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.

Stuck In Thee Garage #640: July 10, 2026

Time keeps on slipping into the future, according to some old space cowboy dude. All I know is it seems to be sprinting. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from RIP Magic, Knitting and Slow Pulp in hour 1 and songs from 15 years ago (which happens to be 2011) in hour 2. It seems like it was just here and yet so much has happened since then. Watch your back, cowboy!  

The paintball-riddled playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

RIP Magic - Screwdark/Single

Knitting - I Want to Remember Everything/Souvenir

Slow Pulp - Better Man/Melodie

Bantom Woods - Sitting Around/Bend

Josh Da Costa - Skygirl/New Wave Graveyard

Guitar Wolf - Kung Fu Bikini/More Jet

Sad13 - Watermelon Manicure/1331

Fiddlehead - Porchlight/Baby I'll Change

Piebald - Cooler Heads Prevail/Tales for the Rages

Eddy Current Suppression Ring - My World/In Light of Recent Events

Social Distortion - Partners in Crime/Born to Kill

Telehealth - Cost of Inaction/Green World Image

Drakulas - Sex/Midnight City

Cola - Fainting Spells/Cost of Living Adjustment

Feeble Little Horse - Guts/bitknot

Sub*T - On the Vine/How My Own Voice Sounds

The Creem - Augur/Taste of Cherry

Hour 2: 2011

Wild Flag - Short Version/Wild Flag

The Dears - Blood/Degeneration Street

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Senator/Mirror Traffic

Beastie Boys - Lee Majors Come Again/Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

Fucked Up - Ship of Fools/David Comes to Life

St. Vincent - Cruel/Strange Mercy

The Twilight Singers - She Was Stolen/Dynamite Steps

Buffalo Tom - Arise, Watch/Skins

J Mascis - Not Enough/Several Shades of Why

Radiohead - Little by Little/The King of Limbs

R.E.M. - Discoverer/Collapse Into Now

The Feelies - Again Today/Here Before

Telekinesis - Car Crash/12 Desperate Straight Lines

Maritime - Paraphernalia/Human Hearts

PJ Harvey - The Words That Maketh Murder/Let England Shake

Johnny Foreigner - Camp Kelly Calm/European Disco: Collected B-Sides and Remixes 2008-2010

Shoot your shot and crank up the show HERE!

Videodrone #22: Unreal is Here

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

Unreal is Here (1997)

In the mid- to late-80s glory days of MTV, hard rock acts found success with the power ballad: A slower song that builds into a powerful climax. These songs helped heavy bands like Motley Crue and Scorpions reach a wider audience (i.e., women) and usually translated into huge album sales. At the same time, the videos for these songs were usually what propelled them to popularity, featuring live footage, dramatic-seeming shots of the band backstage, and wistful shots of the group traveling on buses and planes. See "Home Sweet Home" by the Crue, "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi and "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison for three examples.

Fast forward to 1997. Bon Jovi managed to transcend its hard rock roots and remained successful throughout the 

90s and beyond, but many of the metal and hard rock acts that ruled the '80s saw their popularity diminish after 1991 thanks to the rise of alternative rock. One act that remained under the radar even in those giddy times for indie rock was Chavez, an NYC-based band formed in 1993 by guitarist-singer Matt Sweeney (previously of the bands Skunk and Wider), guitarist Clay Tarver (formerly of Boston's Bullet Lavolta), bassist Scott Marshall (son of director Garry Marshall) and drummer James Lo (who also played in Wider).

Signed to legendary indie label Matador, Chavez played an angular math-rock style and released its first album Gone Glimmering in 1995. Their video for "Break Up Your Band" was featured on Beavis and Butt-Head and they toured with Guided By Voices and Bardo Pond. The group released Ride the Fader in late 1996 and in 1997, unveiled the video for "Unreal is Here," directed by Tarver and Marshall (who both went on to become TV and film directors).

The video opens with the band's name in lights before a show at the Hollywood Bowl as fans wait in the packed venue and the group disembarks from a helicopter in rock star style. Chavez plays "Unreal is Here" at soundcheck and it indeed starts off slow like a power ballad. Cut to shots of the group presenting a big check to its "CHAVEZ KIDS" charity and receiving platinum and gold records from its label while adoring throngs of fans surround them. There are scenes of backstage antics, long bus rides, interviews and photo ops. 

What's so funny about all that? The joke is that as great as Chavez was--and they were great--they never achieved a fraction of the success that those big-name hair metal bands scored in the '80s. And that's okay. Especially since Chavez was in on the joke.

Ride the Fader was their last album. The band never officially split, but they didn't release any new material or play shows from 1999 to 2006, when Matador released the comp Better Days Will Haunt You. It featured a new song and Chavez played a few shows in support of it. In 2017, the band released the EP Cockfighters.

Sweeney ended up becoming a notable session guitarist and featured player. In 2001, he joined Billy Corgan and Slint's David Pajo to form Zwan, he's worked with Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Iggy Pop, Guided By Voices, Probot, Johnny Cash, El-P, Andrew W.K. and Run the Jewels, among others. He also formed The Hard Quartet with Stephen Malkmus, has produced albums for numerous artists and hosts the web series Guitar Moves.

Marshall has directed three movies and worked as second unit director on several of his father's films. Tarver has also worked as a writer and director, including serving as the co-showrunner and executive producer of HBO's Silicon Valley.

Chavez is probably known to about 2% of current music fans, but at least those of us who appreciate them have a glimpse of what might have been with the video for "Unreal is Here."

Stuck In Thee Garage #639: July 3, 2026

The concept of magic requires a lot of belief. We want to believe in it, even if it seems impossible. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Fiddlehead, Piebald and Sparta in hour 1 and songs about magic in hour 2. It's magically delicious!

Presto chango, here's the playlist:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Fiddlehead - The Dogs/Baby I'll Change

Piebald - More Month Than Money/Tales for the Rages

Sparta - Mouthbreather/Cut a Silhouette

Interpol - See Out Loud/This Mirror Weighs a Ton

Feeble Little Horse - Rewind/bitknot

The Creem - Goodbye/Taste of Cherry

Death Cab for Cutie - Envy the Birds/I Built You a Tower

Ecca Vandal - Vertical Worlds/Looking for People to Unfollow

Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Swimming Hole/In Light of Recent Events

Guided By Voices - No Shoe Fits (Floating Babies)/Crawlspace of the Pantheon

The Bug Club - It's Our Manager David/Every Single Muscle

Waves Crashing - Out & Away/In the Blur

Kurt Vile - Rock 'O Stone/Philadelphia's Been Good to Me

The Purrs - Boys Will Be Boys/All of Us Right Now!

The Sheila Divine - Celebrate the End/The Middle Ages

Weird Nightmare - Bright City Lights/Hoopla

Hour 2: Magic

Turnstile - Magic Man/Never Enough

Redd Kross - Simple Magic/Redd Kross

Juliana Hatfield - Strange Magic/Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO

Van Halen - Could This Be Magic?/Women and Children First

Masters of Reality - Magical Spell/Masters of Reality

Black Sabbath - The Wizard/Black Sabbath

MIEN - Hocus Pocus/MIEN

Magnolia Electric Co. - Protection Spell/It's Made Me Cry

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Magical Colors/Acme

Radiohead - Burn the Police/A Moon Shaped Pool

Sloan - Magical Thinking/Steady

Kiwi Jr. - Wicked Witches/Football Money

The Dirty Nil - Smoking is Magic/Master Volume

Lubec - Your Magic Wand/Wilderness Days

Robert Pollard - Love is Stronger Than Witchcraft/From a Compound Eye

The Afghan Whigs - The Spell/In Spades

Click the magic link and listen to the show, Houdini!

 

Stuck In Thee Garage #638: June 26, 2026

As predictable as life can be, sometimes it's good to throw a little unpredictability into the mix. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played two hours of songs picked completely at random. It's all over the place but it holds together pretty well. And besides, sometimes it just doesn't matter.

Now the serious partying can begin:

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Eric's Trip - My Chest is Empty (Part 2)/Live at Vermonstress October 1992

Royal Trux - Platinum Tips/Quantum Entanglement

The Sons of Hercules - Lost in Space/The Sons of Hercules

Infinity Girl - Not My Hang/Just Like Lovers

Mourn - Gertrudis, Get Through This!/Gertrudis

Drive-By Truckers - Your Daddy Hates Me/Decoration Day

The Gun Club - She's Like Heroin to Me/Fire of Love

Frank Black - My Terrible Ways/ Fast Man/Raider Man

Weakened Friends - Blue Again/Common Blah

Waxahatchee - Silver/Out in the Storm

Joe Jackson - You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)/Body and Soul

Deer Tick - Look How Clean I Am/Deer Tick Vol. 2

Elvis Costello - Tear Off Your Own Head (It's a Doll Revolution)/When I Was Cruel

Okkervil River - Missing Children/Black Sheep Boy

Mark Lanegan - War Horse/Somebody's Knocking

Jarvis Cocker - Fat Children/Jarvis

Hour 2

The Clash - Somebody Got Murdered/Sandinista!

Tony Molina - Look Inside Your Mind/Losin' Touch /Kill the Lights

The Godfathers - Cold Turkey (Live at the Cabaret Metro, Chicago 3/26/88)/Birth, School, Work, Death

Blood Red Shoes - Morbid Fascination/Ghosts on Tape

The Hold Steady - Hot Soft Light/Live at the Beta Bar, Tallahassee 12/1/06

The Pursuit of Happiness - Nobody But Me/The Downward Road

Black Sabbath - Sabbra Cadabra/Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

David Bowie - Fantastic Voyage/Lodger

Versing - Vestibule/10000

Sweet Nobody - Not a Good Judge/We're Trying Our Best

Stove - Nightwalk/'s Favorite Friend

Converge - Trigger/The Dusk in Us

The Smiths - This Charming Man/The Smiths

The Afghan Whigs - Miles iz Ded/Congregation

Jeff Buckley - So Real/Grace

Uncle Tupelo - Gun/Still Feel Gone

Bonk the link and enjoy a randomly excellent sound experience!

Videodrone #21: Pepper

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

Pepper (1996)

In 1986, the Butthole Surfers were the last band anyone would have expected to score a top 40 hit. They had just released their second album, Rembrandt Pussyhorse, on Touch and Go and the few mainstream publications that wrote about them referred to the band as the "BH Surfers." Led by frontman Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary, the San Antonio band's live shows were outrageous and anarchic, with generous helpings of fire, nudity and unpredictability. They made fans of young musicians like Kurt Cobain and Kim Thayil.

The Surfers released albums and toured regularly through the late '80s and into the '90s until they surprised everyone and signed with Capitol Records in 1991. They also signed on to the first Lollapalooza tour with the likes of Jane's Addiction, Nine Inch Nails and Siouxsie and the Banshees, which introduced the Surfers to a whole new audience of impressionable alt-rock loving 20somethings. 

Gibby guested on Ministry's 1991 single "Jesus Built My Hotrod" and then Capitol teamed them up with producer John Paul Jones (yes, THAT John Paul Jones) for the recording of their 1993 album Independent Worm Saloon, which found the Surfers working in some conventional rock stylings into their weirdness. The first single, "Who Was in My Room Last Night?" got airplay on MTV and rock radio and even got a boost from MTV's new show "Beavis and Butt-head." As grunge and alt-culture caught fire, the Surfers were riding the wave as elder statesmen.

Fast forward to 1996. Grunge was on the wane, but alternative rock was still hanging around, led by the non-sequitur lyricism of Beck. In April, the Surfers released "Pepper," the first single from their forthcoming album Electriclarryland. The song clearly owed a debt to Beck's "Loser" in its spoken word delivery and tape loops, but the band also cited trip hop acts like Massive Attack and Tricky as influences. I wrote it off as derivative (lyrically, it was reminiscent of "People Who Died" by the Jim Carroll Band), but the song took off. It was played constantly on alt-rock radio and MTV and ended up going to #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay Chart. 

The video was directed by Gavin Bowden, who also directed several Red Hot Chili Pepper vids, as well as clips by Lit, Live, Dishwalla, Matchbox Twenty, Rollins Band and Buster Poindexter. It featured black-and-white footage of the band getting arrested after kidnapping a character played by Erik Estrada, while also featuring the band in color playing on a '60s variety show. Even at the band's most commercial, the video was appropriately weird.

As it turned out, the Surfers' biggest hit was also a curse: Their fans hated them for selling out and it became impossible to follow up. They spent two years working on their next album, After the Astronaut, but the label wouldn't release it (coincidentally, the band is releasing After the Astronaut this week, 25 years after their last album). As a result, the Surfers split with Capitol, all while in the midst of a lawsuit against Touch and Go for more royalties on their early albums. 

In 2001, the group signed with Disney and released Weird Revolution, an album that received a 0.4 rating from Pitchfork. The lead single from the album was "The Shame of Life," which featured Gibby rapping over another trip-hop beat and a chorus written by none other than Kid Rock. Strange days indeed. On the plus side, the Surfers were one of the bands featured in Michael Azerrad's seminal 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life.

Since then, the Surfers released a couple of compilations and reunited to tour a few times, but they've been on hiatus since 2016. They've remained in the zeitgeist, releasing a documentary and coffee table and placing the song "Human Cannonball" in the last season of Stranger Things.

The history of the Butthole Surfers remains proudly weird, but the weirdest thing they ever did was to release a hit song.

Completely Conspicuous 678: Knee Deep in the Hoopla

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we count down our favorite music of 2026 so far. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• Breitling's #6: Kurt Vile's love letter to Philly
• KV writes songs about nothing and they're great
• Kumar's #6: Great album from Chicago's Ratboys
• Leading the wave of bands with sweet female vocals and rocking instrumentation
• Breitling's #5: 17-track compilation from the Laughing Chimes
• It's like a typewriter, retro and satisfying
• Kumar's #5: Hot indie rock from Philly's Gladie
• Led by former singer of Cayetana
• Breitling's #4: First new LP from Broken Social Scene in a decade
• Reembracing the combustible
• Freakin' Fanelli
• Bootlegs became readily available in the early '00s
• Kumar's #4: Montreal post-punk trio with an excellent release
• Political lyrics
• Breitling's #3: The Notwist returns with a sound that combines their different phases
• Back to basics
• Documentary captures their weirdness
• Kumar's #3: Austin synth-punk weirdos Drakulas return with gloriously fun release
• Featuring members of the Riverboat Gamblers and Rise Against
• Breitling's and Kumar's #2: We did it!
• Courtney Barnett with a triumphant album recorded in California
• Sings about everyday issues in her life
• Breitling's and Kumar's #1: We did it again!
• Alex Edkins of METZ with his second Weird Nightmare album
• Not as dark and heavy as METZ, but exciting and exhilarating
• Very hooky and uplifting
• Looking forward to new stuff from Kiwi Jr., Strange Pains, Johnny Foreigner, Afghan Whigs, The Cramps (archival release), The Fall, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Evil Island  
  

  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.

Stuck In Thee Garage #637: June 19, 2026

Life is too short to waste it on anger, but that doesn't mean we're going to stop getting angry about things. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Today Junior, Feeble Little Horse and Piebald in hour 1 and songs about anger in hour 2. 

You'll get this playlist and like it!

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Today Junior - Keep On Pushing Me/Single

Feeble Little Horse - DMT/bitknot

Piebald - This Thing is Old/Tales for the Rages

Sparta - Split Lip/Cut a Silhouette

The Creem - Paraphernalia/Taste of Cherry

Death Cab for Cutie - How Heavenly a State/I Built You a Tower

Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Bop/In Light of Recent Events

Guided By Voices - Lost in the Sun/Crawlspace of the Pantheon

The Bug Club - Every Single Muscle/Every Single Muscle

Ecca Vandal - Bleed But Never Die/Looking for Someone to Unfollow

The Sheila Divine - We Once Burned/The Middle Ages

Drakulas - Going Going Gone Gone/Midnight City

Interpol - This Mirror Weighs a Ton/This Mirror Weighs a Ton

Sub*T - Wide Load/How My Own Voice Sounds

Deer Tick - I Am an Island/Coin-O-Matic

Metric - Time is a Bomb/Romanticize the Dive

Broken Social Scene - Mission Accomplished (Kingfisher)/Remember the Humans

Hour 2: Anger

Public Enemy - Welcome to the Terrordome/Fear of a Black Planet

Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name/Rage Against the Machine

Rollins Band - You Didn't Need/The End of Silence

Parquet Courts - Marathon of Anger/Sympathy for Life

Apostle of Hustle - My Sword Hand's Anger/National Anthem of Nowhere

The Posies - Everybody is a Fucking Liar/Amazing Disgrace

Helmet - You Turned Out/Meantime

Judas Priest - You've Got Another Thing Comin'/Screaming for Vengeance

Motley Crue - Knock 'Em Dead, Kid/Shout at the Devil

Nirvana - Negative Creep/Bleach

PJ Harvey - Long Snake Moan/To Bring You My Love

Mudhoney - Douchebags on Parade/Vanishing Point

Fugazi - Merchandise/Repeater

OFF! - Borrow and Bomb/OFF!

Rage against the machine by cranking up the playlist HERE!

Stuck In Thee Garage #636: June 12, 2026

The way time seems to pass so quickly these days, 1991 might as well be 100 years ago. While there are certainly parallels (the U.S. gets into a pointless Middle East war), there are many differences in technology, ideology and probably a few other -ologies. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I play new music from Death Cab for Cutie, Sparta and The Creem in hour 1 and songs from 1991 in hour 2. Listen to it every night around dusk for about a month!

Get out of my store!

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Death Cab for Cutie - Punching the Flowers/I Built You a Tower

Sparta - Crater/Cut a Silhouette

The Creem - Goldmine/Taste of Cherry

White Denim - Ruby/13

The Bug Club - Full Range of Motion/Every Single Muscle

Guided By Voices - Advance Without Dropping/Crawlspace of the Pantheon

Deer Tick - Everything Born/Coin-O-Matic

Kurt Vile - 99 BPM/Philadelphia's Been Good to Me

The Purrs - To Bed With a Smile/All of Us Right Now!

The Sheila Divine - Celebrate the End/The Middle Ages

Social Distortion - Walk Away/Born to Kill

Conscious Pilot - Wilful Delay/Human Poultry

Telehealth - Living, Laughing, Loving, Trying/Green World Image

Cola - Sartre-torial/Cost of Living Adjustment

The Lemon Twigs - Bring You Down/Look For Your Mind!

The Bevis Frond - Hiss/Horrorful Heights

Gottlieb - White Vans/The Far Fallen Fruit

Hour 2: 1991

Fishbone - Everyday Sunshine/The Reality of My Surroundings

A Tribe Called Quest - Excursions/The Low End Theory

De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Called 'Saturdays'/De La Soul is Dead

Matthew Sweet - Looking at the Sun/Girlfriend

Material Issue - Chance of a Lifetime/International Pop Overthrow

Dinosaur Jr. - How'd You Pin That One on Me/Green Mind

The Tragically Hip - Cordelia/Road Apples

U2 - The Fly/Achtung Baby

Temple of the Dog - Wooden Jesus/Temple of the Dog

Soundgarden - Searching With My Good Eye Closed/Badmotorfinger

Smashing Pumpkins - Tristessa/Gish

Mudhoney - Let It Slide/Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Superchunk - Punch Me Harder/No Pocky for Kitty

Swervedriver - Pile-Up/Raise

Play it loud and proud HERE! 

Completely Conspicuous 677: Time for a Slacker Revolution

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about the best music of 2026 so far. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• AI music is apparently a thing on streaming services
• Saxophone Colossus, mfer (RIP)
• Blue dot syndrome: Tours getting canceled because of poor ticket sales
• Who woulda thunk Kiefer Sutherland couldn't sell out concerts?
• Many artists are trying to fill venues that are too big
• We're going to a lot of concerts
• Why is beer so expensive at music venues?
• What is a walking class?
• The Osbourne family has licensed an Ozzy hologram for use in ads
• ABBA does a hologram show of them in their prime
• Maybe older bands should be replaced by holograms
• Car Seat Headrest remade their 2016 album, removed swear words and drug references
• Books are being updated with current references
• AI is used a lot to make pop and R&B music
• Young H-Dawg is into grunge now
• Breitling's honorable mentions: Crooked Fingers, Sleaford Mods, Stomptalk Modstone, Softjaw, Reds Pinks and Purples, Mclusky, Fugazi, Hedge
• Kumar's HMs: King Tuff, Bevis Frond, New Pornographers, Gord Downie and the Sadies, Damaged Bug, Sub*T, Ecca Vandal, Broken Social Scene
• Breitling's #10: Philly's Nothing with a different sound
• Influenced by the singer's neurological disorder
• Kumar's #10: Mclusky returns with a killer mini-album
• Recent spate of touring has made the band even better
• Breitling's #9: Lofi Legs may or may not have released an album this year
• The time is right for a slacker revolution
• Kumar's #9: Joyce Manor sings about getting older
• LA trio makes with the emo pop-punk
• Breitling's #8: Reunited original lineup of the Grownup Noise
• Band deserves more props
• Kumar's #8: Pure pop magic from the Lemon Twigs
• Reminiscent of Sharp Pins and Redd Kross
• Breitling's #7: Pittsburgh's Feeble Little Horse persevere without Ryan
• All killer, no filler
• Kumar's #7: Canadian artist Daniel Romano continues to bring the heat
• Split up songwriting duties for this album
• 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.

Videodrone #20: Tom Courtenay

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

Tom Courtenay (1995)

When you think of a band that is emblematic of the term "indie rock," you can't go wrong with Yo La Tengo. Formed in Hoboken, NJ, in 1984, the group (currently comprised of singer-guitarist Ira Kaplan, drummer-singer Georgia Hubley and bassist James McNew) remains an under-the-commercial-radar stalwart that is consistently releasing excellent albums. 

In 1995, Yo La Tengo released its seventh album, Electr-O-Pura, on Matador to positive critical reviews. The band's sound was varied, ranging from quiet pop numbers to raging noise-rock epics, with often obscure lyrical references. In the middle ground of that range was the first single from Electr-O-Pura, "Tom Courtenay." The song doesn't mention the British actor by name (who was the star of films like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Billy Liar and Doctor Zhivago), although it does mention Julie Christie, who co-starred in two movies with Courtenay. 

Filled with guitar squalls and catchy backing vocals, the song seems to be sung from the POV of a junkie obsessed with Courtenay and pop culture.

For the video of the song, director Phil Morrison (who directed videos for Superchunk and Juliana Hatfield before directing the movies Junebug, Perfect Partner and All is Bright) came up with the idea of focusing on an altogether different idea: YLT are offered the unenviable chance to open for the reunited Beatles, and Kaplan dreams of what it would be like. Morrison reached out to Courtenay, who was in NYC at the time performing in a play, to play a role in the video, but he turned it down (see the behind-the-scenes video from 2020 in which Morrison and the band talk about the making of the video).

Kaplan's reverie shifts to black-and-white as the band decides what to wear at the show, which was filmed at the Mercury Lounge in NYC. McNew decides to wear a cape and insists on bringing his cat Lovely Rita. The band shows up at the venue hoping to meet the Beatles but are told they're too busy, but brings in Marshall Crenshaw, who appeared in Beatlemania, instead. Crenshaw proceeds to dig into the band's food spread as they go out to the slaughter. A young Tom Scharpling (who went on to host The Best Show on WFMU in 2000 and is still doing it all these years later) plays DJ Big Andy Rigg from WHYP, 98.8, The Hype, and introduces "Yo La Tango" to the crowd as "a band that you're probably gonna like." Other members of the NYC indie rock scene make cameos in the video.

YLT launches into its originals, much to the dismay of the crowd as the guy at the merch table keeps knocking down the prices to their t-shirts. It's not working, until Ira has an idea and the group launches into "Twist and Shout" and the crowd gets into it. Cut back to the promoter asking Kaplan if he's accepting the offer, and Kaplan asks him to hold on while he continues to dream.

I first heard "Tom Courtenay" a few years later on the What's Up, Matador? compilation, which also came as a VHS tape that was a faux children's show hosted by NYC TV personality Bill Boggs in front of a live studio audience of children at a New Jersey elementary school (see below). It features appearances from Matador artists include Kaplan, Liz Phair and others as well as several videos from Matador bands (but not "Tom Courtenay").

"Tom Courtenay" is the lead track on the CD compilation and it still holds up. The Beatles never reunited and YLT is still doing their thing, which I suppose is the way it should be.