Category: Music

Back in the late 90s, I was infatuated (OK, obsessed) with French supermodel Laetitia Casta. She was absolutely stunning, and I just couldn’t get enough of her. Pictures of her started appearing everywhere on the Internet. I had recently gotten broadband, and with the help of Usenet and “image-grabbing” software (programs that download all the images from a given website), I was quickly able to amass a catalog of thousands of pictures of Laetitia. And some nights I’d get really smashed and watch a slideshow of all those pictures with Mazzy Star’s “Hair And Skin” playing in the background:

Your hair and your eyes
I saw them in the night
Your face, your disguise
I felt it in the night

Your cool clammy skin
It could be right beside me
I saw you swimmin’ over here
You looked so fragile

And don’t you know her eyes were red?

“Hair and Skin” is a b-side from the “Flowers in December” CD single. It was originally written and preformed by “desert rock” band Green On Red, although Mazzy’s take on it is spectacular. It’s slow and brooding, with an old-school organ playing in the background. Hope Sandoval’s voice was always great, but in this song there’s a noticeable echo to her voice that just makes the whole thing a bit creepy. I just love this song:

[audio:mazzy.mp3]

Blender.com has an awesome list of songs that you probably didn’t know were covers. Examples? “Bette Davis Eyes”, “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and “Barbara Ann”.

An interesting tidbit: a lot of folks from “my” generation know the song “Always On My Mind” from the Pet Shop Boys’ cover of it. Many from my generation (including me) were somehow under the impression that it was originally a Willie Nelson song. Well, Willie covered it too, as did Elvis Presley. Until today, however, I had no idea that Brenda Lee actually sang the song originally. You learn something new every day, I guess!

Wow! Right on the heels of my previous post about Bill Paxton’s mid-80s band “Martini Ranch”:

I showed the video to Lisa, who initially recognized Paxton as “Chet” from Weird Science. Which is true, of course. But she didn’t believe that “Chet” from Weird Science and “Bill” from Big Love were the same person. I went to his IMDB page to show her that they are the same person… when I came across yet another amazing Bill Paxton fact: Paxton directed (and starred in) the early 80s cult classic video “Fish Heads”. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself:

Man, Bill Paxton is everywhere!

Ever heard of an 80s pop band called “Martini Ranch”? Me neither. But look closely at the video below… you just might recognize one of the band members… and no, I’m not talking about Judge Reinhold, who I believe makes a cameo in the video (and is also credited with whistling on one track on Martini Ranch’s only album, Holy Cow):

Even more amazing than seeing Bill Paxton singing in an 80s art-pop band (after he had a hit as Chet in Weird Science, mind you) is the fact that the above video was directed by none other than… James Cameron! What a crazy world!

Thanks to the Lost In The 80s Blog for the tip about this.

As long as there’s been a World Wide Web, there have been websites publishing lists: “The 20 Greatest Clutch Hitters”, “The 50 Worst Novels Published Since 1980”, “The 10 Worst Kevin Costner Movies”… you name it.

One of the most popular lists is “worst album covers”; it seems like every website on the planet has put out such a list, and almost every single one features this album cover by a guy known only as “Ken”:

It’s a funny album cover, to be sure. But someone at urban legend debunking site Snopes.com wanted to know if the album cover was real. In this thread at the Snopes forum, many of the objections are laid out: the album doesn’t appear in any copyright, publishing or CD info databases. No other website seems to mention anything about the album, except to put it on their own list of silly album covers. No person or site has ever published a list of tracks on the album, nor has anyone ever seen the back cover of the album. What’s more, the picture of the album cover seems suspect: the album itself seems to be in pristine condition, with no cover wear of any kind on it. Could By Request Only be an elaborate fake?

I’m here to tell you folks that it’s not a fake, and that KEN LIVES!

Continue reading “KEN LIVES!”

If you know any 80s music at all, you’re probably heard British artist Gary Numan’s single “Cars”. To be honest, I don’t care for that song very much; it’s one of those songs I only marginally liked back in the day, and now that I’ve heard it a million times, I’m just friggin’ sick of it.

However, before Numan became a solo artist, he led a modestly-successful band called Tubeway Army. Their first album – Tubeway Army – was guitar-heavy and sounded like most of the other “Britpunk” that was around at the time. By the time Tubeway Army’s second album, Replicas, was released in 1979, the band had changed.  Numan had changed his name from Gary Webb, and had gotten heavily into synthesizers. What had been your basic three-chord punk band had been transformed into an early synthpop band, and a dark one at that. Numan seemed to be trapped in a paradox: on the one hand, he was readily embracing new technology in his music; at the same time, it seemed to scare him. Just like Simple Minds’ “Real to Real” (another “Song I Love”), Numan seemed to be deathly worried about machines taking over the world and removing humans from the equation. And no song illustrates this better than “Down In The Park”.

Lyrically, the song is completely dystopian. It tells the story of a world where androids called “machmen” rape and kill humans for sheer entertainment – much like like the days of Roman gladiators… only this time humans are pulling for the machines to win. The humans have numerically-named android friends (“Down in the Park, with a friend called Five”) that accompany them to a club called “Zom Zoms” to watch the carnage. If it sounds to you like something straight out of a Philip K. Dick novel… well, you’d be right. The whole atmospheric feel that the song evokes is just creepy. It’s like an entire Sci-Fi movie in one three minute song. Have a listen for yourself and tell me what you think:

[audio:tubeway.mp3]

The Essex Green is an indie band from Brooklyn, New York. The band was originally based in Burlington, Vermont, where they were known as Guppyboy. However, a couple of members left Guppyboy; the “core” of the band decided to move to New York and try again.

The Essex Green’s “sound” is hard to pin down, as it changes quite a bit. This is especially true because the singing duties are split between guitarist Chris Ziter and keyboardist Sasha Bell. So sometimes it’s a guy singing, other times it’s a girl.

On their second album – The Long Goodbye – they often remind me of a mix between Yellow Submarine-era Beatles and Guadalcanal Diary. But that’s just me. Have a listen of “Lazy May” – from that album, naturally – and tell me what you think:

[audio:essex_green.mp3]

“Real to Real” is the opening track from Simple Minds’ second album, Real To Real Cacophony, which came out all the way back in 1979.

Like a lot of bands at the time, Simple Minds seemed to be obsessed with technology and the future – “Real to Real” is all about satellites and how humans can communicate with each other almost instantly… but don’t. The song is slow, airy and spacey – just the way I like my pop music. The lyrics aren’t much – Real To real cacophony\Echo echo endlessly\Satellites communicate\Pick up signal\Then translate – but that’s not the point, really. It’s one of those songs that’s all about the experience. And this experience is pretty awesome!

Go ahead – have a listen! If all you’ve heard of Simple Minds is “Don’t You Forget About Me”, you might be surprised that this is the same band!

[audio:real_to_real.mp3]