Videodrone #23: Space Lord

Videodrone is a weekly(ish) feature looking at music videos from the last half century. 

Space Lord (1998)

The music world was changing in 1998. The alt-rock revolution of the early to mid-'90s was fizzling out, replaced by one-hit wonders (Semisonic, New Radicals, Harvey Danger, etc.), teen pop (Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, N*SYNC), and pop country (Garth Brooks, Shania Twain). Hip hop was also faring well, especially on MTV with flashy videos directed by the likes of Hype Williams showcasing the glamorous life of rappers with plenty of cash, dancers and bling.

For a guy like Dave Wyndorf, frontman of the New Jersey space metal act Monster Magnet, things were getting a little lean. Heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, Hawkwind and Marvel Comics, Monster Magnet was formed in 1989 and signed with A&M Records in 1992 (they opened for Soundgarden and Swervedriver at Avalon in Boston in April 1992, but I got to the show too late to see them). They had a minor hit with "Negasonic Teenage Warhead" in 1995, getting some radio and video play, but like the band's previous album, it didn't sell well. 

So Wyndorf holed up in a hotel room off the Las Vegas strip and wrote a song a day for 21 days, mostly around the Vegas themes of desperation and despair. One of those songs was "Space Lord," about a Thanos-esque supervillain. The label had encouraged him to write simpler songs in the hopes of scoring an actual hit of the complex and often long epics the band was known for. 

For the video, Wyndorf asked director Joseph Kahn (who has directed videos for Taylor Swift, George Michael, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and many others) to make it look like a rap video, since rappers were becoming the real rock stars by this point. Kahn obliged and filmed scenes at many of the same Vegas strip locations used in Mase's "Feel So Good" video (see below). 

The video starts off with a slow-building intro that mimics Metallica's "Enter Sandman" clip, haunting and shadowy, before exploding into the bright colors, pyrotechnics and fisheye lens angles utilized by Williams in the Mase video and many others. Wyndorf is wearing a shiny blue suit in some scenes, a white suit emblazoned with light bulbs in others. The song is an all-out rocker and the video jumps off the screen, with Wyndorf and a group of dancers gyrating in front of a Vegas hotel while fireworks go off all around them.

For some reason, Wyndorf went with a sanitized version of the song's refrain "Space lord, motherfucker," changing it to "Space lord, mother mother" instead. It still works. The song ended up reaching #3 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and #29 on the U.S. Alternative Airplay chart. The album Powertrip hit #97 on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold.

Monster Magnet's video was so similar to "Feel So Good" that once Wyndorf realized it, he was concerned that Mase would be upset but Mase was amused by the homage.

As it turned out, "Space Lord" was the first video ever aired on MTV's Total Request Live, which was an extremely popular show for several years.

Monster Magnet is still together, although they would never again reach the heights they did with "Space Lord." Still, Wyndorf's Vegas stay certainly stands the test of time, even if Monster Magnet was never able to top it.

Day After Day #120: She Says What She Means

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

She Says What She Means (1998)

If a band has two singer-songwriters contributing, that's pretty good. When there's three people bringing quality songs to the table, that's a blessing. But when all four members contribute songs to every album and they're all talented, well, that's above and beyond. There aren't too many bands that can make that boast, but Sloan is one of them.

The band was started in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1991 by Chris Murphy (vocals/bass/drums), Jay Ferguson (vocals/guitar/bass), Patrick Pentland (vocals/guitar) and Andrew Scott (vocals/drums/guitar). They had been playing in other Halifax bands previously and decided to team up. Geffen signed them in the summer of '92 and their first album, 1992's Smeared, reflected their interest in bands like My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth, shoegazy grunge but with a pop sensibility. In early '93, the album was released in the U.S. and the single "Underwhelmed" got some airplay on MTV's 120 Minutes and on alternative stations. Murphy was serving as the de facto frontman during this time, although Pentland and Scott both contributed songs to the debut.

But when Sloan recorded their second album, 1994's Twice Removed, they veered away from the feedback-laden sound of their first album and leaned into quieter, Beatles-inspired power pop. Geffen asked the band to re-record the album and when Sloan refused, the label pulled promotional support for it. The album did well in Canada but was a blip in the U.S. The band split up briefly in late 1995 but decided to release another album to boost their Murderecords label; they asked to be released from their Geffen deal and then recorded the power poppy One Chord to Another in 1996. The album was very successful in Canada, scoring three hit singles and earning the band a Juno award the following year. Their profile was lower in the U.S. but they did some small tours; I saw them in Cambridge. 

By this point, all four members were contributing at least two songs to each album and were finding their own niches: Murphy wrote clever lyrics and McCartney-esque melodies, Pentland delivered catchy hard rockers, Ferguson came up with dream pop songs that would have been at home on AM Gold stations in the '70s and Scott wrote songs that were simultaneously melodic and off-kilter. 

Sloan's fourth album was 1998's Navy Blues, which found the band leaning into '70s rock influences in addition to their Beatles fixation. By this point, the band had relocated to Toronto. Pentland's riff rocker "Money City Maniacs" is probably the band's most popular song, but I'm going with the album's lead track and second single, Murphy's "She Says What She Means." 

It starts with a cough leading into a chugging riff and then Murphy launches into the vocal.

"When in the world?/I'm gonna get it together/I'm telling you, girl/I'm gonna make it all better/But I don't know how I'm going to/'Cause I don't know what she is going through/What I know is that's even mean for me/'Cause she means what she says and she says what she means."

The song stacks hooks upon hooks as Murphy and Scott play guitar instead of Pentland and Ferguson. In an interview with Chart Attack magazine back in '98, Murphy said the song was the last one recorded for the album.

"Patrick had 'Money City Maniacs' and 'Iggy and Angus,' which I was jealous of. Me and Andrew are playing guitar all the way through, so I think it's the one with the most over-the-top soloing, but it's not the guitar players. I wanted to make a hard rock song because I felt that Patrick was kicking my ass."

"What is the word?/It's like you don't even know me/Haven't you heard?/This sort of thing is below me/But I don't know what I would stoop to/Have you got another jump I could hoop through/Now I don't even know if that's meant for me/'Cause she means what she says and she says what she means/When she says that I'm mean, does she mean what she says?"

The song races to its conclusion as Murphy pleads for forgiveness.

"Whenever you want me, whenever you need me/I know that you're angry, you know that I'm sorry/But this situation has come back to haunt me/Whenever you need me, whenever you want me."

I saw Sloan again on this tour, as I would for pretty much every time they came through Boston in the subsequent years. Despite their incessant catchiness and chops, the band never became more than a cult favorite in the U.S. They've released nine studio albums since then, as well as archival box sets. They're much of an established act in Canada, where they play theaters and the occasional arena, whereas here they're playing small clubs. But that's good for Sloan nerdz like me because I can see them at Brighton Music Hall or the Paradise and get right up front. They've managed to keep their sound fresh and fairly timeless, thanks to that four-man songwriting machine.

Day After Day #106: Doo Wop (That Thing)

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Doo Wop (That Thing) (1998)

A lot of times when artists in successful bands go solo, the results tend to be underwhelming. This was not the case with Lauryn Hill after she left the Fugees in 1997. That group was riding high after topping the charts a year earlier, but band tensions led to a split. 

Already a hot commodity thanks to Fugees hits like "Killing Me Softly" and "Ready or Not," Hill took that freedom and ran with it, releasing The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998. Inspired by her recent marriage to Rohan Marley (a college football player and son of reggae legend Bob) and pregnancy, she worked with a group of musicians called New Ark to create the album, although the songs were solely credited to Hill (New Ark later sued for writing credit and compensation; the suit was settled for $5 million). 

The lead single was "Doo Wop (That Thing)" and it blew up immediately, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first song to debut at #1 that was written, produced and recorded by a sole woman since Debbie Gibson's "Lost in Your Eyes" in 1989. It was also the first hip-hop song by a solo artist to go #1, the first single to debut at #1 and the first song by a female rapper to go to the top of the chart.

"Doo Wop" addresses attitudes of both black men and women in the war of the sexes, with Hill rapping the first few verses while also providing the doo wop-style backing vocals. First she addresses the ladies.

"It's been three weeks since you were looking for your friend/The one you let hit it and never called you again/Remember when he told you he was about the Benjamins?/You act like you ain't hear him, then give him a little trim/To begin, how you think you really gon' pretend/Like you wasn't down and you called him again?"

The guys then get called out.

"The second verse is dedicated to the men/More concerned with his rims and his Timbs than his women/Him and his men come in the club like hooligans/Don't care who they offend, poppin' yang (like you got yen)/Let's stop pretend, the ones that pack pistols by they waist men/Cristal by the case men, still in their mother's basement/The pretty face men claiming they be the big men/Need to take care of their three or four kids."

Yeah, it's a bit preachy but it's so damn catchy. "Girls, you know you'd better watch out/Some guys, some guys are only about/That thing, that thing, that thing/That thing, that thing, that thing/Guys, you know you'd better watch out/Cause girls, some girls are only about/That thing, that thing, that thing/That thing, that thing, that thing."

The late '90s were also a time when videos could have a big impact on the success of songs, and Hill's video for "Doo Wop" was huge. It uses a split screen, with a retro Hill from 1967 singing side-by-side with her 1998 self at a block party in Washington Heights. It's classic R&B and soul on one side and hip hop on the other, perfectly melding the styles Hill uses in the song. 

The album was a monster hit as well, selling over 20 million copies worldwide and won five Grammy awards the following year. Hill was a superstar in her early 20s and set to have a long career, but then something unexpected happened. As of this writing, she still hasn't released a follow-up album. 

There were some reasons for this. An actress before she got into music (she stole the show as a singing nun in Sister Act 2 when she was still a teenager), Hill started working on a screenplay about Bob Marley's life and also reportedly turned down a bunch of acting roles (in movies like Charlie's Angels, A Star is Born, The Bourne Identity and the Matrix sequels). And she ended up having six kids, so there's that.

The pressures of stardom caused her to withdraw from the public eye; she also got into religion, courtesy of her "spiritual advisor" Brother Anthony, who some likened to a cult leader. And she spent three months in jail in 2013 after being found guilty of tax evasion charges.

Hill did release an MTV Unplugged album in 2002 and a few singles over the years, but no albums. She reportedly has recorded plenty of unreleased material. There have been occasional tours, although Hill developed a pattern of showing up hours late for shows. Most recently, she just played at Coachella. She's still a star, but back in the late '90s, Lauryn Hill was dominant.

Stuck In Thee Garage #485: July 21, 2023

Nostalgia can be fun, but it can also be misleading. You put on those rose-colored glasses and remember things to be much better than they actually were. Nevertheless, for a radio show, it's valuable to go back and revisit the music of yesteryear every so often. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 1998 (TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO!) in hour 2. It was enjoyable and successful, unlike this overstuffed finale:

This playlist isn't locked up:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Pardoner - Deadbeat/Peace Loving Parade

Palehound - Eye On the Bat/Eye On the Bat

Mac Krol - For Some Other Reason/Single

Who Is She? - Thursday/Single

Genesis Owusu - Tied Up!/Struggler

PJ Harvey - A Noiseless Noise/I Inside the Old Year Dying

Fishbone and NOFX - Estranged Fruit/Single 

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - When We Were Close/Weathervanes

Superviolet - Infinite Spring/Infinite Spring

Strange Ranger - She's On Fire/Pure Music

Andrew Hung - Ocean Mouth/Ocean Mouth

The Smile - Bending Hectic/Single

Snooper - Pod/Super Snooper

Queens of the Stone Age - Negative Space/In Times New Roman...

Guardian Singles - Nightmare Town/Feed Me to the Doves

Hour 2: 1998

Pulp - Glory Days/This Is Hardcore

PJ Harvey - The Sky Lit Up/Is This Desire?

The Afghan Whigs - Uptown Again/1965

Beastie Boys - Intergalactic/Hello Nasty

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Bernie/Acme

Rancid - Cash, Culture and Violence/Life Won't Wait

Sloan - Iggy & Angus/Navy Blues

The Tragically Hip - Vapour Trails/Phantom Power

Spoon - Minor Tough/A Series of Sneaks

Frank Black & the Catholics - Steak 'N' Sabre/Frank Black & the Catholics

Rocket From the Crypt - Back in the State/RFTC

Pearl Jam - Do the Evolution/Yield

Queens of the Stone Age - The Bronze/Queens of the Stone Age

Jerry Cantrell - Between/Boggy Depot

Cat Power - Cross Bones Style/Moon Pix

Beck - Nobody's Fault But My Own/Mutations

Fire up the rock machine RIGHT HERE!

Completely Conspicuous 609: Right About Now

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about the music of 1998. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• More of Phil's non-top 5s: Monster Magnet, R.E.M., Hole, Dave Matthews Band
• Jay's non-top 5s: Tragically Hip, Monster Magnet, Jerry Cantrell, Frank Black and the Catholics, Beastie Boys, Rocket From the Crypt, Rancid, Cat Power
  
• Phil tells of a magical mixtape service
• Phil's #5: Moe with a jazzy jam band album
• Phil says he's not a "Moe-ron"
• Not hating on Steely Dan
• Jay's #5: Silver Jews with downbeat indie rock classic
  
• Phil's #4 and Jay's #2: The debut from Queens of the Stone Age kicks serious ass, combining stoner rock with robotic grooves
• Jay's #4: Followed up Odelay with the experimental Mutations
• Phil's #3: A fun release from the Beastie Boys
• Jay's #3: R&B-influenced album from Afghan Whigs was last before they broke up
• Phil's #2: Phish's 7th album featured a "cow funk" sound
• Phil's #1: Big breakthrough from Fatboy Slim paved the way for DJ as frontman
• Jay's #1: Sloan with a '70s vibe, from arena rockers to sunny AM pop
• Favorite songs: "Praise You" (Phil), "She Says What She Means" (Jay)

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 608: Tubthumping

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about the music of 1998. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• 1998 was 25 years ago!
• Jay turned 31, Phil turned 29
• The one-hit wonders were abundant
• Alt-rock was fading in popularity
• MTV was predominantly airing programming that wasn't videos
• MP3s became another way to share/steal music
• Paved the way for Napster and eventually the near-collapse of the music industry
• Pop was taking over: Britney, Backstreet Boys, N Sync
• Artists who started out great and then just sold out/sucked
• Phil's non-top 5's: PJ Harvey, Mercury Rev, Drive-By Truckers, Pearl Jam, Government Mule, Mark Lanegan, Jerry Cantrell, Tragically Hip, Neutral Milk Hotel 
• The Hip played at Woodstock '99 (correction: it was the weekend after JFK Jr.'s plane crash)
• To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Ye Olde Hit Parade: Somethin' Hot

Editor's note: Ye Olde Hit Parade takes a look back at my favorite songs year by year (starting in 1978, when I really started paying attention to music).

1998: The Afghan Whigs - Somethin' Hot

Things were changing in 1998. Big things. A couple of nerds founded a search engine with the weird name Google, but nobody really paid them any attention at the time. Some other nerds started MP3 download sites like MP3.com, introducing the joy of using your crappy dial-up modem to download songs at an excruciatingly slow rate. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa revived interest in baseball with a home run race that shattered records (and later was found to be assisted by certain performance-enhancing substances). And it was discovered that President Bill Clinton had an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, which led to an even messier impeachment trial later in the year.

As for me, I was still working as an editor at Opus Communications, traveling a fair amount to conferences (including a fun trip to New Orleans) and generally having a good time. I was playing a lot of softball (three weekly leagues) and thanks to my girlfriend, who ran the Boston Marathon in the spring, I started running seriously in the fall, something I've continued to do to this day.

Musically, the year was notable for one-hit wonders: Semisonic, Harvey Danger, Fastball, Natalie Imbruglia, Eagle Eye Cherry, Shawn Mullins, Marcy Playground, New Radicals. It was also big teen pop (Britney Spears, N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys) and mainstream pop-country (Garth Brooks, Leann Rimes, Shania Twain). But for rock fans, it was a big time for rap-rock and nu-metal: Korn, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit ruled the airwaves and kids wearing wallet chains and oversized JNCO jeans were suddenly everywhere. And the biggest albums of the year were the Titanic soundtrack and releases from Celine Dion, Brooks and Twain. Oh, and Aerosmith had a huge hit with the nauseating "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" from the Armageddon soundtrack, but the less said about that, the better.

None of that stuff was my bag. I was listening to a lot of indie rock and old funk and soul. My most-listened-to new albums included Sloan, Frank Black and the Catholics, Beck, Pearl Jam, Pulp, Jerry Cantrell, Page and Plant, Fugazi, Girls Against Boys, Rocket From the Crypt, Rancid, R.E.M., Beastie Boys, The Tragically Hip, Bob Mould, Soul Coughing, PJ Harvey, Buffalo Tom and Sonic Youth. Concerts included Boss Hog, Foo Fighters/Rocket From the Crypt (twice), The Tragically Hip (three times), Girls Against Boys, Cheap Trick, the Afghan Whigs and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.


But where it all came together for me was on the Afghan Whigs' album 1965, specifically the lead single "Somethin' Hot." I was already a big Whigs fan for several years and while they were on Sub Pop at the same time as Nirvana et al., they always had a different sound and an appreciation for old R&B (which they often covered as B-sides). On 1965, they fully integrated the soul side with the rock side and channeled into a tour de force celebrating love and lust. Frontman Greg Dulli had explored the darker side of love and self-loathing with the band's previous three excellent records, but on this one, he was seemingly in a better place. The album should have been huge, but the label didn't know what to make of it and it barely made a dent, only hitting #176 on the Billboard album chart. For industry lunkheads who just thought the Whigs were another Seattle band (which is laughable because the band was from Cincinnati but got lumped in with the grunge acts because of its Sub Pop home), they couldn't get their brains around the band's evolving sound. Which is too bad, because "Somethin' Hot" had crossover appeal. I think I saw it once or twice on 120 Minutes; makes you wonder what might have happened if they played it when people were actually awake.

Honorable mentions: The Afghan Whigs - "Uptown Again"; Sloan - "Money City Maniacs"; Sloan - "She Says What She Means"; Frank Black and the Catholics - "Suffering": Frank Black and the Catholics - "I Gotta Move"; Beck - "Cold Brains"; Beck - "Tropicalia"; Queens of the Stone Age - "If Only"; Pearl Jam - "Brain of J"; Pearl Jam - "Do the Evolution"; Pulp - "Party Hard"; Jerry Cantrell - "Cut You In"; The Tragically Hip - "Fireworks"; The Tragically Hip - "Poets"; Girls Against Boys - "Park Avenue"; Rocket From the Crypt - "Eye On You"; PJ Harvey - "A Perfect Day Elise"; Beastie Boys - "Intergalactic"; R.E.M. - "At My Most Beautiful"; Buffalo Tom - "Rachael"; Rancid - "Bloodclot"; Fatboy Slim - "The Rockafeller Skank"; Chef - "Chocolate Salty Balls"; Rob Zombie - "Dragula"

Stuck In Thee Garage #235: August 24, 2018

Turn the clock back 20 years and you'll find things were very different. The Internet was still in its early stages, at least for the general public, with MP3 downloading slowly (very slowly) becoming something that would eventually change the music industry drastically. A couple of nerds launched a search engine called Google to little fanfare. Seinfeld ended its successful run with a highly-rated and somewhat controversial final episode. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 1998 in hour 2. It's a quirky collection, to stay the least.

This playlist was not produced by Max Fischer:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Fucked Up - Raise Your Voice Joyce/Dose Your Dreams
Slaves - Chokehold/Acts of Fear and Love
Idles - Colossus/Joy as an Act of Resistance
Lucero - For the Lonely Ones/Among the Ghosts
Jim James - Out of Time/Uniform Distortion
Neko Case - Curse of the I-5 Corridor (feat. Mark Lanegan)/Hell-On
Thin Lips - Gaslight Anthem (The Song Not the Band)/Chosen Family
Mitski - Nobody/Be the Cowboy
Jealous of the Birds - Plastic Skeletons/The Moths of What I Want Will Eat Me in My Sleep
BC Camplight - I'm Desperate/Deportation Blues
Arthur Buck - The Wanderer/Arthur Buck
Versing - Silver Dollar/Single
Walter Lure & the Waldos - Damn Your Soul/Wacka Lacka Boom Bop a Loom Bap Boo
The Mutineers - Hard Sell/Threshold
Klammer - Baddest Blocks/You Have Been Processed

Hour 2: 1998
Beastie Boys - Intergalactic/Hello Nasty
The Afghan Whigs - Somethin' Hot/1965
Sloan - Money City Maniacs/Navy Blues
The Posies - Looking Lost/Success
Beck - Cold Brains/Mutations
Pulp - Help the Aged/This is Hardcore
Spoon - Metal Detektor/A Series of Sneaks
PJ Harvey - A Perfect Day Elise/Is This Desire?
Cat Power - Metal Heart/Moon Pix
R.E.M. - At My Most Beautiful/Up
Frank Black & the Catholics - Solid Gold/Frank Black & the Catholics
Jerry Cantrell - My Song/Boggy Depot
Queens of the Stone Age - If Only/Queens of the Stone Age
At the Drive-In - For Now...We Toast/In Casino Out
Metallica - Die Die My Darling/Garage Inc.
Rocket From the Crypt - Run Kid Run/RFTC
Spoon - Staring at the Bird/A Series of Sneaks

Stuck In Thee Garage #214: March 9, 2018

Things move quickly these days. Blink and before you know it, a year has passed. Or a decade, or two. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 1998 in hour 2. There's something about it that really works.

The painfully awkward but ultimately cool playlist:

Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Soccer Mommy - Your Dog/Clean
Remember Sports - Up From Below/Slow Buzz
Mien - Earth Moon/Mien
Titus Andronicus - Above the Bodega (Local Business)/A Productive Cough
Eels - The Deconstruction/The Deconstruction
Stove - Dumb Phone/Is a Toad in the Rain
Painted Doll - Hidden Hand/Painted Doll
Ty Segall - Despoiler of Cadaver/Freedom's Goblin
Marvin Gaye and Ratt - I Heard It Round and Round the Grapevine/Mashup by Bill McClintock
Superchunk - Bad Choices/What a Time to Be Alive
Partner - Comfort Zone/In Search of Lost Time
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Mainland/Mainland
Moaning - Artificial/Moaning
Vundabar - Acetone/Smell Smoke
Thunder Dreamer - Capture/Capture

Hour 2: 1998
Sloan - She Says What She Means/Navy Blues
Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945/In the Aeroplane, Over the Sea
Buffalo Tom - Rachael/Smitten
Queens of the Stone Age - Regular John/Queens of the Stone Age
Pulp - Party Hard/This Is Hardcore
Girls Against Boys - Park Avenue/Freak*On*Ica
Cat Power - Cross Bones Style/Moon Pix
Beck - Tropicalia/Mutations
Spoon - Reservations/A Series of Sneaks
The Afghan Whigs - 66/1965
Rancid - Bloodclot/Life Won't Wait
Rocket From the Crypt - Eye On You/RFTC
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Attack/Acme
The Tragically Hip - Poets/Phantom Power
Frank Black & the Catholics - Suffering/Frank Black & the Catholics
Jerry Cantrell - Cut You In/Boggy Depot
Pearl Jam - Brain of J./Yield

Completely Conspicuous 316: Fire in the Hole

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we dissect the disaster that was Van Halen III. Listen to the episode or download it directly (right click and "save as").



Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's comics podcast The Hour Cosmic
- Jumping into an 8-minute epic snoozer
- Rumors that the VH brothers had jammed with Ozzy around this time
- Nuno Bettencourt has been touring with Rihanna
- Jay happens to have issue of Guitar World from '98 nearby
- The joys of the Columbia House Record Club
- Michael Anthony's MIA for most of the album
- Eddie compared his singing voice to Roger Waters meets Tom Waits
- DLR says they're working on new VH album for mid-2015
- Brian: VH III was bad in a different way than expected
- Jay: Almost an Adult Contemporary sound
- Jay: Also haven't heard anything from VH's Balance, the last Hagar album
- Record sales from the '90s were ridiculous; nearly everything sold well
- Bizarre cover of Balance was actually PhotoShopped pic of Wolfgang VH
- Putting shitty albums in your iTunes
- The latest VH album was what Aerosmith should do: make a '70s-sounding record
- The comics industry now is where music industry was before Napster
- WWE is getting creative about its content
- Netflix and others are changing the way we consume media
- iPods are being phased out

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 315: House of Pain

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we dissect the disaster that was Van Halen III. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
 


Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's comics podcast The Hour Cosmic
- An addendum to our look at 1998
- VH III featuring Gary Cherone on lead vocals
- Jay hasn't heard the album, Brian's heard it twice
- Last VH album with Michael Anthony
- Many long songs
- Produced by TV theme composer Mike Post
- Pleasant acoustic instrumental to start album
- Mission statement: We will wuss you
- Cherone sounds a lot like Hagar
- Brian: "Without You" not as bad as I remember
- Eddie needed an editor
- Tough position for Cherone to be in
- EVH played some bass on album
- Restrained drum sound from Alex VH
- Songs drag on way too long
- The "go get a beer" song
- Extreme acquitted themselves well at Freddie Mercury tribute concert
- Mike Post produced artists like Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton
- Severe lack of kickassery
- Jay saw both Van Hagar and DLR in the summer of '86
- Brian saw Pixies recently
- The greatness of Lindsay Buckingham
- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 314: The Man Who Was Too Loud

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1998. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's comics podcast The Hour Cosmic
- Brian's #3
- Sean Lennon was considered the poor man's Beck
- Yuka Honda was married to Lennon, now married to Nels Cline
- Jay's #3
- Totally slept on QOTSA in '98
- Homme's first post-Kyuss band
- The greatness of Them Crooked Vultures
- Brian and Jay have same #2
- Frank Black got dropped by a major label
- First album by major arist commercially released online
- Jay: Pete Townshend made some great solo albums in early '80s
- Brian's #1
- Billy Bragg and Wilco covering Woody Guthrie
- Jay's #1
- Sloan has four talented songwriters
- Paul Stanley's stage raps
- The end of The Best Show on WFMU
- Mourning a great radio experience
- Next up: 1984

Music:
Screaming Maldini - Soweto
Brawlers - Instagram Famous

Grass is Green - Vacation 2.0

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The Screaming Maldini song is a self-released single. Download the song for free (in exchange for your email address) at Bandcamp.
The Brawlers song is on the EP I am a Worthless Piece of Shit on Alcopop! Records. Download the song for free at Soundcloud.

The Grass is Green song is on the album Vacation Vinny on Exploding in Sound Records. Download the song free at Amazon.

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 313: Somethin' Hot

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1998. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Check out Brian's comics podcast The Hour Cosmic
- Remember Blues Brothers 2000?
- Goo Goo Dolls went Hollywood
- Brian: QOTSA released its debut
- Rob Halford came out; first prominent metal dude to do so
- In retrospect, '80s heavy metal was steeped in gayness
- Bubbling under albums
- Jay: Fugazi, GVSB, RFTC
- Brian: Elliott Smith, The Catholics, Flin Flon, Tortoise, The Lounge Lizards
- Jay: Pearl Jam, Neutral Milk Hotel, Pulp, Beasties, Tragically Hip, Cat Power
- Brian's #5 album
- Hello Nasty is the last classic Beasties album
- Jay's #5 and Brian's #4
- Beck does a 180 from Odelay
- Later Beck material rehashes older sounds
- Jay's #4
- Afghan Whigs fully embrace soul and R&B
- Greg Dulli can do no wrong
- 1965 was the last Whigs album...until this year
- To be continued

Music:
Built to Spill - Jokerman
Guillermo Sexo - Color the Noise

Bill Janovitz - Matter

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The Built to Spill song is on the tribute album Bob Dylan in the '80s: Volume One on ATO Records. Download the song for free (in exchange for your email address) at Stereogum.
The Guillermo Sexo song is a re-recording of an old track available for free at MobtownStudios.com.

The Bill Janovitz song is available for free download on Bandcamp.

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 312: Dawn of a New Age

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1998. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
-  Check out Brian's comics podcast The Hour Cosmic
- The Pixies' ongoing bass situation
- Brian: Zwan was underrated
- Pixies have become the butt of jokes
- In 1998, Jay was 30, Brian was 16
- We both had just started dating the women we would marry
- In '98, being eclectic became cool
- JK: Was getting into more funk and soul
- Big year for pop
- TRL started in '98
- Lots of one-hit wonders: Eagle Eye Cherry, Chumbawumba, New Radicals
- The New Radicals featured former child actress in band
- JK: Saw Fastball open for Matthew Sweet in a tiny pub in Portland, Maine
- Semisonic's drummer wrote book about the record industry
- The MP3 revolution began in '98 with MP3.com
- MP3.com got sued by the labels before Napster
- BS: Beginning of Latin influence and the height of the short-lived swing dance craze
- The Titanic soundtrack was huge
- Aerosmith had big hit with "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing"
- Pop country was big: Shania Twain, Faith Hill
- Rap metal was a lowlight: Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock broke through
- Sugar Ray had a DJ named Homicide
- The year of Van Halen III: The Gary Cherone era
- Brian paid 8 cents for VH III
- To be continued

Music:
Johnny Foreigner - Le Sigh
Fuzz - Till the End of the Day

The Dismemberment Plan - The Ice of Boston

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The Johnny Foreigner song is on the album You Can Do Better on Alcopop! Records. Download the song for free at Soundcloud.
The Fuzz song is on the 7-inch single L.A.M.C. #10 on Famous Class Records. Download the song for free (in exchange for your email address) at Bandcamp.
The Dismemberment Plan song is on the album The Dismemberment Plan is Terrified on DeSoto Records. Download the song for free (in exchange for your email address) at Noisetrade.

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Mixology: Great Googily Moogily!

Mixology is a recurring feature in which I take a look at one of the many mix tapes I made over the years. Some are better than others, but all of them are fun to revisit.

Great Googily Moogily! (7/1/98)

In retrospect, 1998 had a lot going on. President Clinton became embroiled in the whole Paula Jones/Monica Lewinsky scandal that nearly derailed his presidency. The U.S. started voicing concerns about the possibility of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. The Unabomber pleaded guilty. A startup called Google launched in California. Former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota.

As for me, I was in a pretty good place, all things considered. Deb and I had been dating for nearly a year. I was 30, living with a couple of buddies of mine, renting out half a house in a nice residential neighborhood. Work was going well; I was a supervisor with a good staff working for me. That summer, I played a lot of softball and golf and drank a lot of beer. I honestly can't think of anything that wasn't going well.

I didn't go to a ton of shows in the first half of the year, seeing the Foo Fighters a couple of times in Boston and Portland, the Tragically Hip twice at Bill's Bar (legendary!) and later in the year at the Orpheum with Cracker, Girls Against Boys at the Karma Club, Cheap Trick and the Afghan Whigs, both at the Paradise and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at Avalon. I only saw a couple of Sox games, but I went to a bunch of Bruins games, saw the Patriots play down in New Orleans while I was there on business, saw UNH football play at Northeastern and in December, flew up to Toronto to catch one last game at Maple Leaf Gardens. My buddy Phil went with me and we were going to meet my brother, who was flying in from Texas; he ended up missing his flight and we traded our three tickets to a scalper for two and some cash. The Leafs ended up getting shut out by Eric Lindros and the Flyers, 3-0, but we had a blast.

As for the mix, it was on a 110-minute tape, hence the extra-long playlist. The first side was full of some older funk and rock favorites of mine, while the second side was mainly newer stuff I was listening to. The whole thing holds up pretty well.

Side A: Googily
It's Your Life - Lenny Kravitz
Give It Up or Turnit a Loose - James Brown
Word Up - Cameo
U Got the Look - Prince
Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothing - Living Colour
Freedom - Jimi Hendrix
I Can See for Miles - The Who
Rockin' in the Free World - Neil Young
The Girl I Love She Got Long Wavy Black Hair - Led Zeppelin
Let There Be Rock - AC/DC
Godzilla - Blue Oyster Cult
Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie

Side B: Moogily
Dive - Nirvana
The Guns of Brixton - The Clash
Right Turn - Alice in Chains
Ty Cobb - Soundgarden
Heroin Girl - Everclear
Hey Johnny Park! - Foo Fighters
Siva - Smashing Pumpkins
Worst Thing - Sebadoh
Back in the State - Rocket From the Crypt
Last Cup of Sorrow - Faith No More
Park Avenue - Girls Against Boys
Party Hard - Pulp
Electioneering - Radiohead
Where You Get Love - Matthew Sweet
Money City Maniacs - Sloan
Someone Who's Cool - Odds




Great googily moogily:


Live Godzilla from 1980:


Last Cup of Sorrow: