Hey St. Peter
Flash and the Pan, 1979

Welcome to the Videolog.

This is a new experimental feature, and what I plan to do is include seemingly (but not really) random music videos from YouTube or other sources, based on my mood and on whichever obscure pop song I happened to find a video for that day.

I like to think that I’ll be presenting that song you hadn’t realized you wanted to hear until you stumbled on it here. It will be mostly songs that either never quite made it to the top 40, or made abrief appearance and were never seen nor heard from again. You’re likely to see anything from 1990s alternapop and grunge to 1980s indie and technopop to best-forgotten 1970s disco and TV themes. There may be commentary as well. And there may not.

Enjoy.

Twist in My Sobriety
Tanita Tikaram, 1987

One of my all-time favorite moody songs.

5.7.0.5
City Boy, 1978

I have a shiny new quarter for anyone who remembers this.

Detachable Penis
King Missile, 1992

I vaguely remember meeting one of the members of King Missile on New Year’s Eve, 1993. I think it was at the Lone Star. I’m not sure, because I was exceedingly drunk that night, as was my customary practice at the time.

I’d loved the band ever since the first time I heard “Jesus Was Way Cool” several years before, and I thought it was really cool that they finally had something of a hit. At least on Live 105, back when it used to not suck.

November Group
Put Your Back to It, 1984

Boston-based, vaguely lesbian band who also recorded “We Dance”, which I was very pleased to finally find in MP3 format a few weeks ago.

Warning: the audio level is very low.

Violent Femmes
Gone Daddy Gone, 1983

You’ve never lived until you’ve heard this song performed in a small club across the street from a mid-size college in North Carolina, without the xylophone, because it was apparently lost in transit.

A few years later I saw a different band, the Flaming Lips, in Charlotte without their drummer. He, too, had apparently been lost in transit.

Chilliwack
My Girl, 1981

It’s just cool, eh…

Bolland
You’re in the Army Now, 1982

In their home country, they were known as Bolland & Bolland, and they actually had hits. In the US, it was simply Bolland, and three or four people bought their album “The Domino Theory”. I was one of them.

Ultravox
Dancing with Tears in My Eyes, 1984

Most. Depressing. Video. Ever.

Camper Van Beethoven
Take the Skinheads Bowling, 1985

I got to know one of the former Campers Van when I lived in San Francisco and developed a very slight crush on him. At the time, I found it very cute that a jaded old soul like myself actually could still get crushes, particularly ones that I didn’t even act on.

The Way
Fastball, 1997

I dunno. I just always liked this song. And it was getting lots of airplay around the time of the Planet SOMA US Tour 1997, so I associate it with being intersting places I was seeing for te first time.

Sniff and the Tears
Driver’s Seat, 1979.

Robin Gibb
Boys Do Fall in Love, 1984.

Among other things, this song (along with the two additional videos you’ll see in the next couple of days) always reminds me of being in the original Weekends on Peachtree Street in Atlanta one very strange weekend in the summer of 1984.

The Cure
The Lovecats, 1984.

Second of three videos that always remind me of the original Weekends nightclub in Atlanta and a strange weekend spent adjacent to it in 1984.

Cyndi Lauper
She Bop, 1984.

Third of three (1,2) videos that always remind me of the original Weekends nightclub in Atlanta and a strange weekend spent adjacent to it in 1984.