Video

Hunters and Collectors – Talking to a Stranger

Music, Video / /

They got more popular later and “Throw Your Arms Around Me” is a quite lovely rock ballad that I used to sing to my kids at bedtime (along with “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd, “Love My Way” by Psychedelic Furs, and “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison), but for my money it was all about this song and video from Hunters and Collectors. I saw the video on television back in the mid ’80s and it made me feel like I’d found something totally weird that nobody else got. Turns our I was pretty much right. The record this song is from is full of really odd, stripped down industrial funky oddness from Australia that, were I to hear for the first time today, I honestly don’t know what I’d think. It all feels so sun-baked and hallucinatory and still, to this day, makes me feel kind of weird. Good weird. As if there were any other kind.

And more good weird in this video for “Betty’s Worry or the Slab” that came out a couple of years later. “I was looking for seasoned dreams to rip from your fingers.” Indeed.

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Metric Is Totally The Bee’s Knees.

Music, Video / /

There haven’t been many bands in the past few years that have kept me interested for four whole albums the way that Metric has. Sure the last (and most popular) record, Fantasies is far more polished and electronic than the previous ones, but I love ’em all. I tried to sell @bbarbot, @feadog, and @bikeboy389 on Metric after band practice one night and totally failed. My failure has bothered me ever since so I’m giving it another shot here.

IOU

Monster Hospital

Soft Rock Star

Dead Disco

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Cover and MetaCover (The Clash, M.I.A., Built to Spill, and a little Elliott Smith)

Music, Video / /

Built to Spill covering M.I.A.s “Paper Planes” (itself a cover of, or at least inspired by “Straight to Hell” by the Clash.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-G18A-U80

Then, just ’cause it was on the same YouTube page, Elliott Smith covering my favorite Built to Spill song.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw0WcjNjzy8

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I Like Pop. Robyn is Pop. I Like Robyn.

Music, Video / /

I haven’t let the kids put Robyn on their iPods yet because I’m not done liking it and as soon as they can listen to her whenever they want without going through me, it will get overplayed and I’ll be tired of it.  They did it to me with Little Boots and I haven’t quite forgiven them yet.

Body Talk Pt. 1 is a nice, though very short, collection of poppy electro numbers which inhabit a rather darker, more sparse, landscape than her one-time peers Christina and Brittany.  Her plans to release two more records in September and December make up for the shortness of this first release since I her 2005 record that I didn’t know anything about.  So there you go, Tim: music reviewer.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX253FmsxJw

Who is Little Boots?  I’m glad you asked: https://insurmountableopportunities.com/2010/05/06/little-boots-meddle/

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Plastic Bertrand n’est pas Plastic Bertrand

Music, Pop Culture, Video / /

Back in 1982, when I saw the movie “Summer Lovers” at Paul Swangard’s house, there were two songs that I determined, at the time, to be awesome.  “Ça plane pour moi” was one, and “Just Can’t Get Enough” from Depeche Mode’s first record (before Vince Clarke left to form Yazoo) was the other.  That one of these totally awesome songs has turned out to be a cynical media fabrication does, I admit, sadden me ever so slightly.  Fortunately,though, it’s also the one that turns out to actually be a crappy song.

Apparently Plastic Bertrand (who is not actually Plastic Bertrand anyway) did not really sing “Ça plane pour moi.”  Shocking.  Nor did he sing any of the songs on “his” four albums.  Wait…he had albums?

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVDfmn_TMkI

I wanted to put both videos in here, but Depeche Mode is now also a cynical media fabrication and doesn’t allow embedding the video.  Instead, here is the original video for “Don’t Go” by Yazoo.  It sounds a lot like it could have been on that first Depeche Mode record.  It’s impressive, really, that they survived the departure of Clarke who wrote nearly all the songs on that first DM record.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VML1u8KJjEo

This Pitchform article has all the gory details about the Plastic Bertrand affair.

Ça plane pour moi (English Translation)

“Wham! Bam! my cat Splash
lies on my bed with his tongue puffed out
by drinking all my whisky.
As for me, not enough sleep, drained, persecuted,
I had to sleep in the gutter
where I had a flash
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
in four colours

Allez-oop! One morning
a darling came to my home,
a cellophane puppet with Chinese hair,
a  plaster, a hangover,
drank my beer in a large rubber glass
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
like an Indian in his igloo

This works for me, this works for me
This works for me me me me me
This work for me
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
This works for me

Allez-oop! The chick***, what a gas!
what a vibration!
to be sent on the door mat
filed, ruined, drained, filled
You are the King of the divan!
she says to me in passing
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
I am the King of the divan

This works for me, this works for me
This works for me me me me me
This workss for me
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
This works for me

Allez-oop! Don’t mind, don’t worry
Don’t affect me
It’s not today
that the sky will fall on my head
and I’ll be without glue
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
This life’s  for me

Allez-oop! my chick has gone away,
flew away, finally had enough, to break
the sink, the bar, leaving me alone
like a complete jerk
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
I’ve put my foot in it

This works for me, this works for me
This works for me me me me me
This workss for me
Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!
This works for me
This workss for me, this works for me
This works for me me me me me”

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