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June 30, 2006

Joys of YouTube

Everyone's nuts about YouTube. Me too. Mostly I watch it for old music videos from the real bands, not from all those lip-synching numbskulls. Thanks to this website, I'm now seriously thinking about tossing out all my old videotapes of 80s new wave, 90s shoegaze, and other bands, all of which I used to record from late-night TV broadcasts. Here are eighteen random favorites (with personal commentary, a kind of chronological lowdown of what these have meant to me). Click on the blue link; see the video.

(1) The Cars, "Touch and Go." I'm not exaggering when I say the Cars changed my life. When I was 13, I was starting to listen to stuff like Journey and REO Speedwagon. Then I got the Cars' albums. I think the band still sounds cool and relevant now, and this song holds up particularly well--how many other bands can you name who release a single partially in 5/4 time like this one?

(2) The Pretenders, "Talk of the Town." This, along with Split Enz's "I Got You" and that Tom Petty / Stevie Nicks "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" silliness, were the first videos I remember seeing on MTV. The close-ups of that shimmery silver guitar. The way Chrissie Hynde says "weesh" instead of "wish" (pronouncing it like a lot of my Kansas classmates did). And that sublime moment she sings "You've changed."

(3) Duran Duran, "Planet Earth." Absolute classic masterpiece. The beginning of a huge Duran phase for me. I remember watching this on my Aunt Corene's brand-new MTV cable service, and thinking "I've GOT to do that to my hair." Lord.

(4) Altered Images, "I Could Be Happy." This is one that never fails to make me smile. I love Clare Grogan's flailing arms, especially at the end when the lion is chasing her. And the boys' haircuts and clothes in the video-- embarrassingly enough, this is sort of how I looked in the early 80s.

(5) Spoons, "Nova Heart." Around 1983 or so, my mom remarried, and one of the only things I liked about my new stepdad was he insisted on getting a satellite dish for our home's TV, even though we could hardly afford it. My sister and I discovered the Canadian channel MuchMusic, which at the time was excellent. This is where I first heard a lot of cool UK and Canadian bands. Spoons were one of the best, and their album Arias and Symphonies was terrific.

(6) The Cure, "Other Voices." College started. What a depressing year: My beloved grandmother died; my sister and I had no money, and were briefly living together in a cramped, ugly, freezing-cold trailer house in Lawrence, Kansas. (The trailer court was called Mobile Acres!) I hated school and knew hardly anyone. But there was the Cure, Bauhaus, 4AD bands, and the like, helping me make it through that year.

(7) Bauhaus, "Mask." Speaking of Bauhaus... this is one of the creepiest videos ever. "The shadow is cast." It must have been great fun to make.

(8) The Durutti Column, "The Missing Boy." Not an actual music video, but a clip of a 1981 live performance. I was really psyched to see this on YouTube. This song is from the album LC, which also helped me get through that awful freshman year of college. Proof that Vini Reilly is one of the greatest guitarists ever.

(9) This Mortal Coil, "Kangaroo." I rejoiced when I found this on here. A few years back, I was great pals with Gordon Sharp of cindytalk, who sings so spectacularly here, but we've lost touch. Dear, lovely, brilliant Gordon, where have you gone?

(10) The Jesus and Mary Chain, "Just Like Honey." I'll never forget the first time I heard this. So fantastically powerful I can't say any further words about it.

(11) House of Love, "Christine." A nice companion piece to the last song. What an amazing guitar sound. At KU, when I lived in the dorms, one of my #1 best friends was named Chris Kean, so of course I loved singing this song to him with his name as the substituted lyric.

(12) Cocteau Twins, "Carolyn's Fingers." Like me, that same friend Chris was a huge Cocteau Twins fan. Blue Bell Knoll was set to be released on my birthday that year, and a few weeks before it came out, KU's radio station, KJHK, played the advance single release of this song. I hate that ridiculous cliche' "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven," so I'm not going to say it here. Oh, I guess I just did.

(13) Talk Talk, "I Believe In You." Quite possibly my favorite music video ever. Definitely one of my favorite songs, from one of my favorite albums (Spirit of Eden). Too bad the song is edited for the video version. If you check this out, you should also look at the one for "Life's What You Make It." I think these all, like the Cure's videos, were directed by the amazing Tim Pope--anyone know what he's doing now?

(14) Felt, "Stained-Glass Windows In the Sky." For more on this band, you can read how I gushed over them here.

(15) Ride, "Sennen." Ride's album Nowhere, and the stellar 4-song "Today Forever" ep from which this particular song is lifted, came out not long after I moved to NYC. This was the period when the band were at their most perfect. These were the autumn afternoons when I'd get out of my writing classes at Columbia's School of the Arts, take the subway (the 1 or the 9 train) downtown, get out at some random station, and walk around the city, exploring the explosive newness of everything. And Ride (or Lush, or Slowdive, or Chapterhouse) was quite often the music on my headphones as I walked and walked.

(16) Swervedriver, "Son of Mustang Ford." See #13: I was listening to this band and Raise a lot at the time, too.

(17) My Bloody Valentine, "To Here Knows When." And same with this band and Loveless. Still my all-time favorite album.

(18) Seefeel, "Industrious." Finally, I couldn't believe when I found this clip on the YouTube site. Seefeel!! I worship whomever uploaded it. I doubt there's an actual Seefeel video in existence, but this live clip, even though it's blurry and sounds terribly murky, is a thrill nonetheless. To my knowledge, Seefeel only played NYC live once--and it was with two of my other favorites at the time, Main and the sublime Labradford. In the years that followed, I got to see Main and Labradford, but sadly, that night when Seefeel played, I couldn't snag one of the sold-out tickets. So catching this troubled, glitchy little YouTube video is priceless.