Simon Wistow’s blog

90s Music Monday

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:45:14 -0800

Apparently #musicmonday is a trending topic on the Twitters - bunch of bloody Johnny Come Latelys. Some of us have been here every Monday morning (for various definitions of 'every', 'monday' and 'morning'), mining the rich vein of at-least-a-decade-old music for nuggets and gems to present you with. Although I'll concede that it may be closer to a family cat, possibly elderly and constantly smelling faintly of urine, 'presenting' you with a the mutilated carcass of a songbird than to a lover presenting you with a platter of the finest silks, gems and perfumes purchasable.

Either way - I forge on, secure in the knowledge that I'll be here long after those young whipper snappers have got tired and moved on to new things.

Anyway - my American friends will be blissfully unaware that for British soap operas are completely unlike their Yankee brethren. For a start there are no impossibly glamorous people or complicated plots involving hitherto unknown twin siblings, murders and lengthy comas. Or vampires. No British soaps, such as "East Enders" are mostly populated by grim, ugly people living grim, ugly lives in grim, ugly surroundings. See this comparison for example:

Anyway, when we want to import a little glamour we instead turned to two Australian soaps - "Neighbours" (24 years old this year) and "Home and Away" (22 years old this year). I mean, when I say glamour it's still no "Stairwells of Time" they're are still set in mundane locations - a Melbourne suburb and small, coastal town near Sydney respectively - after all, and the people them selves are pretty ordinary.

But they boast a startlingly accomplished and wide spread alumni amongst the cast. Probably the most famous, is of course, Ms Kylie Minogue, now so famous that her surname has withered and dropped off with disuse, like an unused appendix. Kylie played tomboyish greasemonkey Charlene Ramsey in Neighbours

Kylie

Meanwhile Heath Ledger played a goth boy who took Sally's virginity in H&A, Dichen Lachman now plays Sierra in "Dollhouse", Guy Pearce was the main character in "Memento", Jim Dale has been everything from the vice president in "24" to the big boss in "Ugly Betty", Isla Fisher's been in, well lots and now dates Borat, Julian McMahon is in "Nip/Tuck", Simon Baker's the titular character in "The Mentalist", Ryan "Vinny Patterson" Kwanten plays Jason Stackhouse in "True Blood" and Naomi Watts has been, in well, lots as well. I hear she's quite succesful.

Which is, to say, you probably didn't realise it but there are Australians everywhere. Do you really know your friends and neighbours? Do they ever casually "chuck" a "shrimp" on the "barbie"? Do you ever see them with faint traces on zinc on their noses? These and more may be an indication that you have an Australian infestation. You have been warned.

Anyway - so on to the main point of this increasingly rambling and incoherent post. 90s music. And Australians. Who were in soap operas.

Oh, look it's adorable elfin faced pixie Natalie Imbrugliagaliagala looking all quirky and alternative

Natalie Imbruglia - Torn

It's not a bad concept as a video although I think iconic German synthpop band Wolfsheim did it better with their video dyptych of "Find You're Here" and "Find You're Gone"

Wolfsheim - Find You're Here & Find You're Gone

Christ, bet you'd never thought you'd find a musical blog which mentioned Natalie Imbruglalalaiglia and Wolfsheim in the same post.

Anyway, somewhat little known fact - Ms Imbruglaglaglala didn't write (and by 'write' I mean, 'was given the song by one of the 5 pop composer supremos who secretely write about 90% of stuff that's in the charts these days') "Torn" it was originally a 1991 track by a Swedish band called Ednaswap

Ednaswap - Torn

which was then covered by Danish singer Lis Sørensen as "Burnt" in 1993 (in Danish - listen to it, it will mildly freak you out!)

Lis Sørensen - Brændt

and then again, by Trine Rein in 1996 sounding much more like Ms Imbruglililgigglli's eventual 1997 version

Trine Rein - Torn

Of course the best version ever done was Johann Lippowitz's mime version

Johann Lippowitz - Torn

which he then duetted with Natalie Imbrogliogle at "The Secret Policeman's Ball"

Johann Lippowitz with Natalie Imbruglia - Torn

So there you go - 8 videos and 3 pictures. Let's see you stick that in 140 characters.

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90s Music Monday

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:19:42 -0800

Placebo are one of those bands that I always feel oddly guilty about enjoying which is odd because "Nancy Boy" is damn fine blistering 3 minute pop song which lovely crunchy guitars and a thumping bass line. I mean the video's a little bit "Art school student gets his 'alternative' friends together and then gets a bit enthusiastic with the Inferno effects plugins" but I never seem to get tired of listening to the song itself

Placebo - Nancy Boy

and "Pure Morning" is annoyingly compelling too

Placebo - Pure morning

It's slightly disturbing that Brian Molko is probably one of the prettiest people in pop.

As a bonus track - not strictly 90s but I really like the Placebo cover of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" which Q magazine memorably described as "sound[ing] more like a 'pact with the Devil' than the original 'deal with God'"

Placebo - Running Up That Hill

even if the video is like a better dressed emo version of Feeder's "Just A Day" (which for some reason I can't help watching every time it comes on)

Hmm - no nerdy music factoids so far. Errm. Ok - the reason why drummer Steve Hewitt is blurred out in the Nancy Boy video is because he was still contractually obliged to a band on another label at the time.

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Spotted during a bit of Economics Blog spelunking

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:07:30 -0800

"Economists should listen more to techies on what techs will be feasible at what costs, but techies should also listen more to economists on the social implications of tech costs. Alas, just as economists prefer to rely on their intuitive folk tech forecasts, techies prefer to rely instead on their intuitive folk economics."

- via Arnold Kling commenting on Robin Hanson's "Overcoming Bias"

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I like a good meat buzz, early in the morning

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:05:46 -0700

This Halloween I'll be drinking McNuggetinis

Alie and Georgia Present: The McNuggetini

Two words: Ham Daquiri

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90s Music Monday

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:41:28 -0700

It turns out that Sedona in Phoenix is so unspeakably cinematic - with its soaring orange mesas and artistically arranged cacti silhouetted against the blazing sunset - that your brain can't actually deal with it and you just start thinking that it looks like a really bad special effects cliché and discounting it as being fake.

It's kind of weird.

Anyway, that's got absolutely nothing to do with this weeks 90MM which I've plucked randomly from my scratch pad of potential candidates based purely on the fact that it's gone 2pm already and I hadn't noticed.

Inspiring, huh?

Anyway, so "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow.

Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do

Because I'm doing this somewhat haphazard today I'm giving you the extra special LOOK!!!! @@@RARE@@@11!!11 original version which features the oft mentioned Billy character wandering around - something that was subsequently cut to produce the more common form of the video most people are familiar with.

Looking round to find the reasons the general consensus, including the commentary on Wikipedia, calls this inexplicable but, having watched both this 'original' and the more common one (which you can find here for comparison) I think I have an answer - the edited version is better and the guy who plays Billy comes across as an insufferable douche who I'd really like to give a good shoeing to.

Anyway, with that particular issue settled we can get onto even more obscurity like, for example, the fact that the song is actually a pretty much word for word recital of the poem "Fun" by Wyn Cooper (who is credited as a co-writer and made, apparently, a metric fuck-tonne of money from the royalties)

“All I want is to have a little fun
Before I die,” says the man next to me
Out of nowhere, apropos of nothing. He says
His name’s William but I’m sure he’s Bill
Or Billy, Mac or Buddy; he’s plain ugly to me,
And I wonder if he’s ever had fun in his life.

We are drinking beer at noon on Tuesday,
In a bar that faces a giant car wash.
The good people of the world are washing their cars
On their lunch hours, hosing and scrubbing
As best they can in skirts and suits.
They drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks
Back to the phone company, the record store,
The genetic engineering lab, but not a single one
Appears to be having fun like Billy and me.

I like a good beer buzz early in the day,
And Billy likes to peel the labels
From his bottles of Bud and shred them on the bar.
Then he lights every match in an oversized pack,
Letting each one burn down to his thick fingers
Before blowing and cursing them out.

A happy couple enters the bar, dangerously close
To one another, like this is a motel,
But they clean up their act when we give them
A look. One quick beer and they’re out,
Down the road and in the next state
For all I care, smiling like idiots.
We cover sports and politics and once,
When Billy burns his thumb and lets out a yelp,
The bartender looks up from his want-ads.

Otherwise the bar is ours, and the day and the night
And the car wash too, the matches and Buds
And the clean and dirty cars, the sun and the moon
And every motel on this highway. It’s ours you hear?
And we’ve got plans, so relax and let us in—
All we want is to have a little fun.

... and lets face it, who doesn't like a good beer buzz early in the morning?

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90s Music Monday

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:03:54 -0700

Have you seen "24 Hour Party People"? You should, it's pretty good. It's about the rise and fall of the legendary Hacienda club in Manchester and the entwined Factory Records which was home to acts like Joy Division, New Order, The Happy Mondays and Cabaret Voltaire amongst others.

Anyway, the reason why I'm proselytizing the film is that it's not a bad introduction to the Madchester/Baggy scene that sprung up in Manchester at the start of the nineties - a weird and heady blend of rave, indie rock, psychedelia and hip hop.

The movement, as well as bringing the phrase "You're twisting my melon, man" into common parlance, provided a second coming from a relatively obscure band called James. James had previously had two minor hits around '89 with "Sit Down" and the more stereotypically Baggy "Come Home" which had both done well in the indie charts but got more mainstream recognition when they released "Gold Mother" around the same time as musical press attention turned north.

Singles "How Was It For You" and re-released "Come Home" and "Sit Down" did well (the latter was only kept off the top spot by Chesney Hawkes) but the eponymous single from the album "Laid", released in 1993, was the one that 'broke' in the US.

Released as three different versions of the same video (of which I can only find two)

James - Laid (Version 2)

James - Laid (Version 3)

its popularity was spurred in part by the (slightly) risqué nature of the title and the, hmm, evocative lyrics

"This bed is on fire with passionate love, the neighbours complain about the noises above, but she only comes when she's on top"

meaning that, although it 'only' got to number 23 in the UK charts and peaked on the US Billboard charts at #61 its cult status on college radio stations drove it to #3 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts and was later used in the American Pie films.

The album itself is fairly interesting. Recorded as a series of session with Brian Eno it actually produced enough tracks for two albums - "Laid" being the "song album" and "Wah Wah" being the more experimental release.

You note, of course, that I use the term "interesting" in a way that means "if you're a huge music nerd like me"

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Spoiler Warning

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:47:36 -0700

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I endorse this message

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:17:08 -0700

“ They sound like a twin headed beast of Liam Howlett and Soulwax Nite Versions taking Teenage Badgirl Up the arse at Leftfield's house, while Kissy Sellout watches and plays with himself in a Phones T-shirt, WHILST on a mobile phone conference call with Justice and Pendulum. ”

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90s Music Monday

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:57:17 -0700

Well, fuck me rigid - this is the 100th 90s Music Monday. Who knew I had that kind of staying power - if you'd asked me 2 years ago I would have laid good odds that ADD would have got the better of me long before now.

Either way - shouldn't I have my book deal by now?

Anyway, since I've been on a "Remixes of Female Solo Songs" kick (see previously, previously and even previously) I figured I'd go with the Daddy of them all

Tori Amos - Professional Widow (Armand's Star Trunk Funkin' Mix)

which is very, very different from the if anything, even more explicit, harpsicord driven original (how many times in your life do you get to write that particular sentence)

Tori Amos - Professional Widow

the track is, allegedly anyway, about Courtney Love and specifically how she broke up the friendship between Ms Amos and Trent "Nine Inch Nails" Reznor who also weighed in with the track "Starfuckers Inc." on "The Fragile" ('starfuckers' being a lyric from "Professional Widow").

No video was made for the original version of the song but an official clip was made for the Star Trunk Funkin' mix using segments from other Tori Amos videos. It is, according to Wikipedia, the only Tori Amos video from between 91 and 98 not to appear on the "Tori Amos: Complete videos 91 - 98" VHS - a video with a title that really needs little explaining.

I honestly thought I was going to have more to write about this track - although, when I went back and looked at some of my earlier, more ... terse 90mm entries even a couple of paragraphs comes across as a nigh Homerian epic.

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Hot and Sticky

nobody@vox.com(Simon Wistow) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:43:44 -0700

Also, the result of an unexpectedly free Sunday

Chilli Tomato Jam

Based somewhat on this recipe which is, in turn, based on a recipe I posted to a mailing list 4 years ago.

The modifications I made were to cut way down on the sugar - between half and 3/4 (I eyeballed it rather than mesaured so I'm not sure) - and up the vinegar slightly to 250ml. Instead of red wine vinegar I used a combination of balsamic and white wine.

I also couldn't get hold of any chillis except Jalapenos. I put quite a lot in and the result is nicely spicy albeit with that slightly odd jalapeno ascerbic taste in the back of the throat. It's not unpleasant though and, in fact, works quite well with the sweetness.

I also pulled the jam off the heat much earlier than I usually do to make it slightly runnier - I always forget that it's going to set much jammier than it looks in the pot.

Containers furnished by the ~~Glad Family of Products~~ Mehfil Indian Takeaway.

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