Great features from the good old David Letterman show!

These are brilliant and should have more exposure than they have...

I still haven't found my blogging muse to return, but...

An underrated song by an underrated innovator. I am learning this song on my ukulele, so you will be in trouble once I do!

Why don't they make stuff like this anymore?

I don't understand what makes people think that modern necessitates better. After all, wasn't the old stuff the modern stuff once? Case in point is the new videos that dominate the airwaves of EmpTV, bands filled with the best angst money can buy. Whether or not you are a Rundgren fan, the above video displays more intelligence and interestingness than any of the crap that is out there today. To be sure, that Rundgren video then was probably deemed too ultra-modern and too wacko and too plastic by the people that saw it then. But if we are in the post-modern age, why aren't people making videos like this, in a wry wink-wink to the past and how cool they are in the present? Just a thought...

Another few underrated and little heard bands from my youth

I really like the "Athens sound" that emerged during the early eighties. Once R.E.M. made it, everyone and their brother who even remotely had a band in the greater Athens area was signed to a record deal. A lot were kinda ho-hum, but a few were interesting in their own right, although never attaining the level of their rapid eye movement peers.

Guadalcanal Diary was one that captivated me when I was in high school, and I can't honestly explain why. This video is pretty blaise by today's standards, but it is still a really rockin' song:


Likewise, Dreams So Real had some great songs on their debut album. This one, the title track of their debut, was a favorite of mine of theirs:
Rough Night In Jericho - Dreams So Real
Enjoy!

I'm Bringing Sexy Back, old school style, just in time for summer!

"You Down With OPB (Ocean Pacific Brand)?" "Yeah, you know me!" There I was, pacing the aisles of Wal-Mart, looking for something to fill the void in my life, when I chanced upon the discovery of the re-release of a clothing line near and dear to the hearts of those of us who came of age in the early eighties. Yes, I'm talking about the venerable OP clothing line, sold exclusively now at the Mart.

Gone are the days when we would have given our front teeth just for the opportunity to own an OP shirt. True, perhaps we placed too much value on material things when we were in middle school. And, probably, our sexuality as well, as I remember worrying profusely that a friend of mine and I wore similar blue OP shirts to middle school one day, only to be called "fags" by a bunch of cooler people who now probably work at Wal-mart. So, confident now in both myself, my sexual orientation, and the world in which I live, I hurl down the gauntlet of fashion and proclaim this summer not only the Summer of Mike but the Summer of Eighties Inspired Beach Wear! Who's with me?

Nice 'n' Moogy! Part One

I took piano lessons. I was never really into them, mainly because we played Sound of Music songs for our recitals. However, there has been something in me lately that can't get enough of synthesizer sounds in music. I would love to have a Moog or Prophet-5 in my apartment, to make rumbling analog synth-pop type music. As a result, I offer some of my favorite keyboard songs here, for you, the viewers of the Veeb!

This first is from Genesis, off of their self-titled album, with a scary song called "Mama."

While that is indeed ominous, here is a really bizaare and scary video from a Swedish keyboard band called The Knife, with their hit "We Share Our Mother's Health." I am not sure what I have witnessed here, but fear that it has sent me over the edge into psychic distress...

Now, all I gotta do is find the old Casio keyboard from the eighties we used to have and, viola, instant hitmaking! Enjoy!

A semi-forgotten band of the early eighties...the Long Ryders!

This band was in line with the REM / Byrds sound that seemed to dominate the early eighties while I was in high school. The kinda music that made you want to wear a white dress shirt with a black vest you got at Goodwill. Kinda wish they'd bring that kinda music back...anyone with me? I have a vest...

Yacht Rock - the reason for the internet!

While I can engage in music snobbery with the best of them, dropping Yo La Tengo and Joy Division references while I hold my nose at the regular pablum that constitutes modern radio, I have always had a soft spot (secret shame?) for the lighter end of the rock spectrum. Apparently, I am not alone, as I chanced upon a group of videos by a bunch of guys from California detailing the untold stories of the creation of what they term "yacht rock" - the Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers type of music that dominated the airwaves of the late seventies and early eighties. These videos are brilliant and provide a wonderful take on this hidden history that so clearly needed to be told. This is the first episode, entitled "What a Fool Believes;" hopefully you will tear up and laugh out loud at the same time, like I did. We should have done this kinda stuff with the GSHA...


Enjoy!

This was going on in my brain when I was on drugs back when I used to do drugs...

Now you know, and knowing's half the battle. Enjoy!

Some of my most favoritist music that makes me happy

Yes, I know that this music isn't easy listening and, you may say, conventional. I also know it isn't good work music (despite the fact that I would listen to this stuff mowing lawns in my neighborhood for money when I was young). However, every now and then, I go back to King Crimson for some Veeb-ish excitement when needed, as well as fulfilling my need for hearing extrememly enviable musicianship from a freaky band. These videos are from the eighties version of the group, which is actually more concise and in your face than the earlier and bloated prog-rock path King Crimson took in the 1970s (as if you really cared). Be forewarned: THIS IS NOT your mama's Sunshine Pop! This is sunshine pop that has been knocked in the head with a bronze owl statue, run over and sucked up by a vacuum truck, spit out into a chemical factory sluice, and then tickled with a thistle bush during a 75 car pileup in a china doll outlet!

Enjoy!

Comateens - annoyingly cool!

I remember seeing these people on an old, old, old Nickelodeon show called Livewire. I thought this was punk rock when I saw them (this from the man who orginally thought that the Grateful Dead was a heavy metal band - go figure). And, I suppose, it is - depending on your perspective. After all, remember D. Boon's adage about punk rock being whatever you make it! Why I put this up, I don't know. Who knows how we think here at the Veeb? It's like watching television with an incessant channel-flipper, I suppose. And, I suppose, that I've supposed a lot in this blog entry. But, hell, I don't care as I passed my Group 3 exam. So, I suppose I need to start studying for the next one!

Quicksilver - the Citizen Kane of bike messenger movies

This weekend, I was watching the afternoon movie on Sunday. It is usually some forgotten (deservedly) film from the eighties that went straight to video. However, this weekend was different, in that I witnessed a long forgotten jem of American cinema that demands repeated study - Quicksilver. Starring Kevin Bacon, a youthful Jamie Gertz and Larry Fishburne, and several actors that went on to illustrious careers as game show hosts or infomercial spokespersons, this film leaps from the screen in ways that most films can only aspire to reproduce. The social commentary is biting, the mise en scène sublime, and the acting so effortless you would swear that you were being reborn anew after each watching! How could this masterpiece have been lost to the public? Why has it not recieved the accolades it deserves? Why hasn't Criterion rereleased a two disc DVD set with commentary from Harold Bloom?

Enjoy!

Oh far out! Really great! Woodstock!

"C'mon, let's do it! White Riot. Stand Down Margaret. I'm a child of recession, I've got hate in my eyes. Ask for me tomorrow and I'll be gone cause I've got a one-way ticket to oblivion and I'm going to raise hell getting there! Right on. I'm aboard the Freedom Bus, heading for Good Time City. And I haven't even paid my fare!"

A blast from my past - yes, this is me!

Homage to an old employer...

When I was a young lad, I took a job at a local restaurant in Kingsport called Pratt's Barn. They were proclaimed, by the local radio adverts, as being "THE place for Breakfast and Barbeque!" The owners had recently relinquished control over the establishment to their son, who seemed less interested in the day to day running of the place and more interested in pursuing a roustabout lifestyle with a bevy of buxom blonde and brunette bimbos, many of whom became waitresses at Pratt's. This was a wonderful selling point for working there, especially for a young lad such as myself experiencing the full assault of puberty.

However, that was about all the place had going for it. The food was alright, when the chef was sober, but the health code violations would probably have gotten us on Don Dare's program. The waitresses, while easy on the eyes and generally nice to me, tended to be bitchy and manipulative, especially when it came to their speculations as to which one of them was currently sleeping with the boss. And the managers were a group of petty micromanagers with a penchant for overcomplicating the simplest of tasks.

A giant Indian statue, made of concrete and fiberglass, stood in front of the building. One time, when I was cleaning it for spider webs, I knocked the loin cloth off. That should be on my headstone. That, or "Nobody Beats Our Meat." But that's another story for another time...

Should I enjoy this?

This video seems to be like a lost episode of Sprockets, with a lisping German singer who constantly raises his eyebrows, perhaps in a not too subtle recognition of his underlying Schadenfreude. Enjoy!

some oldies but goodies that aren't hair bands...part 1

I've been listening to some of the music that I used to listen to a lot back when I had longer hair. Not as long as I recently had it, but longer than I have it now. Not that I am reluctant for helping little hairless children with my donation of hair. Nor am I having second thoughts about my new do. I've just been listening to some of my older music and thought I would pass along the hits of the eighties and nineties as thru the ears of me. Mind the wax!

In many ways, this song and this band made me into the person that I have become. I don't know why, but suffice it to say, I could handle only getting to listen to Camper Van Beethoven for the rest of my life, if I had to make a choice and I couldn't take my Who records with me. Or I couldn't watch the Lawrence Welk show on PBS. So, lay back, find some cowboys on acid, and drink in the CVB hipness!

No more horrid visions of things to come...why is that?

Seriously, why is it that they don't make good (or even bad) post-apocalyptic motion pictures anymore? Is it because we ain't still fighting the Russkies? Where are the Omega Man, Planet of the Apes (not Tim Burton's), or Soylent Green of our generation? Or Logan's Run or Clockwork Orange? Or even a good radiation-filled, happening film that examines man's inhumanity to man through the interplay of scantily clad nuclear holocaust amazons riding big motorbikes with razor sharp horns while they hunt down the scientist males who possess the unclean technology? That actually sounds like a promising film...

I suppose that the Mad Max films serve as a living bridge to the Heston armageddon series, albeit with a more nihilistic overtone than the 1970s films. But, even after having watched a few minutes of the first movie the other night on the late show, I believe that the original Mad Max was a kick-ass movie, kinda like Bullit in the outback after the breakdown of societal restraint and the rejection by law enforcement to actually obey the laws they enforce. And, yes, there were several approximations of this genre by other auteurs, all with screaming cars, buxom mohawked women, and angry anti-heros. But why not now?

Of course, the eighties and early nineties saw a raft of Blade Runner rip-offs which, even with bad movies like Johnny Mnemonic, had a certain appeal that frightened and delighted me at the same time. To be sure, Blade Runner as an action film is pretty boring. But, it is visually stunning, with its imagery of decay and modernity coupled together in such a way that is hard to soon forget, especially if you like seeing Rutger Hauer all slick and menacing (makes me want to wear my hair all spiked up).

Although, speaking of hair and my fear that I may now look like a reject from an eighties film, I think one of the most underrated post-apocalyptic movies from the eighties has to be Footloose. I mean, think about it - (1) stranger comes to repressive town that is isolated from the rest of the world (due to Reagan's foreign and domestic economic policies), (2) stranger has new paradigm for doing things in this repressive society (dance, dance, dance is the revolution solution), (3) stranger uses extra-ordinary physical prowess to enable him to function in a world ripped apart by divisive notions of the future and past ("You better run, city boy, cuz we're gonna mess you up!"), (4) stranger triumphs in such a way that the pyrrhic victory he has accomplished is meaningless and of little consequence ("Now we get to dance and shake our asses any time we damn well please!"). As you can see, Footloose is essentially Road Warrior in middle America. Except without cars. Or crossbow-toting maniacs. But, other than that, Footloose is a shot for shot homage!

So, what the GSHA needs to do is make a new post-apocalyptic film for the new millenium. Maybe even a series, like the Mad Max films, with opportunities for residual profits from toy and commemorative drink glass campaigns at the fast food franchises. The wheels in my head are spinning with ideas - all we need is a title. How about Gender and Power in Rural China: The Aftermath (happens to be the book I am reading right now, but I added the aftermath part)?

You can't take the boy out of the man...

While I was of the generation who first played with Star Wars action figures, I was always somewhat dismayed at their lack of posability and their constraints on my youthful imagination (mainly because they were the products of George Lucas's mind and not mine). You couldn't do wild and wacky things with them because each figure already possessed a back story that was pretty well defined by the movies, as well as all the resultant cultural baggage that was attached to this saga (e.g. Luke Skywalker was a good guy, Greedo was not).

However, I didn't feel the same restrictions with another action figure line called Micronauts. While there were clearly defined good and bad guys, the figures were a bit more non-descript, they were much more posable than other figures, they had little "cultural baggage" and, in my mind, they were a hell of a lot more fun than Star Wars figures. Whenever I would play with the two, the Micronauts would nearly always win, taking over the Millenium Falcon and inihilating the Star Wars people, good and bad (since the Star Wars people would have to ally themselves together to meet the onslaught of the Micronauts!) Then, the Micronauts would have an internal struggle over who would hold supremacy over their race, leading to an intense afternoon of political intrigue, murder, and epic battles across the living room, ending just in time to watch Battle of the Planets! And that was just last week at my apartment!

Some of the worst or the best of nascent video music...you be the judge!

Back in the early days of eMpTV, any band with a video camera, a song, and a dream could make their way onto television, mainly because there weren't many videos to choose from in those pre-Idol times.

My sister, who has eclectic musical tastes of her own, loved this video, feeling that it encapsulated everything that was vibrant and real within early eighties music. Despite my affectations of being a musical snob, I am inclined to agree with her. The band, Blotto, had another great video, "Metalhead," that evokes early Anthrax or, perhaps, Cannibal Corpse on a bad day and was a wry comentary on the heavy metal trope that became an increasingly laughable caricature of itself through repeated excesses and screaming guitars.

The band is now consigned to the dustbin of history - but their music lives on in the hearts of those of us lucky enough to have been touched by their showmanship! Of course, it could be that they just sucked then and they suck now! You be the judge!