Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#95: Blur “There’s No Other Way”
The only point worth making about Blur’s first video appearance on 120 Minutes has to do with contextualization and expectation. At best, it seemed like Blur might be of Charlatans-level interest, and even hardcore stateside anglophiles wouldn’t have rated the band higher than, say, Chapterhouse or Moose. You could argue that Blur’s songwriting didn’t necessarily get any better than “There’s No Other Way”—the group just went on to do things differently.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#94: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion “Bellbottoms”
The Black Keys? Really? The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion creeps closer to legend every year. JSBX isn’t dead—they’ve been tabbed by Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum to play the ATP festival this spring—and you probably can’t ever kill them, but the band largely built its reputation on live shows instead of recordings. And sometimes even the recordings are great, as in the case of 1992′s “Bellbottoms.”
On a tangent, MAGNET’s Jud Cost interviewed Spencer in 2010; while discussing his pre-JSBX band Pussy Galore, Spencer offered up one of the greatest rock stories ever told:
Spencer: The classic story is when we did the very last tour with Pussy Galore after Julie Cafritz had left the band, right after Dial M For Motherfucker. It was the lineup with me and Bob Bert, Neil Hagerty and Kurt Wolf, the four guys. We did four weeks in August, not the best time to tour, all through the south and southwest. The whole tour, Neil had a Samsonite piece of luggage, a big old-fashioned suitcase. But he always wore the same clothes. He’d change his clothes when somebody gave him a T-shirt or he got something at a Salvation Army. We were coming back into the U.S. from playing Montreal going to Boston. And we’re getting stopped at the border and they’re going through our stuff. We’re getting tossed. So, they go to open Neil’s bag, and we’re all standing around. And the only thing that’s in there is a deflated basketball. Neil says his father suggested it might be a good way to stay in shape, to shoot a few hoops.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#93: Violent Femmes “American Music”
That the Violent Femmes’ career trajectory is generally regarded as a long, slow downward arc is sad and unfortunate, yet pretty much fair. 1983 debut Violent Femmes was everybody’s adolescence; it was The Catcher In The Rye. But just because you hit your peak early doesn’t mean there’s no life after a hot-shit debut. The Strokes and Interpol know it, too, and there’s eventually no way you’re not going to end up playing casinos and Houses Of Blues, as the Femmes did for their last decade or so. (The band broke up not long after bassist Brian Ritchie filed a lawsuit against frontman Gordon Gano seeking music ownership and royalties; Gano licensed “Blister In The Sun” to Wendy’s in 2007.) 1991′s Why Do Birds Sing? wasn’t exactly a gem—it’s telling that one of the album’s best tracks is a Culture Club cover—but its single, “American Music,” proved the Femmes were still capable of smartass greatness.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#92: Blake Babies “Temptation Eyes”
Boston’s Blake Babies had one of the finest pedigrees you’re likely to encounter: Named by Allen Ginsberg, the trio studied at the Berklee College of Music. Which doesn’t explain why one of the band’s career highlights was this 1991 cover of a Grass Roots song, a feat that the less-than-soulful Blake Babies seemed ill-equipped to pull off. Juliana Hatfield, drummer Freda Love and guitarist John Strohm got by just fine on their own, but it was always a little more fun when friends were around, either physically (Lemonhead Evan Dando was briefly a band member) or by proxy: “Temptation Eyes” appeared on the Rosy Jack World EP, whose title is a reference to a Frogs song, and the EP also features a cover of a Dinosaur Jr song.
Fun Fact: The Grass Roots’ guitarist was Creed Bratton, a.k.a. the lovable sociopath from The Office.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#91: The Smithereens “Top Of The Pops”
What other band can claim to be an influence on both Nirvana and The Jersey Shore? It’s the Smithereens, New Jersey’s finest ’80s college-rock band (if you’re not counting the Feelies and don’t consider the Misfits college-rock material). “Top Of The Pops,” from 1991′s Blow Up, is not a cover of the Kinks song “Top Of The Pops,” but it’s at least part homage to Ray Davies and draws an interesting, if somewhat faint, line between Davies and Smithereens frontman Pat DiNizio, two working-class heroes. We’ll save a Smithereens career arc for a later post, but DiNizio has made himself an interesting life out of sheer tenacity, from his 2000 run for the U.S. Senate and a battle with a debilitating nervous-system disorder to pioneering living-room shows and, more recently, engaging in a good old-fashioned run of shows in Vegas.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#90: Guided By Voices “My Valuable Hunting Knife”
Some cold, hard truth for 2012: Indie rock killed 120 Minutes. While there’s plenty of blame to go around, the death wasn’t simply caused by the often-repeated “MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore” excuse. It was complicated by the fact that bands on indie labels didn’t have the money to make videos, and after a while listeners were smart enough to realize that 120 Minutes was no longer broadcasting the best new bands. Then fans and artists stopped caring about music videos altogether. Then some other stuff happened, like royal weddings and the Large Hadron Collider and the time those guys stole Edvard Munch’s The Scream from an art gallery in Norway. Then we started this nostalgia trip.
All of this was the case, of course, except when it was not. And it’s worth mentioning that you’re reading MAGNET’s website and we are three-quarters of the way through a 120-post series and this is the first Guided By Voices video featured. We know: We feel a little bit disoriented ourselves. But in honor of the return of GBV’s classic lineup and its new album (plus the band’s appearance tonight on Letterman), here’s “My Valuable Hunting Knife.” It sounds a little different from your Alien Lanes version; the audio is from the “professionally recorded” 1995 Tigerbomb EP.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#89: Gas Huffer “More Of Everything”
Hope everyone is spending some time with family during this holiday week. Always a blast to sit around a dying Christmas tree and listen to Gas Huffer, a band not nearly as degenerate as its name implies. Unlike its peers in Mudhoney and Pearl Jam, the Seattle garage/punk outfit never made it too far out of Seattle; but we remember Gas Huffer in all its glory, for singer Matt Wright’s sideburns and tracks like “More Of Everything,” from 1994′s One Inch Masters.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#88: The Sisters Of Mercy “Lucretia, My Reflection”
All puns aside, 1987′s Floodland was the high-water mark for Leeds, England’s Sisters Of Mercy, the band that best represented ’80s goth rock. Frontman Andrew Eldritch was pretty much all alone in the batcave for this album—apparently, he was such an asshole that most of his bandmates left and formed the Mission U.K.—and he indulged in some really fantastical, gloomy pop-music flamboyance and prog-rock frippery. “Lucretia, My Reflection” is the record’s best song, purportedly written about Sisters Of Mercy bassist Patricia Morrison (formerly of the Damned, and Eldritch’s co-star in this video) and featuring an evil, close-to-krautrock rhythm. There is much more to be said about the Sisters Of Mercy, and we’ll save it for a future installment featuring the “This Corrosion” video, a shitstorm of betrayal, overindulgence, name-calling and Air Supply. Happy holidays!
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#87: The Go-Betweens “Spring Rain”
The Go-Betweens get another go-around on 120 Reasons To Live because: a) The first installment kind of made fun of them for being Australian rubes who’d never seen a music video; b) We promised Go-Betweens bassist-turned-publicist Robert Vickers we’d showcase a clip from his era of the band; c) Robert Forster makes love to the camera in this video; and d) You could play 1986′s “Spring Rain” at a birthday party or a funeral and it would still be perfect.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#86: Kate Bush (“X-Ray” segment)
Here’s another non-video. In the case of Kate Bush, you might have actually learned more about her from one of her videos than this “X-Ray” clip. What’s more objectionable: Bush speaking honestly about her music (and sounding as completely fruity as David St. Hubbins in the process) or host Dave Kendall harshly dismissing Kate Bush while wearing a Wonder Stuff T-shirt? Next week we return to regular music-video fare, but searching for additional “X-Ray” segments on YouTube is a suggested activity if you need to dodge work for a while.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#85: The Fall (“X-Ray” segment)
Unless you’re really pining for a low-quality Dramarama video, now is a good time for a little siesta from the self-imposed rulebook of posting only music videos from 120 Minutes. In the early years, the program also featured a little segment called “X-Ray,” an attempt at giving the unwashed masses some cultural literacy where quasi-iconic artists were concerned. Basically, it was a history lesson for the Cure fans who never heard of Joy Division. That makes it sound dumb, but it was fairly admirable—after all, the alt-rock retrospective thing has been a prime directive for MAGNET’s editorial since the mid-’90s. We refused to explain the Fall to you in a previous post, so here’s the primer that Mark E. Smith would hate for you to see.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#84: The Buck Pets “Pearls”
The best Buck Pets artifact we could find comes from Seventeen magazine’s “New Bands” page in January 1991: “There’s no such animal as a buck pet. But if there were, your mother would never let you bring one home.” The long-haired, probably smelly, Zeppelin- and Replacements-obsessed Buck Pets had the audacity not to be from Seattle; the band actually hailed from the same Dallas-area scene that produced Edie Brickell And The New Bohemians (and, later, spawned the Toadies and Tripping Daisy). Signed by Island Records for two albums (1989′s The BuckPets and 1990′s Mercurotone, the latter of which contained “Pearls”), the Buck Pets were cast aside when they didn’t become the next Soundgarden.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#83: Freedy Johnston “Bad Reputation”
The one or two times 120 Minutes might have played Freedy Johnston’s video for “Bad Reputation,” it was kind of like seeing James Taylor at a Pigface concert. Back when there was a medium-sharp divide between the fare on MTV and VH1, Johnston was definitely a VH1, 25-34 demographic, Storytellers kind of guy. It’s nobody’s fault, really, that Johnston didn’t become huge off the excellence of 1994 major-label debut This Perfect World and “Bad Reputation,” his masterpiece in E minor. (Despite what Nigel Tufnel told you, D minor is not the saddest of all keys.) Or maybe the blame should be spread among the teenagers who were presented with a normal-looking singer/songwriter from Kansas (birth name: Fred Fatzer) and couldn’t open their ears, along with the older audience too wrapped up in Counting Crows to notice something really good.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#82: Jellyfish “The Ghost At Number One”
Who made a song about a heroin junkie rock star’s downward spiral sound so much fun? Who decided it’d be a good idea, in the era of Nine Inch Nails and Alice In Chains, to put in some Partridge Family harpsichords and Beach Boys harmonies? God bless you, men of Jellyfish and the floppy hats and colorful scarves you wore. “The Ghost At Number One” is from 1993′s Spilt Milk, and the San Francisco band split up a year later. Did MAGNET already publish a post-mortem and follow-up on a ’90s power-pop band with a cult following? Yes.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#81: Descendents “Kids”
Gotta keep this brief for obvious reasons. From 1986′s toilet/butt/fart-themed Enjoy!. Sniff my ass while I pass gas!
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#80: Bitch Magnet “Mesentery”
Slint gets most of the credit for figuring out the ever-churning guitar calculus that later became known and loved (by guys without girlfriends) as post-rock; however, Ohio/North Carolina outfit Bitch Magnet was working on the same problem around the same time. (The two groups are connected by Squirrel Bait, whose David Grubbs was briefly in Bitch Magnet; Slint had two members in Squirrel Bait.) We’d like to think the name Bitch Magnet steered listeners away from taking the band seriously, but there are giant holes in that theory. You never hear Anal Cunt complaining, for example. “Mesentery” is one of the band’s best songs, from 1990′s Ben Hur. In case you missed it or want to get a Mogwai/Battles/Explosions In The Sky-loving shut-in a Christmas gift, the Temporary Residence label is reissuing the Bitch Magnet catalog in December. The original lineup (including bassist/singer Sooyoung Park, who went on to form Seam) is playing some reunion gigs in Asia and the U.K. next month.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#79: Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine “Anytime Anyplace Anywhere”
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine was kind of like EMF, but not stupid. Unfortunately, Carter never really had a hit like EMF’s “Unbelievable,” and the London band’s cynicism, puns and black humor was more geared toward its native U.K. audience. In the heady days of drum-machine abuse and techno/rock exploration, Carter USM played the smartass card to near-perfection. “Anytime Anyplace Anywhere” from 1991′s 30 Something takes a sour look at all that drinking going on (where was this band during Prohibition?) but is more likely a result of morning-after regrets by singer Jim Bob Morrison. After Carter’s split in 1998, Morrison pursued a solo career and wrote an autobiography as well as a book of short fiction.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#78: Too Much Joy “Innocents Ablaze”
With album titles such as Cereal Killers, Green Eggs And Crack and Son Of Sam I Am, Too Much Joy was, as you might guess, obsessed with 8th-grade humor and all the quirky, smart pop-music tricks needed to make its shtick palatable. Turns out that a major label (Warner Bros.) figured college-rock audiences would eat it up, signing Too Much Joy in the late ’80s to disastrous effect. Google “Too Much Joy” and the second hit is a blog post titled My Hilarious Warner Bros. Royalty Statement—recommended reading for all ’90s alt-rock bands still seething over the voodoo economics of a major-label contract. “Innocents Ablaze” comes from 1987′s Green Eggs And Crack, an album the Scarsdale, N.Y., band recorded during its high school and college years. The ensuing years saw them develop into counterculture clowns—providing much-needed comic relief during 120 Minutes itself—and get into scrapes with the law, including a 1990 arrest in Miami for performing 2 Live Crew songs.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#77: Lush “Ladykillers”
This 1992 Lollapalooza tour diary by Lush bassist Phil King illustrates the early-’90s disconnect between English and American music scenes better than we ever could, although the part where Lush frontwoman Miki Berenyi stage-dives during Ministry’s set and is taken to the hospital undercuts the divide somewhat. Most people on Earth prefer to remember Lush as card-carrying, attractive, ethereal members of the U.K.’s shoegaze movement, but the group’s last album (1996′s Lovelife) ditched the wall of effects pedals and embarked on an Elastica-esque run at Britpop glory. (Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker even duets with Berenyi on the album.) “Ladykillers” was the most compact, direct single from Lovelife, Lush’s best-selling album and a promising restart for the band before it all came crashing down with the suicide of drummer Chris Acland six months after the record was released.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#76: Flaming Lips “Turn It On”
In honor of the MAGNET crew being on deadline for its first print issue since 2008, here’s the opening track from an album that consistently soundtracked editorial crunch times in the late ’90s/early ’00s. 1993′s Transmissions From The Satellite Heart got a lot of attention for quasi-novelty hit “She Don’t Use Jelly,” but the album is a consistent thrill ride, powered by the effects pedals of guitarist Ronald Jones. Jones left the band after one more album, and the Lips have reinvented themselves at least two more times since (with 1999′s The Soft Bulletin and 2009′s Embryonic). A dig at R.E.M.’s relatively predictable career progression might normally appear here to illustrate how much more interesting the Lips’ discography might appear in 20 years, but we can’t muster the meanness to do so. (Though we kind of just did.) Nostalgia is a bitch. MAGNET #81 is coming.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#75: Lime Spiders “The Other Side Of You”
Australian import Lime Spiders were a perfect example of a band that didn’t clean up very well. 1987 debut The Cave Comes Alive! was a punk/garage eye-opener; early on, Rolling Stone called the Lime Spiders “the Sex Pistols on acid,” and the band’s singer is named Mick Blood, for chrissakes. But just a year later, inappropriately titled follow-up album Volatile proved to be a tame affair—a shame, since any hype the band had accrued was quickly washed away. That sophomore album produced half-decent single “The Other Side Of You,” whose video telegraphs the ordinary side of a formerly exciting band.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#74: Electronic “Getting Away With It”
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2202u
Electronic was supposed to be the ultimate superduo, composed of what we consider to be the driving forces of the two best bands of the 1980s: New Order (Bernard Sumner) and the Smiths (Johnny Marr). This combination of Manchester’s greatest musical minds couldn’t possibly lose. But when first single “Getting Away With It” appeared in late 1989, the results were only mediocre. Adding to the disappointment was the appearance on the track by the Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant. It’s kind of like hanging out with Fonzie and James Dean, and then Urkel shows up. It only underscored that 1991′s Electronic ultimately ended up sounding like the Pet Shop Boys, and even after Marr and Sumner jettisoned Tennant on subsequent albums (1996′s decent Raise The Pressue and 1999′s did-that-come-out? Twisted Tenderness), it was apparent the chemistry just wasn’t there.
The above clip is the U.K. version of the video; rest assured, the U.S. version wasn’t much more exciting. Apologies for the 15-second ad before the DailyMotion clip; Warner Bros. are real cunts about allowing videos to be embedded.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#73: Rocket From The Crypt “On A Rope”
Perhaps more than any other band in the post-Nirvana alt-rock mid-’90s, Rocket From The Crypt felt like a fad. (Well, maybe not more so than Frente! or Crash Test Dummies, but right up there.) All the signs were present: the hyping of a hot new scene in San Diego (consisting of related outfit Drive Like Jehu and … who else, exactly?), RFTC’s rockabilly/sci-fi image (guys in the band were nicknamed Atom, Speedo, Apollo 9, JC 2000, etc.) and the disturbing, then-new trend of fans getting tattoos of the band’s logo. Turns out that Rocket From The Crypt and bandleader John “Speedo” Reis will outlive us all and party on our cynical graves. “On A Rope” is from 1995′s major-label debut Scream, Dracula, Scream!, the band’s commercial peak; in truth, the group remained razor-sharp right on through its final album, 2002′s blistering Live From Camp X-Ray. In the afterlife of Rocket From The Crypt, Reis has attained some sort of rock ‘n’ roll godhead status; he’s lent a golden touch to subsequent endeavors such as Back Off Cupids, Hot Snakes and the Night Marchers.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#72: The Housemartins “Caravan Of Love”
Thank you for watching the gayest video in history. And did you see Fatboy Slim in there? Norman Cook was the bassist for Hull, England, Christian/Marxist band the Housemartins before he became a megafamous DJ. The Housemartins’ 1986 cover of Isley/Jasper/Isley’s “Caravan Of Love” netted the band a number-one single in the U.K., but it hardly represents the group’s style, a sound that followed various vapor trails from the Smiths and the Jam; the a cappella song wasn’t even included on a proper album. The band broke up in 1988, and singer Paul Heaton went on to form the Beautiful South, but not before announcing the Housemartins’ split in an open letter to the NME that simply read: “In an age of Rick Astley, Shakin’ Stevens and the Pet Shop Boys quite simply they (the Housemartins) weren’t good enough.”
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#71: The Breeders “Shocker In Gloomtown”
For a hot minute in the mid-’90s, Dayton, Ohio, was not the center of the musical universe. But it was on the map, thanks to Guided By Voices and the Breeders, whose Kim and Kelley Deal, along with drummer Jim Macpherson, are also Dayton natives. The Breeders’ 1994 cover of GBV’s “Shocker In Gloomtown” is no “Cannonball” in terms of recognizability, but it’s a neat artifact of the pervasive hat-tipping in the glory days of indie rock. Incidentally, the Breeders’ 1994 EP featuring “Shocker In Gloomtown” also sported a cover of Sebadoh’s “The Freed Pig”; GBV’s Bob Pollard and Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow had a fairly benign but real rivalry around that time based on who was the better songwriter.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#70: Luna “Slash Your Tires”
If Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang weren’t such polite, mild-mannered individuals (as opposed to the Sid and Nancy types depicted in the video for “Slash Your Tires”), we might think this video is frontman Dean Wareham’s revenge on his former Galaxie 500 bandmates. The car in the clip, after all, is a Galaxie 500, though it’s unclear who or what is represented by the stuffed pig. Maybe money, maybe Wareham himself. Whatever the case—and you should really read Wareham’s memoir, Black Postcards, to get more insight—Luna was all about leaving Galaxie 500 in the dust. 1992 debut Lunapark made the separation quite well, if only in terms of better production and an overall cleaner sound. Sure, nothing can beat the charm or originality of Galaxie 500′s murky, lo-fi output … except maybe a video that actually gets played on MTV. Also, this early period was marked by the band having to refer to itself as Luna² on album sleeves due to conflict with a new-age artist already performing under the name Luna.
Want more of Damon, Dean and Naomi? You’re in the right place. Check out a Q&A with Wareham, a Galaxie 500 Over/Under, Damon & Naomi’s mix tape and a Q&A with Dean & Britta.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#69: James “Sit Down”
You thought maybe James’ “Laid” would occupy position number 69? That’s obscene. 1993′s “Laid” made James a one-hit wonder in the U.S. (mainly via movie soundtracks throughout the ’90s), but the Manchester band led by singer Tim Booth had so much more to offer than that. 1989′s “Sit Down” was the group’s first big single, though it wasn’t really that popular until a 1991 re-release. As the song’s heal-the-Eleanor-Rigbys-of-the-world message suggests, James was more of a big-hearted, arms-wide-open band than the U.K. was used to at the time; in the early years, James went by the name Tribal Outlook, which is telling. Booth and Co.’s wide-ranging impulses led to an interesting career: from the gorgeous romantic pop of 1992′s Seven (featuring the trumpet of Andy Diagram, later of experimental act Spaceheads) to the landmark Laid (recorded with Brian Eno, and an intricate, introverted album despite its title song) and a strange 1996 collaboration between Booth and Twin Peaks theme composer Angelo Badalamenti (titled Booth And The Bad Angel). James’ most recent album, Hey Ma, appeared in 2008.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#68: Teenage Fanclub “The Concept”
It was the 30th anniversary of MTV yesterday, and … oh, who the fuck cares anymore, except to decry the channel’s current lack of actual music programmings. Old man shouts at clouds and all that. Teenage Fanclub, Scotland’s best power-pop band*, got its big break from print media (specifically Spin, which named 1991′s Bandwagonesque the year’s number-one album, beating out Nevermind and Loveless). Maybe it isn’t MTV’s fault, exactly—”The Concept” (from Bandwagonesque) is a boring video, and it’s not even lamentable that the outro is cut in order for the monotonous performance shots to end. Consider it a marketing failure on the part of the group’s label(s), Creation in the U.K. and DGC/Geffen in the U.S. Nearly everything else about the band over the next 20 years of its existence, however, has been a victory, including last year’s Shadows. Here’s a Q&A with TFC’s Norman Blake from last year, including a free mp3 of Shadows‘ “Baby Lee.”
*For the record, Sloan is Canada’s best power-pop band, and Nada Surf is America’s best power-pop band.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#67: Straitjacket Fits “Hail”
For some reason, describing Straitjacket Fits as “a second-wave Flying Nun band” seems like it might not mean much to 99.9 percent of any demographic. Better put, the Dunedin quartet was a really good New Zealand band in a long line of really good New Zealand bands that stretched back to the early ’80s. 1988′s “Hail” isn’t the best Fits track (fairly sure the comments section won’t come alive with a debate on what is the group’s best song, but more surprising things have happened), but it paints the picture: noisy, twisted-up guitars trying in vain to bury some perfectly nice melody. A double bill of the La’s and Straitjacket Fits toured the U.S. in the early ’90s; that’s one reason we’re still working on a time machine.
Worth seeking out: 1999′s Take In The Sun by Bike, led by Straitjacket Fits singer/guitarist Andrew Brough. Reasonably priced on Amazon, but surely available from other retailers as well.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#66: Yo La Tengo “Sugarcube”
A few disclaimers: This video for 1997′s “Sugarcube” falls well outside the range of what we’ve previously considered the “classic” era of 120 Minutes. But it’s Yo La Tengo. Deal with it. Also, the video’s “rock school” concept predated Jack Black comedy School of Rock by six years, so the funny quotient—greatly aided by Mr. Show‘s David Cross and Bob Odenkirk—wasn’t at all diminished at the time. Indie rock was booming in 1997, and amid the raft of great albums from up-and-comers Spiritualized, Sleater-Kinney, Elliott Smith and Belle & Sebastian was the quiet (or actually quite noisy) greatness of Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. We never thought YLT needed any further rock ‘n’ roll instruction after that album, but we did once send frontman Ira Kaplan to gather wisdom from a master: He interviewed the Kinks’ Ray Davies for a MAGNET cover story in 2008.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#65: Wire “Eardrum Buzz”
I’m with this guy. Gordon Zacharias of Fan Modine recently wrote a mix tape feature for MAGNET and selected a Wire track (“Kidney Bingos”) from 1988: “I catch hell for liking this period of Wire more than their earlier works,” wrote Zacharias. “Purists can suck it.” Well, “Eardrum Buzz” was a Wire single from 1989, and it’s not the razor-sharp, super-efficient punk of 1977′s Pink Flag. The members of Wire themselves were well aware of this disconnect. In the mid-’80s, the group stopped playing old material and hired a Wire cover band called the Ex-Lion Tamers to open for them and perform the Pink Flag-era classics. Wire’s stringent, high-art aesthetic would seem to shun such things as making whimsical music videos to promote its work, but it’s actually endearing to see the band members sell a song like “Eardrum Buzz.” Or at least act like they’re selling it.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#64: Paul Westerberg “Dyslexic Heart”
Few Replacements fans would probably count “Dyslexic Heart” as a career highlight for frontman Paul Westerberg, but then again, there’s no arguing with those people. Replacements fans are as prickly as Paul himself. More than anything, “Dyslexic Heart” just seemed a little weird: Not only is Westerberg’s first solo single a bubblegum tune from one of the scrappier songwriters of his generation, it also stuck out like a sore thumb on the 1991 Singles soundtrack. Westerberg and Smashing Pumpkins were the only non-Northwest acts on that soundtrack, and you could argue that Smashing Pumpkins belonged in grunge’s company on the basis of their guitar blare alone. Not “Dyslexic Heart,” however. Whatever distorted reality brought Westerberg together with Cameron Crowe’s ode to early-’90s Seattle isn’t worth complaining about. When Westerberg made his comeback in the early ’00s (read all about it here), he did so with tattered, lo-fi songs recorded in his basement. Some of us just prefer music to sound the other, prettier way.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#63: Camper Van Beethoven “Good Guys And Bad Guys”
“Take The Skinheads Bowling” would’ve been the obvious choice of video for Camper Van Beethoven, and any reasonable person should start there where David Lowery and Co.’s catalog is concerned. But that video is also tinged with the indignity of being heavily featured on MTV’s early-days Dr. Demento program, a repository for wacky clips by Weird Al and novelty acts. Camper Van Beethoven—with Lowery’s surrealism and a sense of adventure that incorporated ska, country and Middle Eastern music at a time when even college-rock bands didn’t typically do such things—makes a strong argument that smaller-city alt-rockers were always doing much weirder stuff than their counterparts in New York or L.A. Lowery later got more traditional-sounding (and successful) with Cracker, but the charm and invention of Camper Van Beethoven is irresistible.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#62: The Folk Implosion “Natural One”
Radio 104.5 is the alt-rock station in MAGNET’s hometown of Philadelphia, and you’ve probably got a station just like it in your city. For various reasons, this writer has been obligated to listen to 104.5 while in a car with younger co-workers. These stations play so much Foo Fighters material that the DJs simply refer to the band as “the Foos.” Dave Grohl would like you to please stop that shit. They play new stuff, too—Florence And The Machine, Phoenix, Adele, Black Keys—but the playlist is dominated by ’90s standbys (Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Live), opening up the question of whether the current teenage generation really has any separation from the grunge era. But getting to the point: When an off-brand ’90s act is played, it’s always Better Than Ezra or Candlebox or the Toadies. What’s wrong with Edwyn Collins, the Dandy Warhols or the Folk Implosion? They had equally huge singles that aged better and are more fun. When the archivists fail to deliver a) fair and balanced historical treatment and b) good taste, the preferable option is not to remember the ’90s at all. Just play Mumford & Sons and pretend everything else is as prehistoric and irrelevant as classic rock; at this point, maybe it is.
Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#61: Dee Dee King “Funky Man”
Apologies for the poor audio/visual quality of this clip, but ask yourself: Do you really want to experience Dee Dee Ramone’s rap video with any more definition than this? 1987′s “Funky Man” later appeared on 1989′s Standing In The Spotlight, issued under the name Dee Dee King and featuring the Ramones bassist rapping in both English and German on one track. Why didn’t he make a video for that song, too? Like videos by King Missile and Mojo Nixon, “Funky Man” provided a welcome diversion from, say, a Cocteau Twins or R.E.M. clip. Unlike those other jokers, however, it wasn’t entirely clear whether Dee Dee was kidding around. But the biggest question of all happens around the one-minute mark: Why does Dee Dee pick up his mail in the foyer and take it outside?
