Before I left for work last night I set my DVR. After work last night I would have rushed straight home to watch if I didn't trust my DVR. Instead I went shopping after work last night. After work last night my DVR cutoff Sonic Youth on The Late Show with David Letterman.
I was pretty angry. SY is one of my favorite bands of all time and the one minute they played before the DVR cut off was awesome. The song is called Sacred Trickster, so to all you who's DVR cut off Sonic Youth while you were at work or out shopping or even just boozing it up at your local bar:
I'm pulling this week's first 120 Minute Flashback from the week of May 25, 1997. The first choice, That Dog's (the official name of the band was that dog. - all lower case and with the '.') Never Say Never is a super catchy power pop track that reminds me of a small pocket of time there in the mid 90's when I suddenly discovered a love for female fronted pop bands of all styles.
The band made regular appearances, along with notables like Luscious Jackson, Helium, Liz Phair (remember, this is mid 90's Liz Phair), Red 5 and others. This song came along a few years after I first heard the band and, if I recall correctly, they split up not long after releasing it.
If those synthesizers sound familiar, though, it's because a certain someone from That Dog went on to join Matt Sharp's reformed Rental's line-up. She became a friend P, indeed.
Selection two this week is Tricky's Christian Sands. This is an amazing track, if you haven't heard it. I've created literally thousands of videos of this song in my head throughout the years. I think it's because it's such an awesome song - Tricky's throaty garble, the slow beats, the continuous rhythm. After watching the official video for the first time in so many years, though, I'm starting to think it may be due to the...slight boringness of this video. It doesn't quite fit the song.
This song, though, opened up the world of Trip Hop to me and I discovered bands like Portishead, Massive Attack, and DJ Shadow. The reason I even bother posting weekly tributes to a show from 15 years ago is because that was a weekly occurance for me. This show shaped my listening habits more than anything by opening up new genres and sounds to me. This was in the days when most people didn't have the internet at home and, if they were rich and/or lucky enough, it was dial up and there was no music.
This week's 120 Minutes Flashback comes courtesy of Bob Mould. The episode aired week of June 13, 1993 and Bob Mould was already well known in the indie rock scene for quite some time by the summer of 1993.
Mould, of course, got his start way back in the late 70's by forming Husker Du, who became a seminal punk/indie band throughout the 80's. After Husker Du's meltdown, Mould recorded some solo work and then surprised the world by joining another band, Sugar, in the early 90's early again becoming a solo artist. The band did well in the realm of college and alternative radio throughout the mid-90's and this week's episode featured two Sugar videos and an interview with the man himeself.
I would normally shy away from posting two videos of the same band, even if they did air on the same episode of 120 Minutes, but the two songs are pretty different in style, which makes for a pretty great introduction to the band and Mould's later song writing. I do not mean, though, to pass this off as a total representation of the man's career as Husker Du was quite different from Sugar, but similar enough to appeal to the same fans.
Mould still writes and records as a solo artist and, when in a live setting, is good about performing songs from throughout his 30 year career.
This week's flashback comes from the June 19, 1994 episode hosted by Frank Black. First up, I chose "Alex Chilton" by The Replacements for it's catchy guitar sound and the stereo-typically black and white, early 90's indie rock style video.
My next choice, "The First Part" by Superchunk, is one of my favorite tracks by the band. It comes from their '94 album, "Foolish", one of my absolute favorite indie rock albums of all time. By track four of the album ("The First Part" is track two) they've already made it through three of my favorite indie rock songs, "Like A Fool", "Driveway To Driveway" and this track.
Week two of our new feature, 120 Minutes Flashback. For the first post, I thought I'd celebrate by posting a double shot. Well, I've decided I'm going to make each week a double shot as I'm having a really hard time choosing which videos to post. The show was on over 15 years so there's plenty to choose from.
I thought this week I would post both of the world premiere videoes from the week of August 2, 1992. The first is Almost Gold, a chilled out dreamy number by fuzz-stars Jesus And Mary Chain. To balance that out, we'll follow the fuzz with heavy riffs and heavy politics: Ministry's New World Order from the Psalm 69 album. Coincidentally, this was the song that made me a Ministry fan all those years ago.
Hey now! It's a new weekly feature called 120 Minutes Flashback. Digging through the old 120 Minutes playlists I decided it'd be rad to post some of the old classics they played. For those who don't know, 120 Minutes was a two hour (hence the name) weekly show broadcast at 12am Sunday nights on MTV starting in 1986. It was a bastion of alternative and indie rock in the sea of crap MTV shoveled throughout the rest of the week.
While I still keep up with what's going on in the indie rock scene I am not ashamed to say that I am one of those kids that live in the past. Truthfully, my daily musical selections are closer reflected by 1990's 120 Minutes playlists than by anything Pitchfork is talking about these days. And to celebrate the launch of this new feature I'm serving up a double shot.
I actually wanted to start this new feature with the Harnessed In Slums video by Archers Of Loaf. It's a fantastic song off of one of my favorite records of all time, Vee Vee. Believe it or not, though, an amazingly influential and unbelievably awesome band like Archers of Loaf only appeared on 120 Mins once and it was the video down below.
I for one am quite surprised by this. Harnessed In Slums was a much bigger indie radio hit than Web In Front, but I guess MTV is MTV. Oh well. Presenting:
Archers of Loaf - Web In Front (premiered July 10, 1994)
And for the double shot: The Jesus Lizard. Now, JL are not big fans of MTV. Perpetually slurring lead singer David Yow has talked extensively throughout interviews about his thoughts on the network and the bands' troubles with it. All in all Jesus Lizard appeared on 120 Minutes twice and both times the videos had to be extensively re-shot and/or re-cut to meet the networks acceptance standards. Here's their second appearance.
Jesus Lizard - Destroy Before Reading (October 2, 1994)
DVR Life is a TV blog. We watch lot's of TV. Mostly on DVR but also streamed, downloaded or on DVD, basically anyway you can possibly watch it with the least amount of commercials. We try to stay away from the "Next Week On..." parts of shows and avoid spoilers at all cost. You'll never see spoilers on this blog. We don't pay much attention to reality television. It's rare that you'll read about it here.
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