There's something to be said about a good cover song. Ideally, a cover will pay proper homage to the original while bringing something new to the song. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Quicksand, Sharp Pins, Krill and Girl Tones in hour 1 while playing cover songs in hour 2. Prince Gerhardt seems to approve.
The totally normal playlist:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Quicksand - Regenerate/Bring on the Psychics
Earth Tongue - Dungeon Vision/Dungeon Vision
Sharp Pins - Saturday Sun/Single
Krill - Commemorative Plaque/Single
Sparkle Blood - Restless/ZIP ZAP
Girl Tones - Stubborn Mouth/Single
Piebald - Fun Destroyer/Tales for the Rages
Cola - Haveluck Country/Cost of Living Adjustment
Parking - Mike Johnson is a Mechanic/Portraits
The Tubs - Who's Gonna Love You Now?/Hard Life
Bantom Woods - Prairie Dogs/Bend
Fiddlehead - Baby I'll Change/Baby I'll Change
Jack White - You'll Never Fix Me/Frozen Charlotte
Drakulas - Wheelhouse/Midnight City
Feeble Little Horse - Dior/bitknot
Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Empathetic/In Light of Recent Events
Hour 2: Covers
Hallelujah the Hills - I Wanna Destroy You (Soft Boys)/Puritan Garage Howlers Vol. II
Gord Downie, the Sadies and the Conquering Sun - So Sad About Us (The Who)/Live at 6 O'Clock
The Afghan Whigs - Lost in the Supermarket (The Clash)/Burning London: The Clash Tribute
The Melvins - Sway (acoustic) (Rolling Stones)/Five Legged Dog
Judas Priest - Diamonds and Rust (Joan Baez)/Sin After Sin
Iron Maiden - Doctor Doctor (UFO)/Best of the B-Sides
Soundgarden - Girl U Want (Devo)/Rusty Cage
Sebadoh - I Smell a Rat (The Bags)/Harmacy
Sugar - Dum Dum Boys (Iggy Pop)/Copper Blue Deluxe Remaster (live in Chicago 7/22/92)
PJ Harvey - Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan)/Rid of Me
The Amps - I Am Decided (Guided By Voices)/Pacer
The Pretenders - Stop Your Sobbing (Kinks)/Pretenders
Sleater-Kinney - I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (Richard and Linda Thompson)/Live at the Riviera Theatre, Chicago 6/16/05
Smashing Pumpkins - Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young)/Live on WZRD 3/16/89
Shellac and David Yow - Holidays in the Sun/Live Halloween 1998
Arctic Monkeys - Red Right Hand (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)/Crying Lightning
TV On the Radio - Mr. Grieves (Pixies)/Young Liars
Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss our favorite American artists. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
Jay's take after seeing Goose
Took us a while to get into the show
Phil's #6: Phish took over the jam band crown from the Dead
Jay briefly met Trey Anastasio at UNH before they got famous
Goose hasn't been accepted by the entire jam band audience
Jay's #6: Originally had Van Halen ranked higher, but dropped them because of the Hagar years
Combined Eddie VH's revolutionary guitar work with DLR's showmanship
Eddie inspired a generation of guitarists and Dave inspired a generation of hard rock singers
Phil's #5: Steely Dan spits in the face of being called "yacht rock"
Went from a live act to a studio perfectionist act to a live act again
Fagen and Becker were demanding taskmasters
Jay's #5: The imperfect perfection of the Replacements
They self-sabotaged whenever things were about to break for them
Never got to see them live
Phil's #4 and Jay's #3: The singular genius of Jimi Hendrix
Hugely influential guitarist and performer
Must have blown a lot of minds when he was around
Jay's #4: Pixies were a major influence on the alternative rock sound that shaped the '90s
The band's first stint (1986-93) was epic
Introduced weirdness into indie rock
Still touring behind their classic material but making new music as well
Phil's #3 and Jay's #10: Talking Heads were art school kids who became big
Part of the CBGB scene of the '70s that went in a lot of different directions
Explored a lot of sounds and influences
Phil's #2: The Allman Brothers Band invented and transcended Southern rock
Persevered through deaths and changing trends
Jay's #2: No arguing with the greatness of Prince
Hundreds of hours of unreleased music
Was super talented at multiple instruments
Was Prince the best all-around musician of the 20th century?
Phil's #1: Duh, it's the Dead
Inspired an entire subculture
There are literally hundreds of Dead cover bands
Jay's #1: The pride of Athens, GA, R.E.M.
Helped create the "college rock" scene that grew into alternative rock
Blew up in the early '90s
Distinct career phases
Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy have been covering R.E.M. albums in their entirety the last three years
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 is a weekly(ish) feature looking at music videos from the last half century.
Sexx Laws (1999)
There was a lot going on in 1999. We were on the cusp of the new millennium and there was plenty of hype around the Y2K bug, which had everyone convinced all computer systems would go haywire once the clocks hit midnight on New Year's Eve. Needless to say, nothing happened.
Musically, it was an interesting year. The emergence of Napster on college campuses introduced the world to downloading and MP3s, which would lead to a seismic shift in the music industry.
Alternative rock was still a thing, but it was nu metal and hip hop that got more attention from music fans: Limp Bizkit, Korn, Eminem, Dr. Dre and Kid Rock were leading the charge. In the middle of all that, the mercurial Beck was in the midst of a terrific run of albums. The previous year saw the release of the subdued but excellent Mutations, but Beck went in a completely different direction with 1999's Midnite Vultures. This time around, he leaned into funk and dance music with strong results. While it didn't reach the heights of Odelay, Midnite Vultures was a lot of fun, highlighted by lead single "Sexx Laws."
The song is an uptempo, horn-driven funk romp about gender roles, which the out-there video pokes fun at. Directed by Beck, it begins with a men's group called the Vision Warrior Men's Circle. The group's members include a young Jack Black, author Neil Strauss and Beck's bandleader Justin Meldal-Johnsen. After a group hug, a bunch of football players in day-glo uniforms crash through the walls and mayhem ensues, including Black getting smashed over the head with a bunch of drywall.
Cut to Beck and his band playing the song, albeit with fake instruments (Meldal-Johnsen's playing a broom), alongside a zebra mannequin playing a banjo. Told you it was out there. Kitchen appliances come to life, much to the dismay of the men's group members, with a refrigerator humping an oven, and then a shot of Kenny G (played by Meldal-Johnsen) playing the sax in the background of the mayhem.
There were a few different versions of the video, including an 18-minute version with extended scenes of the men's group (see a 13-minute version below). Beck also filmed a 6-minute video of "Kenny G" playing a smooth jazz version of the song; a session sax player handled the Kenny G part while Beck's band played the rest.
Midnite Vultures wasn't a smash like Mellow Gold and Odelay, but it still was certified gold. Beck followed it up in 2002 with the acoustic and melancholy Sea Change, another excellent album. That Beck likes to keep people on their toes. I've been less enamored with his output the last 15 years or so, but Beck's '90s and '00s work is undeniably strong.
Sometimes two heads can be better than one. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Dinosaur Jr., Jack White and Sad13 in hour 1 and musical team-ups in hour 2. Of course, sometimes the two heads might not get along, which can create awkwardness.
This playlist is headed for greatness:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Dinosaur Jr. - Several Got Away/There Near
Jack White - Raising the Grain/Frozen Charlotte
Sad13 - Six Ways/1331
Knitting - Here Comes/Souvenir
Josh Da Costa - Hospital Clown/New Wave Graveyard
Guitar Wolf - 3 Million Dollar Noise/More Jet
Bantom Woods - Modern Drummer/Bend
King Tuff - Oil Change/MOO
Kurt Vile - Holiday OKV/Philadelphia's Been Good to Me
Deer Tick - Dog Years/Coin-O-Matic
The Lemon Twigs - Nothin' But You/Look for Your Mind!
Conscious Pilot - Ode to Ronnie/Human Poultry
The Sheila Divine - Hurry Up/The Middle Ages
Ecca Vandal - SORRY! CRASH!/Looking for People to Unfollow
Gladie - Poison/No Need to Be Lonely
Snail Mail - Dead End/Ricochet
Hour 2: Team-ups
Bully - Lose You (feat. Soccer Mommy)/Lucky for You
Crooked Fingers - Haunted (feat. Sharon Van Etten)/Swet Deth
Dale Crover - I Waited Forever (feat. Ty Segall and Rob Crow)/Glossolalia
PJ Harvey feat. Thom Yorke - The Mess We're In/Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
Frank Black and Teenage Fanclub - Handyman/The John Peel Session
Reeves Gabrels - 119 Years Ago/The Sacred Squall of Now
Elastica and Stephen Malkmus - Unheard Music/Suburbia
Protomartyr - You Always Win (feat. Kelley Deal)/Consolation
TV On the Radio - Province/Return to Cookie Mountain
Wylde Ratttz - World of Hurt/Wylde Ratttz
Desert Sessions - Crawl Home/Vol. 9 and 10
At the Drive-In - Rolodex Propaganda/Relationship of Command
The Twilight Singers - When Doves Cry/SPIN Presents Purplish Rain
Dinosaur Jr. and Del the Funkee Homosapien - Missing Link/Judgment Night
Lo-Fidelity All-Stars (feat. Pigeonhed) - Battleflag/How to Operate with a Blown Mind
Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss our favorite American artists. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
Recorded in the CompCon HQ backyard studio
America's 250th birthday
Looking at our favorite American singers and bands, pre-2000 and post-2000
Starting off with our top 10 of bands who debuted pre-millennium
Sticking to rock artists for the most part
Phil's honorable mentions include: B-52s (toughest omission from top 10), Beach Boys, Beasties, Beck, JB, Cars, early Chicago, Doors, early Foos, Little Feat, Nirvana, Pixies, Linda Ronstadt, Seger, Sleater-Kinney, SRV, Stevie Wonder, VU, VH, Wilco
Jay's HMs: Living Colour, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Run DMC, Beasties, Public Enemy, Dino Jr., the Cars, JB, Fugazi
"Love Shack" overstayed its welcome
"Good Vibrations" could be a perfect pop song
Seger was obsessed with a certain topic
Billy Joel's metal roots with Attila
Mutt Lange's production methods were tedious
Fugazi refused all offers to reunite
Phil's # 9: Pearl Jam formed almost by accident after another band broke up
Still doing their thing all these years later
Jay's #9: Were only together for about 8 years, but Husker Du amassed a legendary catalog
Sound evolved from speedy hardcore punk to more melodic sounds
Phil's #8: Tom Petty was a late bloomer who was hard to categorize at first
Took advantage of the advent of MTV with plenty of iconic videos
Jay's #8: The Afghan Whigs were the first non-Seattle band signed by Sub Pop
Quickly distinguished themselves from their peers by combining soul and R&B influences with indie rock
Jay's #7: Nirvana was only around for a short time, but they had a seismic impact
Nirvana merch is now a lifestyle brand
Saw them a week before they taped MTV Unplugged in NYC
Packed a lot into a brief period
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 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.
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
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."
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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 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.
Summer doesn't officially start for a few more weeks, but for all intents and purposes, it's here, baby. That doesn't always mean perfect weather (especially here in New England), but the heat is rising at least a few days a week. To celebrate, on Stuck In Thee Garage this week I played songs about summer in hour 2 (following new hotness from Eddy Current Suppression Ring, the Bug Club, Guided By Voices and the Cramps (!) in hour 1)! Crank it up while you're heading to the local theme park.
Step right up for the playlist:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Self Sabotage/In Light of Recent Events
The Bug Club - A Good Day for Dying/Every Single Muscle
Guided By Voices - One Last Blow/Crawlspace of the Pantheon
The Cramps - TV Set/Gravest Gravy
Kurt Vile - Chance to Bleed/Philadelphia's Been Good to Me
Deer Tick - Mary Singletary/Coin-O-Matic
Ecca Vandal - Eyes Shut/Looking for Someone to Unfollow
Gurriers - Nobody's Coming to Save You/Nobody's Coming to Save You
Waves Crashing - Feel the Glow/In the Blur
The Sheila Divine - I Climbed Inside a Whale/The Middle Ages
Pond - Through the Heather/Terrestrials
Cola - Third Double/Cost of Living Adjustment
Ed O'Brien - Sweet Spot/Blue Morpho
Conscious Pilot - Horatio Burns/Human Poultry
Telehealth - Donor Country (A Good Cause)/Green World Image
Drakulas - Morning/Night /Midnight City
Dread Spectre Council - Where Would the Light Go/Thetans
Hour 2: Summah
Mary Timony - Summer/Untame the Tiger
Husker Du - Celebrated Summer (11-4 Boulder)/1985: The Miracle Year
Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss our favorite guitar solos. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
Continuing our top 10
Phil's #9: Trey Anastasio of Phish stretches out
No studio version of the song
Jay's #9: The concise awesomeness of Alex Lifeson
A virtuoso in a band of virtuosos
Phil's #8: Back to the jam with RIck Mitarotonda of Goose
Another band that saves their best for the live setting
Jay's #8: Another Matthew Sweet song, this time featuring Richard Lloyd on lead guitar
Features a fake ending with even more soloing
Phil's #7: Square dancing in gym class led Phil to this Beatles song
George Harrison with a beautiful, heartfeld solo
Great video, too
Jay's #7: A ripping solo from J. Mascis from '93
Video wasn't directed by Matt Dillon; he did the "Get Me" video
Mascis has recorded a ton of great solos over the years
Phil's #6: Eddie VH's magnum opus
The instrumental that changed the face of hard rock
Wasn't meant to be recorded at first
Jay's #6: Less overplayed solo from Jimmy Page
A lesser-known album from Zeppelin
Phil's #5: Mick Taylor shines for the Stones
The band started jamming at the end of the song and they kept recording
Jay's #5: Robert Fripp with a ripper of a solo for Brian Eno
Eno's first solo album after Roxy Music
Phil's #4: The Allman Brothers' tribute to Django Reinhardt
Three different solos
Jay's #4: More Richard Lloyd along with Tom Verlaine on a 10-minute art-rock classic
Kind of jam band adjacent
Phil's #3: Neil Young with an epic love song
Recording starts in the middle of a jam
Jay's #3: Monster instrumental featuring Eddie Hazel's psychedelic playing
Mike Watt does a cover with J. Mascis handling the guitar
The interesting career of Prakash John
Phil's #2 and Jay's #1: Hendrix blows minds with acid blues rock
SRV does an incredible cover
Jay's #2: Nasty riff and solo from Eddie VH
One of Van Halen's darker songs
Phil's #1: A Grateful Dead classic that highlights Jerry Garcia
Cover of a Bonnie Dobson folk song
Builds to a roaring crescendo
Completely Conspicuous is available wherever you get 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.
Cities tend to take on personalities of their own, and even within a city, there can be many different personalities. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played hot new rock from Ecca Vandal, Caroline Rose, Ed O'Brien and the Sheila Divine in hour 1 and songs about cities in hour 2. The king stay the king.
This playlist ain't playing checkers:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Ecca Vandal - Cruising to Self Soothe/Looking for Someone to Unfollow
Caroline Rose - Yip Yip Yow/Single
The Purrs - Before the Sun Goes Down/All of Us Right Now!
Ed O'Brien - Teachers/Blue Morpho
The Sheila Divine - Middle Ages/The Middle Ages
Waves Crashing - Coming Up for Air/In the Blur
Conscious Pilot - My God is So Angry/Human Poultry
Social Distortion - Never Going Back Again/Born to Kill
Drakulas - F.A.F.O./Midnight City
Telehealth - Things I've Killed/Green World Image
Cola - Much of a Muchness/Cost of Living Adjustment
Broken Social Scene - Paying for Your Love/Remember the Humans
The Laughing Chimes - Behind Your Blue Fields/Behind Your Blue Fields
Sub*T - Sister Species 1/How My Own Voice Sounds
Metric - Antigravity/Romanticize the Dive
The Lemon Twigs - Your True Enemy/Look for Your Mind!
Hour 2: Cities
The Menzingers - Alone in Dublin/Some of It Was True
Mekons - Glasgow/Horror
Masters of Reality - High Noon Amsterdam/Deep in the Hole
King Hannah - New York, Let's Do Nothing/Big Swimmer
Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss our favorite guitar solos. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
Occasional chiming in from CC intern Lily
Rolling Stone recently released a top 100 solos list
Phil likes the long jammy solos
Solos can go along with a riff or go off on crazy tangents
Steely Dan used many guitarists
Jay used to be into '80s speed guitar
Vinnie Vincent went way over the top
Charlie Sexton was a guitar prodigy who went on to play in Dylan's band
The greatness of early Dire Straits
Tough to narrow down our lists
Appreciating Billy Idol
Eagles bad, Joe Walsh good
Terry Kath could rip
So many great Jimmy Page solos
The vast and weird catalog of Frank Zappa
Billy Corgan has many excellent solos
Kim Thayil was an unconventional soloist
Bowie worked with many great guitarists: Mick Ronson, SRV, Belew, Earl Slick, Reeves Gabrels
Townshend's solo on "I Can See for Miles" is simple but intense
Fun weirdness from Focus on "Hocus Pocus"
Phil's #10 is a tie
Roger Hodgson of Supertramp was better known for playing keyboards
Many hidden gems in the Who catalog
Jay's #10: Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age
Phil's not a fan of mosh pits
To be continued
Completely Conspicuous is available through wherever you get 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 is a weekly feature looking at music videos from the last half century.
Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe (1994)
In 1994, alternative rock ruled the roost. Even though it was dampened somewhat in April '94 by Kurt Cobain's suicide, the grungesplosion was in full effect. The major labels were scouring rock scenes in various cities looking for the next big thing. There was a lot of great music out from the likes of Beastie Boys, Sloan, Helmet, Frank Black, Pavement, Weezer, Beck, Jeff Buckley, Mazzy Star, Liz Phair. And there was a weirdo anthem out of Sweden that captured the attention of the world thanks to its crazy video.
In Stockholm, record producer Gordon Cyrus and radio host Henrik Schyffert were working on a TV ad when they decided to write some music together as a joke. They recruited Schyffert's girlfriend Cia Berg, who sang with the '80s new wave act Ubangi, to sing. The song they came up with, "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe," was a combination of Chili Peppers-esque funk metal, quirky Bjork-styled vocals and trip-hop beats. Berg sings about a well-off woman who sleeps with homeless people for kicks, while Schyffert and Cyrus chime in with shouted gang backing vocals. It's all quite insanely catchy.
The lyrics were actually a cultural mix-up by Schyffert. "It was a misunderstanding from me," he told Melody Maker when asked what a "slobo babe" was. "I heard 'Slobo' was a nickname for Chelsea girls. Hobo Humpin' Sloane Babe would have been right."
Calling themselves Whale, the trio decided to make a video for the song on the cheap and somehow were able to get director Mark Pellington, who was already well known for directing Pearl Jam's "Jeremy," R.E.M.'s "Drive" and U2's "One." He was agreeable and told Schyffert he was directing a commercial on a Thursday and Friday, but they could use the gear over the weekend to film the video before he had to return it.
It's a gloriously bizarre affair, with Berg singing the song while inspecting a group of shirtless men and boys. She's got braces and is licking a lollipop. Meanwhile, Cyrus and Schyffert are jumping around with guitars chanting the chorus: "You hobo humpin' slobo babe/Get it off, get off, get off of me!" Cyrus is just wearing shorts while Schyffert is wearing a flowery dress and the whole thing is supremely silly and fun.
The video became an instant hit on MTV Europe, so much so that it won Best Video at the first MTV Europe Music Awards in November 1994, beating out instant classics like the Beasties' "Sabotage." Over on this side of the pond, the song wasn't as big of a hit but it was played on MTV's 120 Minutes regularly and on stations like KROQ in Los Angeles. But the real mark of success for the video was getting the Beavis and Butt-head stamp of approval (see below). That's where I first saw the video and it made an immediate impression on me. That impression, of course, was "WTF?"
"Hobo" reached #24 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart and #102 on the Singles chart in the U.S., faring better on the European charts. It was re-released in 1995 when Whale's debut album We Care came out and hit #15 on the U.K. Singles chart. Trip-hop icon Tricky co-produced a few of the songs, but the album didn't fare well. A follow-up, All Disco Dance Must End in Broken Bones, came and went in 1998 and the band split up the next year.
But 32 years later, "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe" remains a memorable one-hit wonder.
We like it loud on Stuck In Thee Garage, but sometimes it's good to mix it up. This week, I played songs about quiet in hour 2 of the show (after playing new music from Social Distortion, the Mountain Goats and Telehealth in hour 1). That doesn't mean the songs themselves were quiet; some were quite the opposite. At any rate, I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
This playlist is quiet. Maybe a little too quiet:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Social Distortion - Born to Kill/Born to Kill
Drakulas - Garbage Strike/Midnight City
Weird Nightmare - Never in Style/Hoopla
The Mountain Goats - Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds/Days
Cola - Forced Position/Cost of Living Adjustment
Telehealth - Cost of Inaction/Green World Image
Broken Social Scene - Only the Good I Keep/Remember the Humans
The Laughing Chimes - Trapeze Baby/Behind Your Blue Fields
The Lemon Twigs - Fire and Gold/Look for Your Mind!
Conscious Pilot - Internet Support/Human Poultry
Gottlieb - Optimized Child/The Far Fallen Fruit
Dread Spectre Council - Raven/Thetans
Pope - Song Two/BFM
Kim Gordon - Dirty Tech/PLAY ME
Sub*T - Standing Room/How My Own Voice Sounds
Body Shop - Exit Drill/Sex Body
Hour 2: Quiet
Phantom Handshakes - Quiet Quit/Sirens at Golden Hour
Shame - Quiet Life/Cutthroat
Cloud Nothings - Silence/Final Summer
Dyr Faser - Reductive Silence/Impressions
Smashing Pumpkins - Quiet/Siamese Dream
Fews - Quiet/Into Red
Mark Lanegan - Radio Silence/Somebody's Knocking
Pedro the Lion - Quietest Friend/Phoenix
Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Our Quiet Whisper/All in Good Time
Bob Mould - The Silence Between Us/District Line
The Beths - Silence is Golden/Expert in a Dying Field
When you start thinking about the passage of time too closely, it can get a little overwhelming. For example, it has been 45 years since 1981, which is kinda nuts, but when you realize that 45 years before THAT was 1936, that's really unnerving. All of which is to say I played songs from 1981 in hour 2 of Stuck In Thee Garage this week (after playing new music from Drakulas, Conscious Pilot, Cola and the Lemon Twigs in hour 1). It's most definitely o-tay!
This playlist is wookin' pa nub:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Drakulas - White Off Your Nose/Midnight City
Conscious Pilot - Face Down/Human Poultry
Gottlieb - What Are You Worth/The Far Fallen Fruit
Cola - Hedgesitting/Cost of Living Adjustment
Broken Social Scene - Relief/Remember the Humans
Dread Spectre Council - Hooves & Cloves/Thetans
Ian Sweet - Criminal Kissing/Shiverstruck
The Laughing Chimes - Zephyr/Behind Your Blue Fields
The Lemon Twigs - Nothin' But You/Look For Your Mind!
Weird Nightmare - Where I Belong/Hoopla
Pope - Newboi/BFM
Sub*T - Mirror Image/How My Own Voice Sounds
King Tuff - Invisible Ink/MOO
Body Shop - Fallacies/Sex Body
The Reds, Pinks and Purples - Emo Band/Acknowledge Kindness
Metric - Leave You On a High/Romanticize the Dive
Heavenly - Skep Wax/Highway to Heavenly
Hour 2: 1981
R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe (Original Hib-Tone Version)/Single
The Specials - Ghost Town/Single
Pete Shelley - Homosapien/Homosapien
The Stranglers - Golden Brown/La Folie
Romeo Void - Never Say Never/Benefactor
Black Flag - Rise Above/Damaged
X - We're Desperate/Wild Gift
The Gun Club - For the Love of Ivy/Fire of Love
The Cars - I'm Not the One/Shake It Up
Gang of Four - Cheeseburger/Solid Gold
Prince - Controversy/Controversy
Van Halen - Push Comes to Shove/Fair Warning
Billy Squier - Lonely is the Night/Don't Say No
The Kinks - Destroyer/Give the People What They Want
Videodrone is a weekly feature looking at music videos from the last half century.
I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) (1993)
By the time the 1993 rolled around, there was a lot going on. Grunge was omnipresent (you could get the whole look at K-mart for short money), alt-rock was on the charts, hip hop and new jack swing was all over MTV. It hardly seemed like the right time for a comeback from a sweaty, theatrical 300-pound singer who peaked 16 years earlier, but that's exactly what happened.
Meat Loaf (aka Marvin Lee Aday) started performing in the late '60s with his first band Meat Loaf Soul, opening for Them and Question Mark and the Mysterians and later (under the band name Floating Circus) opening for the Who, the Stooges, MC5 and the Grateful Dead. He joined the Los Angeles production of Hair, did some recording for Motown and also acted in plays, including the original cast of The Rocky Horror Show.
In 1972, he started working with songwriter Jim Steinman on an album called Bat Out of Hell, but they didn't get serious about it until a few years later when Meat Loaf decided to focus on music exclusively. They struggled to find a record label, but talked Todd Rundgren into producing and playing guitar on the album, which was adapted from a rock musical based on Peter Pan that Steinman had written. They were finally signed by Cleveland International Records, a subsidiary of Epic, and was released in October 1977.
The initial response to Bat Out of Hell was indifference. It was full of long, bombastic, wordy songs that didn't connect with label execs, but got a good response from radio programmers. A Toronto rock station, CHUM-FM, started playing songs from the album in January 1978 and listeners were enthusiastic. Similarly, videos made for some of the songs generated interest in the U.K. and Australia. Eventually, the U.S. caught on and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" became a huge hit. I remember hearing it on the radio all the time in sixth grade, complete with the Phil Rizzuto baseball play-by-play and the sexual innuendo.
Eventually, Bat Out of Hell sold over 43 million copies worldwide, certified 14x platinum in the U.S. alone. It's one of the biggest selling albums of all time. But Meat Loaf struggled to follow it up. He lost his voice after constant touring and drug use, so he turned to acting and cleaned up before recording 1981's Dead Ringer. The album was also written by Steinman, but it struggled in the U.S. (although it did hit #1 in the U.K.). Loaf had a falling out with Steinman and put together the next album without him, but it did even worse, failing to chart at all in the U.S. Adding to this, Meat Loaf had money struggles and faced 45 lawsuits totaling $80 million, which led to him filing for personal bankruptcy.
After a few more album duds, Meat Loaf and Steinman made up and started working on Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, which was released in September 1993. They went back to worked on the first album, releasing operatic and over-the-top rock as exemplified by the first single, "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)." Like "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," the new single featured Meat Loaf duetting with a female singer. And like that song, the singer from the recording did not appear in the video; on "Paradise," original singer Ellen Foley was replaced in the video by Karla DeVito.
With "I'd Do Anything," the female vocals were done on the album by Lorraine Crosby, who was credited as "Mrs. Loud" in the liner notes. But in the video, the female protagonist was played by model Dana Patrick, who lip-synched Crosby's vocals.
On the album, "I'd Do Anything" is 12 minutes long, but it's cut down for the video to a concise 7:48. Directed by Michael Bay, who replaced original director David Fincher after the latter's proposed $1.7 million budget was rejected, the video was filmed for $750,000. Apparently, Bay and Fincher had feuded in their music video directing days before becoming big-name movie directors; Fincher later worked with Meat Loaf in 1999's Fight Club.
The video was based on Beauty and the Beast and The Phantom of the Opera, with Meat Loaf made up to look like a hulking deformed beast who is on the run from police and hiding out in a castle. He comes across a beautiful woman in the woods and drama ensues; meanwhile, the police are on his trail. And then (spoiler alert), they embrace and Meat Loaf transforms back into a human and they ride off into the distance on his motorcycle.
The song never really specifies the one thing he wouldn't do for love, leaving that up to the listener's imagination.
It's not an exaggeration to say the video was in constant rotation on MTV at the time. Power ballads were big business, as Aerosmith and countless hard rock bands had discovered over the previous decade or so. The song was getting played to death on top 40 radio as well, becoming Meat Loaf's first and only #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. It also topped the U.K. Singles Chart and was the best-selling single of 1993 in the U.K.; indeed, it went #1 in 28 countries. Meat Loaf won a Grammy award for the song as well.
Bat Out of Hell II sold over 14 million copies worldwide and this time, Meat Loaf was able to sustain his success a little better. His 1995 release Welcome to the Neighborhood went platinum in the U.S. and had some top 40 singles. He continued to release new albums and tour over the next few decades, including Bat Out of Hell III in 2006. His last album was released in 2016. He died in 2022 at age 74.
If nothing else, Meat Loaf's career proved that doing your own thing comes back into style every 15 years or so.
