Just to prove to everyone that I don’t hate every Christmas song in existence. Links for handy download, too (where I had ’em), in case you wanna make yourself a hot holiday mix. And if you wanna DL the whole batch in one fell swoop, click here.
As I eluded to last week, when I found the bounty of Steampipe Alley tapes, I was looking for something else. That something else was an episode of MTV’s 120 Minutes from 1991 that featured an episode-long appearance by The Pixies, mere months before they broke up.
When this show aired, I did not actually have cable in my house. But my grandparents, who lived next door, did. So I would monopolize their VCR in the wee hours, taping either Mystery Science Theater 3000 or 120 Minutes. Despite being an MTV product, 120 Minutes was a pretty decent window into the amorphous world of “alternative” music back then, and also the only way that I could hear about new-ish stuff in the pre-internet days, since I lived nowhere near a cool records store.
This particular episode is an odd time capsule piece, because it comes from one of those in between periods of music. The indie music scene that launched The Pixies was largely dead. The Nirvana phenomenon had yet to begin, although it was just about to (the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” aired during this episode, and had just debuted a few weeks previous). So in most cases, alternative = British. By my rough estimate, 75 percent of all the videos that air in this episode come from English bands, most of them being shoegazer types like Ride, Curve, Lush, etc.
But my main reason in presenting these clips to you is not to highlight this very brief era. I’ve digitized them because they’re some of the most uncomfortable video you’ll ever see.
For one thing, The Pixies were already well immersed in the tensions that would doom the band. But rather than exercise that misery on each other, they aim it squarely at the show’s host, Dave Kendall. The poor man has to dig and scrape to get the most mundane answers out of them.
This first clip is benign enough. The band is introduced, and Frank Black talks briefly about the inspiration behind the “Here Come Your Man” video. But the fact that he’s wearing a panama hat and sunglasses for this interview should have thrown up some huge red flags. As should have Joey Santiago’s weird fuzzy hat.
Beginning at 7pm tonight, WFMU is holding a 24 emergency pledge marathon. Normally, they hold only one pledge drive a year, but the station is in some dire financial straits.
Should you pledge out of the goodness of your heart and to keep the only radio station worth listening to in the tri-state area on the air? Of course. But if you need some extra motivation, know that The Best Show on WFMU is giving away a monstrously awesome HEROES DO WHAT HEROES DO FUN PACK! What do you get? WHAT DON’T YOU GET?!
A special Best Show t-shirt designed by Michael Kupperman, genius behind Snake and Bacon, Tales Designed to Thrizzle, and many other comical works of gut-busting hilarity;
A MP3 CD of Best Show rarities to satisfy lunatic completists like yours truly; AND
A special CD of punk/rock rarities compiled by WFMU’s own Terre T, who ALWAYS puts together an awesome compilation.
Tune in tonight starting at 7pm, and I’m sure you’ll hear even more reasons to pledge. Special guests! Hilarity! HELICOPTER RIDES! And much much much much more!
Listen: I got no end of things I gotta spend dough on. I’ve got birthday parties, engagement parties, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Bastille Day…I’M STILL PLEDGING, AND SO SHOULD YOU! CAPS LOCK!
Beginning at 7pm tonight, WFMU is holding a 24 emergency pledge marathon. Normally, they hold only one pledge drive a year, but the station is in some dire financial straits.