the replacements and we’ve talked about who Screwdoo. I think it’s safe to say if you’re down with either of those bands, you’ll probably dig the majority of what these guys do. There’s a song called Wild Blue Yonder that’s on both of those albums and it was a mild alternative hit.
I’m fairly confident we played it at KTXT back in the day when we were there. So that brings us to the Alwoman song that we’re talking about here. This is the album is called Bikini Red.
The single was called Bikini Red. This is released in 1987. This album is more of the same.
It starts to lean into production a little bit more. It’s a little slicker. It’s a little more produced.
For the most part, though, it’s pretty much a straightforward rock record. There’s a couple of tracks on it, however, that don’t really sound like the typical thing that scrolling gloom Messiahs do and this is one of them. So bikini red.
It’s still a straight up rock song. something about the production and what Carter’s doing with his voice that makes it kind of stick out from the rest of the album. It almost has like a love and rockets quality to it. Like, it’s kind of drony a little bit, maybe has a little touch of early shoe gaze.
This isn’t one of their songs that I had heard before, but I really liked it. I’m just not sure if this gives you a really clear picture of what these guys were all about, but it is a really good song. The video, pretty standard stuff. you know, it’s the 90s or the 80s, um, granny film footage with the band kind of running around doing things that don’t really have much to do with the song at all, but I liked it.
It kind of fit the vibe pretty well. It’s certainly better than some of some of the stuff we’ve been watching lately. So Screaming Bloom Messiah record one more album after that.
It’s called Totally Religious, comes out in 89. Good reviews, Mount Success, and then they called it quits. I can’t say this is like a hugely influential band.
I think they’re borrowing a lot of their sound. And I can see why this never really got much bigger than it did, but nonetheless, it’s pretty good stuff. And I think if you like some of the lighter American punk from this era, there’s probably something for you to dig here too.
So that’s a Bikini Red by Scoring Blue Messias. So I had never heard the song or even the band at all before. And you touched on the name.
Yeah, yet another nominee for the rock and roll or the band name Hall of Fame. My thought about the band named those that Screaming Blue Masai would be a great subtitle for the next Avatar movie. I think that should be, I have a part four, Screaming Blue Messiahs.
I would go see that, you know, I don’t, what was the last ones like fire and water? Man, I can have those things in my home. Fire and ash.
Yeah, exactly. I got a fireplace. I could have those things in my home, but screaming blue messiahs, nah, I don’t have to go to the theater for that.
You know, if the if the plot of Avatar does start going like the way of Dune, where one of them turns out to be Jesus or something, that would be the perfect thing. Yeah, exactly. Perfect.
But no, I really like the song. You know, you mentioned some of the bands you thought it kind of connected to or sounded like, what it reminded me of was granddaddy. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with the band granddaddy, but having heard only this song, so I didn’t hear any of the more kind of punky stuff, but kind of the chug and groove on this and the low-key vocals.
Like that was the 1st thing that jumped into my mind was granddaddy. And then also, you mentioned them not being real influential, but I know David Bowie, of all people, was actually a pretty big proponent of these guys when they were around. He talked them up in a couple of interviews.
So they were, you know, they were known by some some big names and had some fairly heavy hitter proponents out there. Like I said, I, you know, I don’t have a whole lot to add to it. I liked the song.
Actually, I liked the song a whole lot. The video, you know, it just kind of is what it is. Lots of aircraft footage, for whatever reason.
I don’t know how that fits with bikini red, but that was in there as well. But yeah, the whole thing, like I said, kind of reminded me of granddaddy. I thought it was a nice little chug and groove.
I can’t say it’s the sort of thing that made me think, you know, hey, I’m going to run out and check out a bunch of new screaming Blue Messiah stuff, but I liked it for what it was. And so I don’t really have a whole lot to add to it other than to say that, you know, it was a good song and a nice little entry point for these guys. You know, I would check more stuff of theirs out.
I mean, I don’t know that I’m ever going to be a huge screaming blue Messias fan, but yeah, good enough track. I think there’s other stuff out there that you’d probably dig too. It’s all about the same.
It’s it’s basic, you know, kind of like you said, like chugging groove, rock and roll music. The main sound on this song that’s different from the rest of their stuff is the vocals. Their vocals are normally a little more higher register, a little more, not screamed is not the right word, but a little more angry, aggressive.
This sort of that sort of droning lyric in this is kind of kind of an outlier for them. But musically, it’s pretty close to the same thing that they normally. It actually really made me think of granddaddy because all of their stuff, their singer has that just kind of low-key monotone delivery and that’s, you know, his his delivery.
Carter’s Carter, if that was his last name, right? His delivery on that song. That’s what really reminded me of granddaddy.
That’s not typical of screaming the Messiahs. It’s kind of, it’s a couple of tracks on this album. They do that, but that’s really about it for the most part, you know.
Also, like the, there’s the opening of the song, he’s singing into a megaphone, you won’t hear that a lot either. like that’s not common with their stuff. So this is a little bit of a of an outlier, but I still think it kind of gives you a good sample of what they sort of do and and, um, and I kind of agree with you. Like, I don’t think this is a band that we need to be like putting in the Hall of Fame of, you know, what happened to these guys, musicians, but they’re they’re just a good solid rock band that had some pretty good output for seven, 8 years and then, you know, called it a day.
But it’s, uh, like I said, I don’t I don’t think they’re hugely influential or important. They’re kind of just good. Yeah, I didn’t know what to expect.
This was this was actually on my short list of like possible mystery artists because I really, I had heard the name. I’m almost positive it was on our KTXT playlist, which is where some, you know, names like that kind of stand out just because you scan that playlist, you know, a 100 times a day when you work at KTXT and so certain names like stick with you. But I couldn’t remember ever listening to them, it’s possible.
I played, you know, a track or 2 on like a normal DJ shift. So I was going in completely cold for the most part, and I didn’t know what to expect. Yeah, I dug the vibe of it.
Like, I really like, you know, as you guys have said, it’s kind of kind of droning, whatever it is, it was a little different from some of the other stuff we’ve been listening to, particularly on this episode. So it stood out as that’s a vibe that I tend to like. I love granddaddy, for example, so that’s, you know, that fits really well.
I did, I thought it was going to go somewhere a little further after the 1st so, you know, you hear the verse and what kind of turns out to be the course, but at the time, I didn’t know if that was going to be the course or not, where he’s just repeating bikini red. Then, you know, 2nd verse, repeat the bikini red, and I thought, okay, this is going to be one of those where, like, you do 2 verses and then you really escalate into, like, you know, the hook, the bring it home course. And it didn’t do that, which I was a little disappointed in because it feels like it wants to go one more level, and I think that would have really solidified this as like a song that I really would want to listen to again.
Not that I listened to it twice and I, you know, I, if this was on my playlist or whatever, I wouldn’t skip it. it’s a good track, but if I had a criticism, it would just be that it is almost so low key, that it doesn’t quite have that hook that really, you know, kind of want makes you want to listen to it again and again and like put it on repeat. But what there is of it, I dig and like I said, that low-key vibe is something that works for me. So I’ll always kind of gravitate towards that.
Video definitely unremarkable. They did film it in Tucson, apparently, at the Boneyard, which is where those, you know, the aircraft are kept. And I’ve been there before.
It’s a really cool place if you’re ever in southern Arizona for whatever reason. And need to kill like an hour. I don’t think you can actually get in unless you maybe know somebody or whatever.
So it’s kind of just driving around the perimeter or whatever, which is kind of looks like what they did too, to be perfectly honest. I don’t think I got in either. Yeah, I don’t think they actually interacted with the planes or anything or get to got to climb all over them, which is what I wanted to do when I was there, but, um, it is really cool because they, you know, they store all these airplanes in southern Arizona because it never rains and it’s, you know, not a lot of rust and basically you can keep all the planes in good shape.
You can scavenge them for parts later or even sometimes, you know, bring them back into service. So that was kind of cool. Like I, that’s a cool place and an interesting place to shoot a video.
I think, you know, maybe next time they get permission and actually go in and do a little bit more with that, but still, that was kind of cool. So yeah, I mean, this is one of those like thoroughly okay songs and a thoroughly okay video. You know what I mean?
Like, that’s kind of where I would put this. Yeah, I think that, you know, I listened to a lot of the other stuff, like going through research and doing this, whatever, and I liked a whole lot of other songs better than this one. This one’s fine, but you’re right.
It kind of feels like it, it needs to go somewhere that it doesn’t get. I would say, though, like even if you thought this song was a 6 out of 10, um, I would still give these guys a listen. You know, there’s probably something out there that you might like.
They had other singles that were, in my opinion, better than this. Waboo Yonder, particularly, is on the album before this one, but that was a song that, like, actually got some alternative radio airplay, and I would have to look and see, but I know we played a few of these guys’ songs on KDXT, and I can guarantee that was one of them. And it’s a good song.
And it’s a little more upbeat, a little more poppy than this one. You know, I’m not sure where this one was supposed to be going or why it was chosen as a single because it’s not really signature of their sound, but it’s fine. I just think there’s there’s better there’s better choices out there for these guys.
So I would say if you if you were, if you thought this song was I, then maybe check out a little bit more. Yeah, this is one where I, I think I would like to, to know a little bit more about the band, because it was just right on the edge of really being like a, like a big find. Like, again, like the 1st minute and a half or so.
I was like, okay, yeah, I yep, yep, I’m with this. This could be really good, but it just didn’t go over the top that I, you know, that I wanted. It doesn’t quite yeah, it didn’t quite land it, the plane.
But, uh, but, uh, yeah, I I think this is one maybe I need to dig a little deeper on. So, screaming blue Messiah, I’ll, I’m gonna give you an incomplete for now, and we’ll, we’ll dive back into that. So you gave them a shout out for being a very consistent band lineup and for having a relatively short, you know, period of recording.
Uh, we’re going to go in an entirely other direction now with uh, my choice for the, for this episode and I’m going to talk about a band called The Fall. Upwards of 43 to 50, depending on who you talk to, people have been in the fall throughout their, throughout their career, so they have, uh, they have been a bit of a revolving door and uh, have had some turnover. The only consistent, the only constant in the fall is Mark E. Smith.
He was basically, you know, the mastermind behind it. Behind it, he formed the band in 1976. And unfortunately, the band stopped recording when he died in in 2018.
So he is the fall for all practical purposes and basically he’s had this rotating lineup around him and their sound and everything has evolved along with that. But I think probably best known for like late 70s, early 80s, you know, was probably their heyday. And the reason I chose the fall was, I, this is a band I knew nothing about.
This is the 1st time I’ve chosen a band that I just genuinely knew very, very, very little about. But I chose them because they kept coming up. Uh, when we talk to people for the 35,000 watts film about college radio.
So they were in the late 70s and 80s, definitely like a college radio favorite, one of the, one of the bands that really helped kind of define college radio during that time. So I thought it was important to talk about them and I didn’t know if I didn’t think any really, the 3 of us have never really been fans of the fall, so I didn’t know if they would pop up again. So I thought it’d be a good time to kind of bring them in.
One of my favorite things about them is that they were, and by day, Markie Smith and 2 of the other founding members, were at the, uh, infamous or famous, depending on how you want to look at it, Sex Pistol show in Manchester at the lesser free trade hall. So in 1976, that that concert is famous for launching like a dozen bands. Like every, there was like 50 people in the audience and every single one of them started a band, I think, is, is how, you know, that story goes and it’s been, you know, memorialized a lot.
My, my, my favorite being in 24 hour party people, the film about Tony Wilson and New Order and Joy Division. They were all there and were inspired by it. Members of the Smiths were there. magazine, the Buzzcox famously helped put that show together and opened the 1st one and were inspired by it.
Even simply red, which you would not necessarily associate with that. We’re in the in the audience. So the fall were there as well.
So I think that almost covers the entire audience of that show, from what I understand. So that was another reason I thought it would be kind of cool to talk about them because I knew more about the other bands that I just mentioned than I did the fall, but they were part of that. Uh, they recorded 31 studio albums during their time recording.
So that’s like one a year for almost their entire existence. Practically. They have a number of like compilations, live albums.
So, I mean, there’s a wealth of fall music out there for you to check out. if you are so interested. This one, the song we’re going to talk about today is called Victoria. It is off the friends experiment, friends being FR E N Z. An album came out in 1988.
Not intentionally. This is something I actually would have intentionally not done, but it was too late for me to kind of undo this. It’s actually a cover song.
So I normally I would I would want to do like a fall original, uh, when we’re only going to talk about a band once like this, but this is a cover of the kinks song from 1969. Also covered later on by Cracker on a fall, kind of like a tribute album. And then this, uh, I was gonna say, the Sonic youth, the Sonic youth did this.
They covered it in appeal session and that’s a banger of a cover. It’s almost like they turned it into like a pub, sing-along, like real roughshod, you know, live, live take on the song is really cool. The reason they did that is because John Peel was famously a huge fan of the fall, and that was actually his favorite band.
So the fall did 24 different peel sessions during their career. So he brought him back, brought him back, brought him back because he loved the fall. And he famously said, like, they were always the same and always different.
Or actually, I think he’s always different and always the same, which is kind of an interesting way to describe them. What they did was kind of… They were known as being like a band that really liked repetition.
So a lot of their songs are kind of very repetitive when, at one point, Markie Smith kind of said that he should be credited with, with discovering house music, which I think kind of speaks to that, like repetitive rhythms and repetitive themes in their, in their music. This being a cover, you don’t necessarily see that, you know, as much in this one as, as you might in some of their original music, but definitely a band that if you’re interested in the history of British post punk in particular, and for some reason you haven’t run across the fall. They were a big part of that and definitely one that you would want to go and check out.
This song is a fun is a fun track. listening to the kinks version. King’s version is a little, a little more, there’s more instrumentation. It’s got horns.
It’s maybe a, I was trying struggling to think of an adjective. I would say it’s smoother, whereas the fall is a little edgier, a little punkier, but they’re not miles apart from each other. Like, you know, it’s not one of those where it’s like, oh, wow, they totally remade the song in their own image.
They definitely didn’t. Like, it’s it’s pretty faithful to the original. It just, it kind of just roughs up the edges of it a little bit compared to, particularly like the Sonic Youth cover, which is, you know, much, much, much rougher.
But I think it works. I mean, it definitely fits in their wheelhouse. You know, I guess depending on which one you hear 1st or depending on if you’re a fan of the kinks, you might like one or the other more, but they really are, you know, pretty similar.
And then we’ll talk about the video a little bit. I mean, it’s it’s kind of like a kind of like a period piece in a way. I mean, it basically got everybody’s kind of dressed up in Victorian clothes.
You’re getting like a, you know, a few little references. There’s the Victorian sponge cake, which was like a big thing in the Victorian area, and the cake, they bring out this giant cake, which is modeled after the Crystal Palace, which was built in the 185 built in 1851 for the Great Exposition in London. That was obviously a Victorian era thing, and that building was known as like a classic of Victorian architecture.
So they brought these references into it. The song is about literally about Queen Victoria and how people felt about her, which generally was pretty good. You know, there’s some there’s some satire there.
There’s a little tongue in cheekness. You know, the idea was that even like the poor and downtrodden loved Queen Victoria for whatever reason. And I think that was actually true, historically speaking, but if all the British folks in the audience can correct me if I’m wrong on that.
But it does answer the question if you’ve ever had it. And if you ever had a birthday cake with like 30 candles on it, and we’re like, what? Would happen if this cake actually caught on fire?
Uh, this video answers that for you. So that’s another thing. You don’t have to do it yourself.
You can save yourself the trouble, watch the video. You get to kind of see what happens when a cake catcher’s on fire. so that’s good. Uh, but yeah, relatively unremarkable.
I think the outfits, um, the Victorian era outfits and costumes are pretty cool, but nothing super special goes on in the video. I enjoyed it. I listen to all four, you know, the versions I mentioned, Cracker Sonic Youth, kinks, the fall.
I liked all of them for different reasons. But it’s just a catchy track. And, oh, one other thing I was going to say, if this might be familiar to you, if you’re a super fan of how I met your mother, this song actually appears in season seven, episode 2, where Ted reacquaints himself with Victoria, this track actually pops up.
I think it’s the original kinks version. But it does pop up in how I met your mother. So there is that as well.
But I dug it. It’s one that I think might actually go on my playlist because I, and I, I may go back and listen to more fall because I think that’s a band that I kind of skipped that I, that I regret because I feel like there’s a deep, deep catalog to dive into. So that might be something that I do over the next few months, but I’m curious to see what you guys thought about it.
So this is another great example of a band that I was familiar with my name, but I didn’t really know anything about. And I guess it’s one of those where I, like if somebody would have walked up to me a week ago and said, hey, do you know the fall? I be like, yeah, yeah, I know the fall.
I knew nothing about these guys. I thought I did, but I didn’t. I guess I just knew the name and I knew they existed, whatever, but I did know this song, and not because I knew the cover, that it was a cover by the kinks or that I even knew the kinks song or any of the other covers.
I knew it from How I Met Your Mother, as you mentioned. So, there was a recurring character named Victoria. Um, she comes back into the show after a season or 2 and when she walks, when they 1st see her, this song comes on.
It is the kinks version that they play and how I went through other. Well, when this started playing, I was like, I know that song. It’s from, you know, how much water.
So that’s how I knew it. It’s the only way I knew it. And I did not know it was a cover.
And so I, you know, in fact, um, listening to it and then like remembering it from how I met your mother, uh, I didn’t notice that much difference between the version. So, and I listened to the kinks version, preparing for this, they are remarkably similar. Like, you know, if you, if you know, the differences, you’ll hear them, but it’s really, they’re really pretty close covers.
Now, I did not know that Sonic Youth covered this, and I would love to hear that. I’m gonna have to check that out. When we’re done here today.
This is a band that I didn’t know much about, but digging through their stuff a little bit this week. I definitely like them. I, uh, I, you know, it’s kind of that bratty postpunk sort of slash new wave, British thing that was going on around this time.
The 8 or 10 songs I listened to. I pretty much liked all of. were all really good. The video, I like it for what it is.
There seems to be this common thing about, you know, the Victorian era costumed people with the band running around through them, you know? That said, like, I thought it worked really well for Ultravox. I’m not sure it works that well here.
Like, I’m not sure what. I mean, I guess I didn’t really, not being British and not knowing much about that history. I didn’t really know what the song was about.
I don’t know, it just seemed kind of out of place to me, but, you know, it’s fine. It’s an 80s video. What do you expect?
The video was probably like a B minus for me, but the song I really, really liked. And, uh, and then liked just about everything else I heard from the fall too. So this is a band I need to, I need to dive into a little bit more because I thought I knew them, but I did not.
That’s really interesting because I’m in the exact same boat. I have always heard of the fall. Never heard really any other stuff.
This was kind of my 1st introduction to them. And I did not have the same experience that you guys did. I listened to this song.
I went and listened to the Kinks version of Victoria. I liked the kinks version a lot better. I know they’re fairly similar, but I would absolutely take the kinks version any day of the week.
I listened to a handful of other songs. I got some of them down. I listened to Hit the North, big new friends, wrong place, right time, wings.
I did not care for any of it. And it’s not it’s not terrible. It’s not bad.
I mean, it’s not like I would try to convince anybody not to ever listen to the fall, but it was weird. It seemed like something that I should like. Like it seemed like it was right up my alley, but there’s just something about it that just didn’t do it for me.
I don’t know. I don’t know what it was. I couldn’t really describe it, but after listening to it.
I have no real interest in exploring the fall any further. I, you know, I just kind of feel like I know what they do and it’s not something that I particularly liked. And with such a long career, maybe, you know, it may be that the songs I picked were all kind of in a narrow time frame and maybe there’s some more variety in there that I need to to consider a little bit.
Um, But yeah, this this just didn’t do much for me. So, um, the one thing I will say about the video and Markie Smith is that he is essentially like the platonic ideal of an Englishman, if you say, hey, what does an Englishman look like? He looks like Markie Smith.
Batman is an Englishman. So I actually, the video, I think I like better than I like the song, you know, I kind of liked the Victorian cosplay and the burning cake at the end and all that stuff. The video was kind of fun, but yeah, it was weird.
Like I said, the entire time, every song I listen to, I kept thinking to myself, I should like this. I should really like this. This is exactly the sort of thing I like.
It’s kind of eccentric British rock. That is right up my alley. That is exactly the sort of thing that I enjoy.
And it just didn’t do it for me. I can’t really explain it any better than that. I just do not care for the fall, apparently.
I would have that money that you would like these guys. Yeah me too. Not getting.
That this song, maybe, maybe not, because it is cover and whatever. But yeah, if before we turned on these computers today, if someone would have said, Keith’s going to like the fall, I would have bet everything in my wallet that the answer was yes. I, again, I even felt that way myself.
Like I said, I kept thinking to myself, I should like this. But I don’t. So, yeah, I’m not real sure.
It was kind of strange, but yeah, I guess I’m not a fine with fall. Yeah, I mean, it could be, I, I, in basic, some of my basic research, like Markie Smith can be a little polarizing, I guess, he’s not the greatest singer in the world for one thing. The other thing is that their their style did change a lot because of that rotating lineup.
So something you hear, you know, that was recorded in 78, 79, 80 is probably going to be very different for something in 88, 89, and then that would be different from something that maybe came from 98, 99. So, you know, depending on that, maybe that maybe your attitude changes a little bit. But I mean, you know, sometimes stuff works for people and sometimes it doesn’t.
We’re about to explore that a little bit more when we talk about your songs, but yeah, I, you know, going into it. I was like, British, postpunk, you know, that era, this is probably more Keith than me, honestly, but you just never know, you know. You never know.
And I haven’t done the deeper dive yet on the fall. So I might end up having the same experience. Mine was a little bit of a shallower dive so far.
I’ve liked everything that I’ve heard, but this maybe is my favorite track so far, but I, like I said, I haven’t done this super deep dive and, and really kind of tried to parse out like, okay, what did they sound like? you know, initially in the late 70s and then how did that evolve? I haven’t really put all that together, but I’m kind of curious now, because they did come up multiple times when I was interviewing.
I know specifically, um, Mike Richmond from, uh, Love Tractor, you know, the band out of Athens, he was a big fan of the fall and mentioned hearing them on college radio at WOG, and then, uh, they came up like once or twice, uh, maybe Mitch Easter also mentioned them. So they were definitely known, you know, in the US at that time. And, and this song, this song cracked the top 40 in the UK.
Both the kinks version did when it came out in the fall version did when it came out. I don’t think it cracked the even the top 100 over here. So, and the fall never did.
The fall never really broke over here at all. So they’ve always kind of been like an underground band, but they certainly were known, you know, among, among, um, some of the bands that we listen to in college radio. was kind of that, you know, favorite, your favorite band’s favorite band kind of thing. So they were influential to some degree, but not certainly not to the degree that, you know, even some of the bands that came out of that Sex Pistol show that we were talking about, you know, Joy Division, New Order, the Smith magazine, Buzzcocks, all of them probably had more influence than the fall did over on this side of the pond.
But in the UK, you know, you don’t record 31 studio albums without having some degree of success. Like somebody’s paying for that. Somebody clearly thought that that was worthwhile.
Sometimes you know the influence is stronger than the quality of the music. That happens a lot. You know, there are bands out there that are wildly influential that are not as good as the bands they influenced.
You know, it’s, it’s, uh… I would say the Sex Pistols fall into that category to be to be perfectly honest, yeah. So, we’ve come to the moment where Keith is going to do something we’ve never done before.
We’re bringing a band back. We’ve already talked about this band once. This is a band that’s very important to Keith, and he is convinced that he’s going to bring Scott and I over to the to the dark side.
Well, to the light side, I guess, instead of their angels theoretically, but we’ll see how it goes. Take it from here, Keith. All right.
Well, yes, I am off the reservation a little bit this week. I actually did originally pick another song in band. Um, and one that I really, really like, and luckily they come up later in 88. so I will get to those guys.
But also on this playlist was a band that we have talked about before, back in the February of 1987 episode, I did a band called Balaam and the Angel. And they came back up on this month, March of 88. And so at that time, that was off an album called The Greatest Story Ever Told, the song was called Light of the World.
I told a story about how I 1st discovered these guys in high school, and how it kind of tied in with my getting my 1st vehicle. So if you ever want to hear that particular tale of a team, Porterfield, you’re welcome to go back to the February of the 87 episode and listen to that again. At the time, that song, Light of the World is what it was called.
You know, I, like I said, I had known it since high school and I was, I’m a big fan of songs, still love the song. And I was 100% convinced that when we started recording and did that session, it was going to be one of those deals like, well, hey, Keith, how did you know about this great hidden gym? And boy, you are the big winner this week?
That song was so great. And so I finished my spiel about the whole thing and kick it over to you guys, and neither one of you liked the song. It might be going a little far to say that I was crushed, but I was certainly crestfallen about the whole thing.
It did not sit well with me. So when I saw these guys came back up. I was like okay, here’s my chance.
We’re going to bring them back. So back for a return engagement for record breaking 2nd time is Balaam and the Angel. But this time we’re going to be talking about a song called I love the things you do to me.
I love the things you I love the things you say to me But I know I can’t look you now I love the things you’re through to me. Um, and if you, unfortunately, if you look at the, uh, the playlist on 120 minutes.org, and also the title card of the video, they have it, uh, listed as, I love the things that you do to me. That’s, that, that does not go in there.
I don’t know why the grammar police got hold of that and decided to inject that in there, but for some reason, there’s a huge difference between, I love the things you do to me and I love the things that you do to me. And so the title of the song is actually, I love the things you do to me. So if you happen to go on YouTube and watch the video, just forget that, it shouldn’t be in there.
This song is fantastic. I like this one as much as I like light of the world and I’m probably about to be disappointed by you guys’ reaction to it. But this one, it also surprised me to see it on there.
Not, you know, as much as the last time, because the 1st time, I was surprised simply because I hadn’t thought about that band in ages, and it was surprising to me that they showed up on a playlist for 120 minutes. This time it was surprising to me because this is off their 2nd major label album, which is called live free or die, and that album is much more of a hard rock, kind of gland metal type album than the other one was. Um, the other one much more kind of in the post-punk.
I can kind of see it being on 120 minutes. This, I was just surprised to see show up on 120 minutes. I would have thought of this more as regular rotation in TV or maybe even headbanger’s ball.
But, um, but there it was. And so, it’s another guitar driven track. The thing I really like about it.
I like the whole song, but in the chorus, the female backup singers that come in in the back kind of give it a kind of like a little bit of a soul vibe over the chorus part of it. But just a great rocker and really more emblematic of what these guys did on this album and what they would do going forward. The band itself, Balaam the Angel.
I talked about them last time. Like I said, I won’t go too heavily into them. It’s 3 brothers from Scotland.
The Morris Brothers, Mark, Jim, and Dez. This, uh, like I said, this is off the 2nd uh, major label album that they did. And I think just by watching the video, you can tell that this album had a lot more kind of money and push behind it than the 1st one did.
This is the album that has a song on it that appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Planes Trades and automobiles. This song. I love the things you do to me, got some play on rock radio.
I remember hearing it on the radio back in the day. And obviously this video had a lot more money put into it because it appears to be shot on location in Japan. I don’t know if they were just doing a tour over there and can pick it up some footage while they were there or if they went specifically to do the video.
But it appears to be all shot in Japan on location. And it’s a pretty cool video. A lot of quick cuts and like superimposed imagery.
Um, the one thing I will say we mentioned uh, in the last video of these guys, the singer and bass player Martin Morris, uh, his fantastic rock and roll hair. It only gets better in this video. There is one shot, the live shot, or shot they do, where they’re playing the song live.
They’ve obviously got a fan, wind machine blowing at him, and his hair is flowing back in the background. Man, Lion O from the Thundercats would be proud to have a mane like that. I mean, that is some serious rock and roll hair going on there.
So if you, for no other reason, Go watch this video just to check out that rock and roll hair. It is awesome. And then the other thing I really liked about the video is the girl dancing in it, and she’s got these shades on, like the lenses are like right up close to her face, like right on her face.
And I don’t know if you guys have ever read the science fiction author named William Gibson, um, but he did a book called Neuromancer, um, and his stuff is very kind of cyberpunk, uh, kind of sci-fi, and in fact, I think that he is credited with creating the, uh, term cyberpunk. But anyway, there’s a character in neuromancer, uh, named Molly, some, sometimes called the Razor Girl, that has had Rinz’s implanted in her face over her eyes. Part of the deal in neuromancers that you can get like physical enhancements in place in you.
And this girl in this video with those shades on, uh, in like the spiky punk hair, she looked exactly like Molly does when I’m reading the book. That is exactly what I saw reading the book from that character. So I don’t know that that really makes any difference or anything, but man, I saw that.
The 1st time I watched that, I saw the video come up and I was like, that’s Molly from Neural Man. She’s right there in this video. Uh, so, uh, so I really like the video.
Obviously, I love the song. I mean, I’m bringing these guys up for a 2nd time, even though I got dragged over the coals the 1st time I did it. And I have a feeling that I’m about to be crestfallen once again about Malam and the angel, but I will kick it over to you guys.
Go ahead and stomp on my dreams. Let’s have it. Oh man, I wanted to like this so much.
Just for you, man. I really, really wanted to like this. Oh, because I knew I knew you were committed to this.
Wow. So you’re right about the hair. They have fantastic hair.
And this one, actually, it was the drummer’s hair that caught my eye because he’s got like a helmet hair kind of thing going like crazy. Like the other two, yeah, they’ve got just, you know, fantastic David Coverdale style, just hair, but the drummer went a different direction, which was interesting. I do like the video.
I’ve always been interested in going to Tokyo and going to Japan. I travel a lot, but I’ve never been to Japan. So, um, I’m always interested in seeing, you know, Japan, uh, represented.
So that was cool. Let’s see. What other positive things can I say about this before we get into it?
You know, like, there’s nothing wrong with this song. It’s just so, for me, it was just so by the numbers. Like it’s just such a generic 80s rock track.
Like, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t good. It wasn’t forgettable, it wasn’t memorable. it wasn’t, it was, it was just, it just was for me. And that’s, I don’t, I don’t know really how else to kind of describe it.
I feel like the other track was at least a little more memorable, even if in a negative way, but at least it stuck out. This just felt very, very much like it could have just been stuck between like, like in regular MTV rotation. It’s not quite, it’s not quite like poison, Motley Crude, Def Leppard, but it’s also not quite, like, trying to think of like what was kind of pop music that was still rock.
It felt like it could just fit in that rotation of just kind of just generic. That’s the word I have in my notes is just it’s super generic. And I I just, I feel so bad.
I want, I’m fighting with myself easily, even as the words are coming out of my mouth, because I’m like, oh, I’m just, I’m disappointing Keith. And again, like, it’s it’s not that the song is bad the way some some of the songs that we’ve run across are genuinely bad. It’s not that.
It’s just, it just feels like it would just flow right into like a late 80s playlist and you would just, it would be in one ear, not the other, and you wouldn’t hate it, but you wouldn’t be like, ooh, repeat that. You know, put that on repeat or like if you heard it at a party, you wouldn’t maybe go and ask, oh, who is this? It’s just there for me.
Which is not, you know, the worst thing you could say about a song. It’s obviously not the best thing you could say about a song, but that was kind of, yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at. Just like a 5 out of 10 for me.
So before I start, I want to give Keith the award for reference of the year for Thundercats. Yeah, that was good. Okay, so I know I wasn’t that pressed with these guys the 1st time we heard them.
I’m not really sure, though, that it’s because I didn’t like the song as they just reminded me of the cult. And you know how, Keith, you talked about the fall being like, I should like this? Like, this is for me, and I just didn’t like it.
That’s the cult for me. Anybody that knows me would go, Scotty loves the cult, right? I do not.
And that song reminded me of them. And that’s, I really think that was my only hangup with it. Um, I will say I like this song a lot more than that one.
And this one felt less derivative to me. It kind of felt more like its own thing. I know, like you said, you thought it was kind of generic, but I thought it had an interesting sort of thing.
You know, you were, you were looking for a comp and pop music at the time. I think the comp is like retro glam rock, like New York dolls or early Bowie, something like that. It has that 70s glam rock vibe to it.
They obviously, they look like the poster children for 80s hair metal. But, and they did in the other video too, and that song didn’t have that sound either. I think there’s something else going on here.
I wanted to make a reference and I’m trying to get too far off the track here, but there was a very popular Broadway show in the 90s that was later turned into a movie. It was called Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It’s a story about this young German boy who’s forced into gender reassignment surgery that fails, and he’s traveling around America with his band, the Angry Inch, and all the music in it is sort of inspired by what I was talking about.
New York dolls, early Bowie, that kind of thing. This song almost immediately made me think of that music. And I’m, and I’m saying that is a good thing.
That’s a thumbs up. It’s the vocals that really reminded me of that. And I’m wondering if John Cameron Mitchell, who’s the guy that wrote and played Hedvig for all the years it ran.
I wonder if he was familiar with these guys, because there’s something about what the vocalist, what the singer’s doing here that reminded me very much of that. It certainly sounds like it. So I know the ultimate goal here was to try to get us to try something different from these guys to show that they didn’t sound that much like the cult, and you certainly succeeded there.
I liked this song a lot more than the other one. I will go as far to say that I liked it. I thought this was good.
So I’m meeting you halfway. This is, uh, you kind of let me over this time. I went from bat and 0 to bat and 500.
Any big leaguer in the in the right mind would take a 500 batting average, so I’m good with that. That’s cool. I will say that I achieve my goal.
I brought at least one person over to the Balaam in the angel camp. Yeah. It’s funny though, I would not have thought about early glam rock for that.
But I can hear it. I can see it, you know now that you mention it. A lot of the other stuff on this album is a little more medley, especially the very 1st track, and that’s the one that appears on plane strains and automobiles.
So I think, you know, if you if you like this song and you kind of like the little bit of a heavier approach, that this song had over the last one, I think there’s other stuff on that album you would like, if you don’t, if you did, like Mike, find it to be kind of generic, I think everything on this album is going to strike you as being that is going to be the same thing because this album has a sound to it. So I will take that. If I was able, I was able to make one convert, a 500 batting average is all-star material as far as I’m concerned.
All right, and we’ll pause for just a minute so we can get past the sound of David Bowie rolling over in his grave, and then we will, and then we will continue the podcast. No. Um, yeah, I don’t, I, I mean, to the extent that pop metal is kind of an extension of glam rock, then I guess.
Yeah, I’m, I’m not, maybe I need to go back and listen to it again. Maybe I was in a bad mood. It was the 1st song I listened to in my in my research.
Maybe I wasn’t warmed up yet. But yeah, to me, it just, it felt like it could be like a, like, I keep struggling to think of a band that, like, Firehouse, maybe, one of those, like, 2nd tier pop metal bits. It’s just, that’s, that’s what I got out.
Maybe I need to listen to it again. I don’t want to talk anybody out of listening to this band. In fact, when we did the 1st episode, like we actually had people commenting like, oh, I remember playing this in college radio, I liked this band.
So it’s not just Yuki. Like it’s, it’s, this is, this might be a me thing, and maybe I just don’t like. And I mean, I, I, it’s not even the, it’s, uh, it’s not the genre, but because, I mean, I was a huge fan of all that crappy pop metal, and still, I still like some of it, so.
I think the separation is the vocals. That, to me, that’s what got me to glam rock over like 80s metal. Because if you listen to the early glam rock, you’re, you know, you said Bowie’s rolling owner is great.
I am not saying that this is that. I’m saying, though, that maybe it’s influenced by that. Like, if you listen to T-Rex and the New York Dolls and Early Bowie, they are doing something vocally that the 80s metal bands were not doing.
Those bands were singing in a very operatic style. Lots of big high notes, lots of vibrato. This guy’s not doing that.
He’s doing something a little more closer to glam rock, I think. But I don’t know, that’s how it struck me. If you if you listen to the music I was talking about that Broadway show, Headvick and the Angry Inch, you will hear this guy’s vocals all over it.
And I wonder if there’s if there’s something there. Or they were both influenced by the same thing and, you know, at the same time. Oh, right.
I am excited about this. We are gonna talk about our mystery artist. I guess maybe I was more taken by the video than the actual song itself, but but it was, uh, it was all eye-opening, and I can’t wait to learn more about this band, and hopefully, Scott, you can fill us in on some details here.
Oh boy. Okay, so our mystery song this week comes from a band. Yeah, another amazing name.
It’s Zodiac, Mind Warp, and the Love Reaction. And their song is called Prime Movie. Six, you’re a baby.
I’m a love dictator. Let’s free romance. I’m a liver, dedamator.
Baby, you’re right, I’ll be through the… So, Zodiac Mind Warp is the alter ego of lead singer Mark Manning. The rest of the band kinda comes and goes around him.
This is still a band that performs fairly regularly. I don’t know how much they’re recording these days, but they still play. The music is labeled as sleaze rock, and I think that is a perfect moniker.
If you want to know what Sleaze Rock is, you need to go no further than this song, this is just pure 80s hard rock and all the tropes that go with it, this song, I think, is good for what it is. But it definitely borrows its riff from a more successful British hard rock band. If you listen to this riff and then listen to the song Living After Midnight by Judas Priest, It is the same riff.
You’ll hear it almost immediately. So I don’t know that Priest was too concerned about these guys. Still like their thunder.
So this video. Wow. Everything that is right and wrong about 80s heavy metal videos is right here on display.
I mean, this band rocks so hard that they destroy buildings. They drive their rock tank wherever they want to go and rock out. They turn boring, prudish women into sexy rock chicks just by rocking out in front of them?
Yeah, with lasers. Yeah. So it’s this video is brilliant.
And so I had a few separate reactions to this. 1st I was like, oh, isn’t this funny and tongue in cheek and all that. And then I was like, well, wait a minute. This was in 1988.
This was the heyday of this. Like, was this serious at the time, you know? And then I thought, well, I guess it’s not supposed to be ironic, they were dead serious when this came out.
The more I watched it and the more I thought about it, the more I read about this guy. I think it’s right in the middle. This dude is obviously playing a character.
He was a music journalist. He was sort of fascinated by the debauchery of rock and roll in the metal scene and all that, decided to join in. I think there’s definitely a joke going on here that the world may or may not have been in on at the time.
I mean, it’s certainly not like something like Steel Panther or, you know, the darkness. It’s not that. They’re not like making fun of this, but at the same time, I think they are doing it semi-ironically.
I don’t know if you guys agree with that or not, but, um, and fun fact, before I pass this on, one of the dudes that passed through this project over the years, his name is Jimmy Cotti. He went on to be one of the founding members of the KLF in the 90s. So, yeah, there’s a little pedigree there, I guess.
But yeah, I mean, I can’t wait to talk to you guys about this one. Zodiac Mind Warp and the love reaction. Go for it.
I absolutely thought. I’m not having done as much research. I actually thought, absolutely thought this thing, whole thing was done tongue, tongue in cheek.
I think there had to have been some level of like just, hey, let’s let’s go over the top with this metal video and all the imagery and the things that go into them and just crank it all the way up to 11 and just have a good time with this, which look to be exactly what they did. And I will also say that, you know, as a fan of the Marvel comics and Marvel movies, always fantasize about having a superpower, but the ability to conjure a rock band up out of nowhere, which is what zodiac mind word does in the beginning of the video, he shoots a laser over here and a guitar player appears and he shoots a laser over there and a drummer appears. Man, if I could do that, that’s the superpower I want, man. at some boring event and I can conjure up a hard rock band right there to linen things up.
Yes, please sign me up. That’s it right there. I also saw the thing about Jimmy Cotti.
He was also not, wasn’t just the KLF. He apparently was in the orb for a little while, and maybe even was one of the founding members of the orb. So, and then there was another guy that called himself a part of the band called himself Kid Chaos, which back in the day at KTXT.
We had a DJ that called himself Kid Chaos. I don’t know if he knew of zodiac mind warp at the time. That’s where he got that or if he just came up with it on his own, but that guy apparently also played in the cult for a little bit.
So, Scotty, you might want to check out Cody stuff, but probably not Kid Chaos. stick with the KLF. Yeah exactly. But no, man, the song was fine.
It was kind of fun. But the, yeah, the video, man. This is, this is what videos ought to be.
I mean, if you’re going to try to make a kind of tongue in cheek, fun 80 style video, this is exactly it. You know, I just had this thought. just now popped into my head. You know, these guys are British, and British medal at this time was not this.
You know, British Medal was Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and much darker stuff. I I really am now convinced that this was, look what the dumb Americans are doing because this is almost a satire of an 80s metal video. That almost has to be what it is.
I think that makes a lot of sense, honestly, because I mean, yeah, it’s not far. I mean, it’s a fine line between satire and reality as we all are living in that moment right now. We all realize that in in 2026.
But like, I mean, you turn a couple things down a little, maybe, and it would be indistinguishable from like a white snake video or, or, you know, poison video or Miley Crew, but things that I’m delighted to find out from you. Zodiac Mindwarp is the name of a person. I could not be more happier to hear that that is a person, and that sounds like the best hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy character ever.
I can’t believe that there is a character named Zodiac Mind Warp, Hitchhocker’s Guy to the Galaxy. Kind of has a Rob Zombie thing too. A little bit.
A little bit, yeah. Yeah, my 1st note is, wow, did they commit to the bit? They committed 100% to this.
Just, we’re going to take, and Keith said it. I mean, they took it to 11. They did exactly what they should have done.
They got their inspiration and, oh my God, did they nail that video? Like, I don’t even remember the song. I really don’t.
It’s, it’s, it’s what it is. you know, it’s 80s metal, whatever. It’s not bad. I mean, and this is where, like, having this juxtaposed right next to Blom and the Angel is a real funny situation because you have a very, I’m assuming, serious band and Keith’s pick, you know, doing 80s medal-ish kind of rock.
And then you have these guys also, you know, in a very, very similar vein, taking it in a very non-serious direction. But yet, the 2 songs, if you heard them Sands video, aren’t miles apart from each other. It’s the videos that make one like, oh, they’re a serious band that’s doing a serious thing and this is what they do.
And then there’s these guys who, I think we can all agree at this point, are definitely doing a bit and doing it so freaking well, Jesus, their slaves are shooting out of everything. Like, that’s just like, they shoot out their hands, they shoot out their guitars. At some point, I think the girls finally start shooting lasers after they’ve been laserized.
I don’t remember, but like, yeah, they can, he can conjure the band up, then they, they take this, I, like a convalescent home of women and turn them into groupies with lasers. I couldn’t have said they were supposed to be like, they weren’t nuns, but like, were they being monitored by nuns or were they nuns? It was a home for girls of some sort.
Girls fool. Yeah, run by… No, Britney Fox could probably tell us something about a girl’s school, I would imagine.
There’s a deep cut for you. They could not resist the rocking, and that’s a common theme with these videos. When you have a tank, break through the wall.
They drive the rock tank around. They drive the rock tank, you have a, a guy named Zodiac Mindwarp jumping through what theoretically is a stained glass window, although I don’t think it was actually stained glass. I think it was fake, but and then, you know, A, they’re rocking out, and B, they’re shooting lasers at you.
What can you do, but instantly change your outfit to black leather and and jump on the tank. And also, the Zodiac Mind Warp was able to look at the headmasters of the school or whatever they were there and cause their heads to explode. Oh, that’s right.
That did happen. He had a lot of superpowers. It’s not just conjuring rock bands, man.
Zodiac Moundwork can do all kinds of stuff. I think we’re only scratching the surface of Zodiac Mine Warp’s powers. You know, and this guy’s been doing this for 40 years.
I’d be really curious to like dive in and see just how far he’s gone because he’s obviously got a good sense of humor and, you know, kind of gets it. and I just, I have a feeling there’s some good stuff out there if you keep digging down this, this whole, yeah, this, maybe this is the next band that’s gonna get 2 spots on this podcast. If they come back again. I doubt they will.
It is an interesting thing to kind of note, you know, we talked about this with Keith’s choice, but the fact that these guys are also on 120 minutes still kind of speaks to where we are in 1988 in terms of, you know, the term alternative music hadn’t been coined yet. I’m not even sure that in, you know, the term indie rock hadn’t been coined yet. I think college rock was still a, what they called things, but that was so much more, you know, of a REM style of music term, you know, bands like Love Tractor and REM and some of the other bands that we’ve listened to that there wasn’t really a term for what these guys were doing.
And there isn’t a lot of distance between what these guys are doing and what you would hear on dialing TV, which was like the, you know, the popular music video show at the time that was on after every afternoon, and it was packed with poison, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, White Snake, all those bands were on dialing TV all the time, because they were what kids like me, who would have been 16 or 17 at this time, were listening to, for these guys, and Belong and the Angel to be on 120 minutes, kind of does speak to the fact that they’re, they’re differentiating themselves from that in a way, but yet, a 100 hadn’t quite found its way yet in terms of what it wanted to do. There’s still a lot going on with those choices, I think. 120 minutes wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. But I really think the reason, maybe, that this, these guys, in particular, weren’t getting the kind of airplay that a, a motley crew or a poison was, was because they were European, and maybe their labels did just not want to spend the money to push them in America.
Because I’ll tell you, you know, straight up. The circles I was in, the magazines I was reading, the things I was watching, the music I was listening to. If there was a push to get Balaam and the Angel in America, I would have heard them.
And I never did. And so I really think that’s a big part of it is that they just, they just didn’t have enough money behind them to get them to America. And so 120 minutes picks up on it as this, you know, here’s what’s going on over there.
You know, we had that Australian band, that that was kind of the case with. You know, they were huge in Australia for a minute and then kind of disappeared. And they never had any foothold here.
And it’s just probably because nobody wanted to spend the money to make that happen. You know, that wouldn’t be a problem now with the internet. That’s not problem.
Was that the Huxton Creepers? the creepers, thank you. Yeah, that was the… that was a good band.
And they had some stuff going on, you know, and they just, whatever, whatever company in Australia had their hands on them, did not want to spend the money to push them anywhere else, and so it didn’t happen. That wouldn’t, you know, you they don’t have, people don’t have that problem now. Musicians don’t have that problem now.
You you, uh, you put your music up on a streaming service and you’re good to go. Yeah, I mean, this was it. 100 that’s kind of why we’re doing the show, right? Like, 100 Days podcasts. 120 minutes was this place where we could find these bands that we weren’t finding on, and certain, like, you know, we’ve talked about it before, but like, and I forgot to do the top 40 for March of 1988.
It probably hasn’t changed too much from last time, but you know, certainly not on pop radio. Rock radio at this time was already leaning towards like 60s and 70s classic rock and then some of the, you know, real diehard rock bands that that they deemed okay to play. I’m thinking of in this is very Lubbock specific, but I’m thinking of FMX in this case, but I think every town had that, like, rock station that wasn’t necessarily going to play new rock or indie rock or college rock or whatever.
But then you have all these bands that fall through the cracks and 120 minutes was one of the very few places that maybe would catch a few of them as they fell through and and put them up there. And I’m sure someone saw this video and was like, oh, we got it. We gotta at least give us one spin, but it doesn’t really fit kind of what I think we think of when we think of 120 minutes in alternative rock.
Yeah, I mean, folks, I’m not going to go out and tell you that Zodiac Mine Warp and the Love Reaction is a band that you should go seek out necessarily or go listen to their deep catalog and you know what? You could listen. you could watch this video with the sound down. I don’t even think you have to listen to the song. change your life, but…
This video would be… This is a video that you should watch. Yeah, it’s if you if you’ve ever wanted to see the 80s metal scene lampooned in a perfect way.
Whether they intended that or not, I think we all agree they probably did. And I think, Scott, you’re excellent. I think your explanation is exactly right that this is what American rock bands at that time were absolutely doing.
And there is very little distance between this and a Motley Crue video. you know, girls, girls, girls leaping immediately to mine. There is a damn Yankees video that is exactly this. Or damn Yankees.
Yeah, the house explodes because Ted Nugent is rocking too hard. Yeah, poison. That’s a real video.
You know, none of them used a tank, though, and I think that’s where the American Rock is. Tank is a nice touch, yeah. I don’t I don’t think there was enough tanks in American rock bands and crashing through stained.
Oh, crashing through stained glass probably did happen. I’m probably just forgetting that, but I don’t remember a tank and I think I would. But anyway, folks, Zodiac Mine Warp, love reaction, just go watch the video.
I mean, just it’s just a lot of fun. As far as the other bands we talked about. I’m gonna let Keith and Scott speak for Blom and the Angel and say that, actually, I’m gonna literally let Keith speak on that.
Keith, tell the folks why they should go listen to Bilam and the Angel. Well, I just like them, so I don’t know that I’ve got a good explanation for that. But I will say that 2 out of 3 members of this podcast did enjoy it.
So 66% of the folks polled enjoyed this song. So if you want to give a 66% chance of liking the song. Hey, have at it.
Go listen to some band of the age. see what you think. perfect. That’s a fair that’s a fair shake. Screwing blue messiahs.
I liked Bikini Red. I, you know, again, I wish it went further, but I have a feeling that I would like some other other stuff, so I’m going to go check that out. I think you might enjoy it.
And then the fall is kind of the, uh, you know, the best known band of this bunch, I think, even though like, like, I think Scott said it at the outset, maybe before we started recording. There are no heavy hitters in this particular episode, like all of these bands are pretty, pretty low key, but the fall probably is the, is the most well-known. They’ve got 31 freaking albums, guys.
So, I mean, that would be like, it would, it would take me a year to dig through that catalog, but… There are a name you know. We all agreed on that.
We’d all heard of them. Yeah, we’ve heard of them. We, you know, again, we, people we spoke to for the film absolutely had heard of them and were influenced by them, so there’s something there.
I wish, you know, I wish I had done there’s so much to dig through. I didn’t even know where to start. So I wish I could narrow it down for you and be like, hey, start here, here and here.
My guess is that if you’re a fan of postpunk, British postpunk, start with their early stuff, uh, if you like it a little more smoothed out, I think maybe go into their later 80s stuff and then I don’t know what their 90s stuff sounds like, I don’t remember them necessarily knocking a lot of doors down in the 90s or getting a lot of airplays. So my guess is a lot of their best stuff is going to fall earlier in their catalog, as is the case with most bands, but I don’t know that for a fact, tell me in the comments if I’m wrong, but, you know, based on this song and some of the other songs I listen to, I think it is worth, you know, maybe going and digging into the fall. So go check it out.
We appreciate you tuning in. 120 months will continue next time with April. Uh, we’re gonna wrap up this one. Shout out to 120minutes.org.
There are the website that has compiled all these playlists from years and years and years and years of 120 minutes beyond what we’re doing. We’re just doing the 1st decade. So we’re doing 87 through 97, well, 87 through 96.
They’ve got playlists for all the way through 2003, which is 120 minutes left off. And then there was another show after that that kind of picked up the pace they have playlist from that. So it’s really fun to just go and see what was played.
They link directly to the YouTube video so you can go watch it. So you really can’t kind of go and relive those. And I think as they go further, they’ll start to also link to the actual people that actually recorded the show 120 minutes off MTV so you can see like the interstitial stuff as well.
We’ve mainly just been focusing on the videos that have been played, but I think that’s there. But it would be really hard to do this without them. So thank you to 120 minutes.org for doing all that work for us.
Don’t forget 35,000 watts, the story of college radio, a documentary film about surprise. College radio, is available right now on 2B. You can go check it out. It’s also on YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video if you want to rent it.
So, uh, if you’re into indie rock and college rock and stuff in college radio, you might enjoy that film as well. Once again, thanks to Keith Porterfield and Scott Mobley for sitting in with me, and we will see you next time on 120 months.