Here Come the Swans

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I like balsamic vinegar.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

YouTube Video of the day...Split Enz

Wow, this is a hella coooooool find on YouTube:

A pre-Neil Finn Split Enz performing two songs in 1975 on pre-colo(u)r Australian TV. I must admit that I'm not all that familiar with early Split Enz, so I wasn't unprepared for this Peter Gabriel-era Genesis-y sound. I guess that when he joined the band, Neil Finn had a Phil Collins-like influence.

I found another great Split Enz video, but it's a song that will be later included on my best of the 1980s list.

I...am...so...excited...


#25--The The--Angels of Deception
Year: 1986
LP: Infected
Visit the band's official site...
Official site link to The The's videos, including the one for this song
This is yet another "I heard it first on Night Flight" song, when the unusual longform video for The The's 1986 release Infected was broadcast late one night past my bedtime. (I'll admit I was lured in by the "Parental Discretion Advised" warning at the beginning.) Like most of the other songs, this music for "Angels of Deception" is damn catchy but the lyrics are bitingly bitter, with scathing anti-Thatcher-era Britain (and by association,anti-Reagan-era America, as Johnson refers to the UK on "Heartland" as the "51st state of the USA"). I love the soul-tinged backing vocals and the faux-western intro the best.
I almost chose the Infected's title track which contains one of the my all-time favorite couplets:
"From the my scrotum to your womb
Your cradle to my tomb"
Recently, when I saw the video for "Infected" on VH1 Classic, that lyric was changed to something more FCC-friendly.
Another almost-choice was the beautiful "That Uncertain Smile" found on 1983's "Soul Mining." The first minute and a half can be found on the aforementioned official site's "Jukebox" section. As much as I love that song, I've always felt it goes on a little too long.

Could there be a less database friendly name than The The??? (A You Tube was somewhat futile, but I did find a video on The The's official site.) Since it's basically been a one-man band, I wonder if Matt Johnson has ever regretted his moniker choice.

Useless fact I learned when visiting The The's official site:
Matt Johnson sang backing vocals on Lloyd Cole's version of "Memphis," originally sung by Karen Black on the soundtrack to Robert Altman's Nashville.

I can't believe 1986 was twenty years ago. I get a little sad thinking it was so long ago when I sat in front of the TV late in the middle of the night watching the TV at the lowest volume possible as to not wake the parents.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

You Tube videos of the day...

More China Crisis...
China Crisis, "Working with Fire and Steel"

This song, one of my favorites from CC, was uploaded after my last entry. Interesting cleaning-up of the song's one nasty word: "fucked" becomes "scuffed".

The Comsat Angels, "Independance Day"
The second video comes from the Comast Angels, yet another band I first heard on CFNY. The sound is Chameleons-esque and this song is hella cool. I didn't even know there was a video!



Freaky cool website I'm going to add to my bookmarks: giantmicrobes.com. Stuffed animal representations of all your favorite bacteria: Black Death, flu, Ebola, athlete's foot, louse, gonorrhea, ecoli, and my favorite, flesh-eating bacteria. Linky

I've seen some movies:
Proof / **
Chronicles of Narnia / ***
New York Doll / ***
Inside Man / ***
Everything is Illuminated / ***1/2
Madagascar / ***
Memoirs of a Geisha / *1/2
Thumbsucker / *1/2 (saw this one a while ago but never posted the rating)
Where the Truth Lies / * (To the person who directed this film: Who are you and what have you done with Atom Egoyan?)
Rent / ****
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet, but Rent might be my favorite film from 2005. Let's just say that the penguins have competition.

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#26--The Communards--Don't Leave Me This Way

One of the best disco songs gets a fantastic cover treatment by Jimmy Sommerville's post-Bronski Beat band, named after the supporters of the French Commune, for those of you who remember your French history.