Author: Jennifer

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July Video Challenge: Nelson, (I Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection

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These two gentlemen are Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, the twin sons of Ricky and Kristin Nelson. This song is from their first record, After the Rain, released in 1990. True confession: I totally bought it, and may even still have the tape somewhere.

This video is a thing of beauty and a joy forever for their outfits alone. There’s the matching artfully ripped jeans, in the beginning, which are followed by a series of epic costume changes. I spent at least a minute trying to decide if the one on the left – I think it’s Gunnar, but I can’t be sure – was wearing red legwarmers or especially fancy boots in the first several frames on the stage, and I’ve decided those are boots which look like legwarmers. In any case, they’re fabulous.

 

Nelson - (Can't Live Without Your) Love And Affection

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July Video Challenge: Gin Blossoms, Until I Fall Away

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Because I am going to be seeing them this evening, in an ACTUAL CLUB, I am SO EXCITED; because all y’all have heard Hey Jealousy a bajillion times already; and most of all because it’s the one that the pacing doesn’t give me a headache. And also because they don’t seem to have made any records for the new stuff. Yes, there is new stuff! You can find out about the new record (and their ongoing tour) at their website.

 

Gin Blossoms - Until I Fall Away

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July Video Challenge: The Used, Pretty Handsome Awkward / Empty With You

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Reasons I love Pretty Handsome Awkward: 1) the percussive guitars and roaring drums and 2) it sounds like one-half of every rage-fueled break-up conversation ever, the one you probably shouldn’t have with the actual person you are leaving / has left you because you might sound a tiny bit unhinged, but good lord does it ever feel good to vent your spleen.

As it happens I heard it for the first time in the aftermath of a split. I wasn’t angry so much as numb, overwhelmed, and directionless, and in many ways it was like a big blinking arrow that said When In Doubt, Follow The Sound of the Electric Guitar. Not long afterward I fell face-first (back) into rock and roll and, well, suffice it to say, I feel a lot better now.

The Used have been a band since 2001; Pretty Handsome Awkward is from their third record, Lies for the Liars, released in 2007. They are currently label-less, but still working on their fifth record, which may possibly be out later this year.

Other things to know: Pretty Handsome Awkward coincided with singer Bert McCracken’s blond period, and when he is blond, he looks startlingly like Kurt Cobain. It can be a little bit dislocating, so, you know, brace yourselves. Also, embedding is (again) maddeningly forbidden, but you can watch it here.

Alternatively, you can watch this one for Empty with You, which is from their last record, Artwork, released in 2009. The guitars are just as killer, and McCracken looks like himself again!

The Used - Empty With You (Official)

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July Video Challenge: Metallica, Unforgiven / NIN, Head Like A Hole

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Creepy black and white imagery: check. James Hetfield and co. with all of their hair and the occasional ridiculous moustache: check.  Reminder of why so many hard rock stations had “Mandatory Metallica” bits: also check.

This is not the song that caused me to become a Metallica fan – that was One – but it is certainly among my favorite tracks. They would go on to name two more songs “Unforgiven” but this one, from their fifth record, entitled Metallica, aka The Black Album, is the one that I think of as Original and Best. Also, The Black Album was the one I used to put on almost every night to listen to as I was winding down to sleep.

And now i have just discovered that, in what I can only call as CLASSIC METALLICA MOVE, I can’t embed the damned thing to share with you. I promise the click-through to YouTube will be worth it, though.

Or you can watch a classic video from a band on the other end of the sharing spectrum: Nine Inch Nails. I was in to them before I was in to Metallica, and, because MTV used to play them back to back, I often used to mute the video for One while waiting, impatiently, for Head Like a Hole to come on. So have some skinny, angry, dreadlock-flinging Trent Reznor:

 

Nine Inch Nails - Head Like A Hole

 

(And if you’d like to know why I caved to Metallica, well, you can blame that one on a boy. He sang Bon Jovi to me in science class and persuaded me to give James Hetfield and his not-so-merry crew a shot, so I stopped hitting the mute button and listened. Eventually I bought   . . . And Justice For All, and it was all downhill from there.

My other distinct Metallica memory is opening an issue of Circus magazine and flipping eagerly to their poster in the center only to find they had cut their hair. I think I made some sort of undignified noise and petted Kirk Hammett’s papery face with my finger tips. I still hung the poster up, though.)

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The Dead Exs, Bowery Electric, 7/10/11

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IMG_9594

Last month, NTSIB friend @popa2unes reported on The Dead Exs record release party, and now I’m here to heartily second his ringing endorsement of the band. I got to see them this weekend, when they were back at the Bowery Electric for an early show. One of the highlights of the evening was that I was not the only one dancing this time.

The Dead Exs are David Pattillo (dp) on vocals and guitars and Wylie Wirth on drums, and their sound is a delicious blues-funk stew lightly seasoned with garage-rock flair.  If you get a chance to see them live, do it; their show is a raucus good time, messy and loud in all of the best ways, if sometimes unintentionally so. And by that I mean dp’s finger-slide made a break for freedom half-way through the evening, but it was swiftly recaptured and they went right back to rocking out.

As an example, here is Shut Up and Love Me, from their Bandcamp:
 

 

Here are a few more pictures from the evening:

 

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David Pattillo (dp)

IMG_9603Wylie Wirth

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July Video Challenge: Chris Gaines [Garth Brooks], Lost in You

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In 1999, Garth Brooks invented Chris Gaines from whole cloth, in order to explore genres outside of country. (There was also supposed to be a movie, but that didn’t quite work out.) One of the fruits of his labor was this video, a dreamy, melancholy piece, in which he is wholly unrecognizable as himself. The song did well, but faced with a baffled (and possibly somewhat concerned) public and a loss of momentum that came with the disintegration of the movie deal, Brooks let Gaines fade out of sight. The “real” Garth Brooks retired – temporarily – in 2000.

It is, if nothing else, an intriguing meditation on the idea of rock star as illusionist. As I was reading up on the affair to refresh my memory – all I had was the echo of baffled disbelief – any number of people have offered that his mistake was not in inventing a new persona but in revealing that the persona was, in fact, an invention.

 

http://youtu.be/n_zMEXOsNmU

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July Video Challenge: Mark Ronson and The Business, INTL, The Bike Song

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Mark Ronson and The Business INTL, or at least the current iteration of the band, are set to have their last London show in a couple of weeks, when they play a Greenwich Summer Session. I’ve been flipping through some of the snippets of video – outtakes of recording sessions, and so on – that are floating around the Internet, and it’s reminded me how much I enjoy their music.

The video below is for The Bike Song, and is an excellent example of the way they combine feather-light synth-pop with hip-hop. Also, there are semi-sentient bicycles, which I believe adds some joy to any music video.

 

Mark Ronson, The Business Intl. - The Bike Song

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July Video Challenge: Paula Abdul, Cold Hearted Snake

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Cold Hearted Snake was one of the singles from Paula Abdul‘s first record, Forever Your Girl, in 1988. The video she made for it, which you are about to watch below, was the one that got MTV banned in my house. That didn’t stop me watching MTV, of course, it just meant I had to be more strategic about it. By which I mean, I watched a lot of Headbanger’s Ball while I was babysitting.

Other reasons the video is notable: it was inspired by Bob Fosse’s choreography from All That Jazz and directed by David Fincher, who would later go on to make Fight Club; there’s a rap interlude; and there is also a live string section. And the expressions on the “record label executives” faces as the dancers do their thing are just priceless.

 

Paula Abdul Cold Hearted Snake - Full Version

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July Video Challenge: Sinéad O’Connor, Mandinka

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This is from The Lion and The Cobra, Sinéad O’Connor‘s first record, released in 1987, three years before her cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2U made her famous, and five years before an appearance on Saturday Night Live made her infamous.

While less in the spotlight now, she’s still active on the musical scene. Her next offering, to be called Home, is scheduled to be released in early 2012.

 

http://youtu.be/5QFPfSfLi-Q