speaker-0: And welcome back to 120 months. I'm here with Scott Mobley, Keith Porterfield, and we are working our way through MTV's 120 minutes. The first decade, we are each picking a song, talking about the video, talking about the song, talking about the band, just reveling in the beauty that is mid 1988 music in this episode. Then at the end, we do a mystery song that none of us have heard or seen before. And man, oh man, are we hitting these out of the park lately with the mystery songs. Cannot wait to talk about this one. Might be one that you're familiar with. I wasn't. I'm a better person for it so I can't can't wait to dig into it but we have some other business first. First of all just kind of set the table for May of 1988. The Billboard hits at the time number one was George Michael one more try. Number two Johnny H Jazz. You remember those guys? Number three anything for you Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. One of the one of the coolest pop band names of all time, honestly. Miami Sound Machine is a really underrated name for a band. Number four, this one cracks me up because I remember this, I remember this person. It's Naughty Girls Need Love 2 by Samantha Fock. Keith, you remember? I'm not only...

speaker-1: When I was a kid at around that age, had a poster, a big poster of her up on my wall.

speaker-0: If you don't remember Samantha Fox, she was, in the days before you could just go online and look at any girl, anytime, any, anywhere. She was the poster girl. And like, you could go to Spencer's gifts, probably, if I'm guessing in the mall or place like that. And she was one of a handful of models. Cause like there wasn't that many. And like she was legitimately famous for basically just being like

speaker-1: I'm Bruce Samantha Fox.

speaker-0: literally a poster girl and she recorded an album, think an entire album and this song and maybe one other song actually. I mean, we're talking number four on the billboard.

speaker-2: was a second single I was trying to remember what it was but what I do remember about that second single is it's just naughty girls need love too with different lyrics like it's almost

speaker-0: I do kind of remember that. Yeah. I should have looked that up. But anyway, number four, which is a crazy and B again, really paints the picture of what is happening on, on like pop radio at this time compared to what we're talking about here. Number five and another shout out to Keith for saying, you know, don't underrate these guys foreigner. I don't want to live without you. So perfectly good song.

speaker-1: too.

speaker-0: Number six, always on my mind by Pet Shop Boys. I'm really amazed by the chart success that Pet Shop Boys had during this era. Cause we talked about another Pet Shop Boys song being the Dusty Springfield one earlier in the year. So like they were doing really well on the U S charts.

speaker-2: They were doing better on the US charts than their contemporaries. They were doing better than Depeche Mode and better than Erasure at this time. Down the road, those two bands would march ahead of them, think, especially Depeche Mode. But yeah, at this time, the Depeche Hop boys were the British electro pop band, at least in the US.

speaker-0: They were killing it. Yeah, really interesting. Number seven, Darryl Hall and John Hartz, John Oates, Everything Your Heart Desires. I don't really remember that one, but I remember those guys, obviously. Rick Astley, Together Forever, White Lion, Wait, which was actually a song that I liked a lot at the time.

speaker-2: That is very, very fine hair metal right there.

speaker-0: Very good hair metal and probably pretty heavy rotation to MTV at that time if I remember. And then 10 is a song that I actually love and is, I just played this for my wife a couple weeks ago because I was like, I don't think people remember this song and it's really a shame because it's amazing. Piano in the Dark by Brenda Russell featuring Joe Esposito. Man. Love love love this song. It is so good and no one remembers a song Yeah, look it up after the after the podcast piano in the dark Brenda Russell It is as good as top 40 radio got I think during that I mean I really do feel pretty strongly about it I don't really know what happened to her and I don't even remember the featuring Joe Esposito part But I remember recording that off of Casey case I'm like I liked it that much and I was probably only 15 at the time So yeah, anyway piano in the dark. Check it out So that's the landscape. We are talking about this show on MTV where not only were you not hearing pop top 40 stuff, not only were you not necessarily hearing all the stuff that was on MTV rotation, it was all the stuff that you maybe heard on college radio if you were lucky enough to have a college radio station or probably you would never heard and you tuned in this one time a week to hear this stuff. So we've got three excellent choices from May of 1988 and we are kicking things off with Scott.

speaker-2: So this week I chose the song E equals MC squared by Big Audio Dynamite. And again, this is a band that I was mildly familiar with, but I didn't know a ton about. so I saw this as an opportunity to kind of dig a little deeper. if you didn't know, Audio Dynamite is a project started by Clash lead guitarist and co-singer, Jones. Jones was fired from the Clash in 1983, and then he sort of floated around for a little while. He was briefly in general public. And then he formed a band called Top Risk Action Company that played a lot of shows and stuff and maybe recorded a few demos, but never really released anything officially. Then he formed Big Audio Dynamite, which recorded four albums from 1984 to 1990 and then reformed as Big Audio Dynamite II in 1991 with all new members, and then finally as Big Audio in 1994 with another all-new band, and they called it quits in 2010. Mick Jones is still working musician. He mostly gets with other bands now, and there's a long list of them, but the most notable one to me was Gorillaz, which he's been on and off a member of for a little while. Big Audio Dynamite is really known for being this sort of cool hybrid of a bunch of musical styles. There's hits of dance music, funk, reggae, touch of hip hop. And then of course there's Jones's background as a punk. But other than his vocals, this really doesn't sound like a Clash knockoff. One of the great things about the Clash was that there were obviously two very different people leading the charge in that band. You had Joe Strummer, who wanted to be the harder edged punk band, and then Jones wanting to do this. And so... When they were willing to work together, which was for a fairly short time, they produced some really great and really influential music. The version of The Clash with Al Jones sucked and they disbanded after one album. And Big Audio Dynamite, while certainly not as enduring or influential as The Clash, certainly managed to be a thing for a good chunk of time. I just always thought it was interesting that when a big band breaks up and we get to hear what the individual members were really wanting to do outside the constraints of that band, and that's something that might come up later in this very episode. So this song... ⁓ Equals MC Squared is from their first album. That album is called This Is Big Audio Dynamite. It was released in November of 1985. So at this time, this is not a new single. It's a few years old at the time. Best I can tell from the playlists on 120 Minutes around this time, they were also playing a Joe Strummer solo song and ⁓ Big Audio Dynamite did have ⁓ a release coming up. Their third album called Tighten Up Volume 88 was on the way. So this was either, you know, here's what the guys in the Clash are up to or... Big Audio Dynamite has new album coming out, some combination of that. But what it's worth, the song is almost three years old at this time. So I had heard this song before. It wasn't one that I was super familiar with. According to a little research, its lyrics were inspired by the films of Nicholas Rogue. Of all the films they mentioned, as inspiration, there's about seven of them. I had only seen two of those movies and I didn't catch the references. That's apparently what inspired the lyrics to this, but I didn't hear what they were or what they were going for. It seems that once again, we have found a song that has a really solid groove, but is in desperate need of a chorus that it never gets to. That's really my only negative though. I've always liked Mick Jones' voice. He has that kind of bratty British punk thing that I'm always sort of attracted to. And ⁓ I love the little keyboard part that's kind of drifting throughout this entire song. It kind of floats through the whole thing. and comes and goes. It's really cool. I just wish it kicked it up an octave to where the chorus should be. But that's a mild complaint. I really liked this song. This was a big hit for Big Audio Dynamite. It hit number 11 in the UK and number 37 on the US Dance Club chart. This video, not really anything to talk about. It's a performance video with a lot of random footage edited into it. If there's more to say about it than that, you guys are welcome to pick up the ball there. just... I just didn't think this video was much of anything. I did want to mention that my real experience with this band was in 1991 when they became Big Audio Dynamite II and released the album The Globe. That was the first album as B.A.D. II and it had the song Rush on it, which was a pretty big hit. It was number one on U.S. modern rock charts and ⁓ charted very well around the world. So I bought that album not knowing anything about the history or the pedigree of this band. I just really liked that song. I still think it's a great album. This week I did a lot of digging into some of the Big Audio Dynamite albums that came before that. Nothing really grabbed me as much as that album did. So maybe I'm more of a fan of Big Audio Dynamite 2 than I am of this band that we're listening to this week, but I did really like this. So that's E equals MC squared by Big Audio Dynamite.

speaker-1: Yeah, I know the song was familiar with it it's funny that you know, we talked about Big Audio Dynamite, Big Dynamite 2, Big Audio, I just always think of these guys as Big Audio Dynamite, whatever, whatever incarnation Mick Jones is calling it at this point, they're just Big Audio Dynamite in my head anyway. But I remember playing the song on retro radio, I liked it. I'm not a huge You know, fan of these guys, I'm not real familiar with a lot of it. I know some of the songs. Rush, like you mentioned, is a really good one. The Globe off that same album is good. Bottom line off the same album with E equals MC square is really good. The funny thing about this song to me is that for these guys, for what I know of these guys, which again, it's not a whole lot, this song's really straightforward. Like most of their songs are very, or again, the ones I have heard are very much studio concoctions. You know, they're like pieced together in the studio. ⁓ and I've always kind of wondered about these guys, like when they go live, you know, do they rearrange the songs completely just so they can play them as a band? they, do they try to copy what they do in the studio on stage? I don't know. I've never really seen them, but, for these guys, at least what I know of them, this is actually a really straightforward rock song. This sounds like a song that they could just have gotten into the, into the studio and just, you know, try to get best takes on. And it's good. Like I said, I, I really, really like it. You're right. It doesn't really have a chorus, but I, It's funny because I never even really thought about that when I was thinking about this song, when I was listening to it, because I just, I've liked the rest of it so much that I just guess I kind of glossed over that. Yeah. You know, aside from it being to my mind, just different from everything else that I've ever heard from these guys. I think it's a great song. ⁓ the video, like you said, not a whole lot to get into here. I did like the, ⁓ the workman's coveralls on the band. Like it looks like they're kind of like down in some tunnels under the city, maybe in the subway or whatever, all wearing their workman's uniforms. So. I like to think, you know, they sent a crew down there to do a repair job and instead they spent their day rocking out. That's my takeaway from the video. yeah, man, I've got nothing negative to say about this one. I really love this song.

speaker-2: Really good point you make about the sort of like studio trickery that comes with this band later on. I didn't really think about that, especially like with the big Audio Dynamite 2 incarnation, they added a full-time DJ at that point. And you if listen to this on Rush, it's got a ton of, know, cutting and scratching in it and whatnot, know, which was a big part of this. I didn't really think about that, but you're right.

speaker-0: Yeah, that was when I came in to Big Audio Dynamite. was like you kind of in probably in 91, oddly enough. So that was right as I was starting to discover all this kind of music. So wasn't super familiar with, too many bands that weren't, know, like Depeche Mode or REM or, know, those guys like bands that were kind of lesser known were still lesser known to me. And I was working at Champs Sports in the mall. Actually we, and we would get these cassettes, you know, that you put on the in-store system and they would loop. And was like three that were basically just like pop top 40 stuff, there was one that was like a little better and it had some. a little bit of like alternative, what was kind of becoming alternative rock at the time, but Rush was on there. And I had no idea who it was because they didn't, you know, it's not like they announced who the bands were or whatever. It was just, I would just hear it once every, you know, 70 minutes or however long the tape was. And I liked it a lot. So when I got to KTXT and started DJing in college radio, I discovered, ⁓ Rush by, ⁓ it's Big Audio Dynamite, same with the band. Okay. And then I started working my way backwards. So I really, really liked a lot of what they were doing, but I came into them kind of thinking of them as this this half band, half DJ dance kind of. Outfit as opposed to not realizing who Mick Jones was or even making that connection until much later So that was kind of interesting, but I yeah equals MC squared is not my favorite big audio dynamite song But I definitely like it a lot Probably the bottom line is my favorite but rush is right there as well And then the globe and they've got a couple a handful of other like album tracks and stuff that are really good So you can't go wrong with with checking them out That's the kind of band that maybe some people have let slip by and not you know known a lot about or maybe you just heard like the one song so I would recommend it. The video itself, like you guys said, it's pretty unremarkable. I was trying to figure out, the clips, I swear I saw Donald Sutherland in a couple of those clips, and I was wondering if those were from a movie or what.

speaker-2: So yeah, so Donald Sutherland isn't here. Those are clips from one of the movies. I mentioned the Nicholas Roach movies that the Apparently there's a bunch of them that inspired the lyrics for this, but that one is called Don't Look Now. ⁓ It's kind of a famously notorious film because there is a sex scene in it that many, people believe is not simulated. That's kind of its claim to fame. ⁓ That was one of the two movies that were mentioned that I had seen. The other one was, Nicholas Roeg also directed The Man Who Fell to Earth. The Man Who Fell to Earth is this ⁓ super... drugged out David Bowie movie about an alien that comes to earth or whatever and he directed that as well so that's apparently one another one of the inspirations for the lyrics in this song but I didn't you know I guess if I sat down and really read them all and dug into it you could find that but I I didn't take the time to do

speaker-0: that. I mean, like you guys said, it's a fairly unremarkable video even with that. Like if you're a real film buff, you might pick up on it. The only thing I picked up on was Donald Sutherland just because he has such a distinctive face. And I was like, oh wait, maybe this is from a film or whatever. And I have to say this thread is going to run through, I think all three of our choices, not the mystery song choice, but all three of these videos are pretty unremarkable that we're talking about today. I think it's safe to say. None of them really stood out. The songs are, you the bands have great stories to tell, but I will say that, to be fair to Big Audio Dynamite, they are the only ones who had some fairly unremarkable videos. My choice this week, ⁓ let's active. ⁓ Every word means no. ⁓ same boat. You know, the video, although we will talk about one funny aspect of the video, but first let's active brings me, ⁓ like a moth to a flame. I returned to the North Carolina drive-in studio scene, ⁓ and the, kind of the Athens, Georgia, jangle pop scene. I think this is the, I don't know, we've done 17 or 18 episodes. This is probably the 12th time that I've talked about North Carolina, Athens, Georgia kind of band. Not quite, but it feels that way. But man, like, Hey, this was the time when that was. you know, those bands were kind of peaking at this time. So it makes sense that 120 minutes was kind of returning to highlight those bands. And so I apologize if people are getting tired of me talking about this scene, but it is what it is. So, So Let's Active was formed in 1981. It ⁓ is led by Mitch Easter, who we have talked about multiple times already because of that drive-in studios and Athens, Georgia connection. Mitch is probably most famous for producing the Chronic Town EP, Murmur and Reckoning for REM along with Don Dixon, but also ⁓ had his own band at the time and was creating a complimentary but slightly different sound from what REM was doing. know, Let's Active is maybe a little bit, ⁓ leans a little bit maybe into the dancier side of jangle pop. ⁓ Mitch has a little bit more of... I don't want to quite say a Robert Smith vibe to him, but he's got like a little bit more of ⁓ that vibe than say a Michael Stipe does that comes out a little tiny bit in his lyrics and a little tiny bit in his vocal performance. But this certainly is of a piece with a lot of what was happening in Athens and of the Drive-In studios. it is jangle pop by any definition and good. Good jangle pop, ⁓ I think. Mitch formed the band originally with Faye Hunter and Sarah Ram-Waite-Weber, think is how you pronounce her last name. She's the drummer. She was only 17 when she joined this band. It's really interesting. Mitch and Faye were in their late twenties and met Sarah and she became the drummer. So was just the three of them initially. Unfortunately, Sarah and Faye have both passed away since then. So Mitch is kind of the last one standing of the founding members. But the name Let's Active came from a Japanese t-shirt that just had, it was... This is something that people still kind of laugh about, but ⁓ oftentimes in both Japan and China and a lot of Asian countries, like the English translations get kind of garbled a little bit because the languages are so different. Different phrases kind of rise up and become well-known phrases that are ⁓ kind of non-sequiturs in English and less active is definitely that. I think it was, think it was Faye that went on, later on she was just like. I'm at the point where I'm just kind of embarrassed when people ask me the name of the band because it just doesn't, you know, it just doesn't make any sense. It's a really, probably not. I imagine it's one of those where like, if they had it all to do over again, they probably would choose a different name, but it is what it is. So like I said, Mitch did produce the REM albums around this time. And then right after REM was signed to IRS, They recorded Let's Active that is recorded a six song EP called A Foot and that got them signed to IRS records as well. So they were label mates with REM and IRS paid for them to cut their first video for an actual, I didn't realize this was a thing. There was a show on MTV that was produced by IRS records. It was called The Cutting Edge and it was all IRS artists. think IRS paid for it and probably kind of like, I mean, I was gonna say, Probably it was more of a promotional thing than like an actual TV show. But I mean, that was really what MTV was at its heart, right? That's all music videos are is just promotional videos. And so it really was just IRS kind of carving out, I think a 30 minute or 60 minute block and being able to have their artists, you know, showcased because a lot of these bands were not getting the mainstream airplay on MTV, which is why we're talking about them on 120 minutes as well. So this video was produced for that. It's a very, very simple concept of just the three, three of them, Mitch, Faye and Sarah on a white set. They're just playing the song and then there's puppies. ⁓ there are adorable puppies. Why are there puppies? Well, we're not exactly sure, but the concept was originally to have full grown dogs just kind of running wild through the studio. And they were going to be like, the dogs were going to be kind of like messing them up and, and causing. Trouble and it was going to be kind of that was going to be the vibe of the video, but they couldn't get dogs. But for some reason they were able to get what two or three, think, ⁓ adorable puppies. So, ⁓ a solid 30, 40 % of the video is, is either Mitch or Faye. I don't know. I'm sure if the drummer really gets on it too much, singing the song literally to these puppies, holding the puppies, playing with the puppies. ⁓ it's as delightful as it sounds. It really, it makes no sense. And it's, ⁓ You know, I don't know if it's the greatest concept for a video ever, but it warmed my heart. And Mitch said later on in his career, he was like, that video changed the worldview of our band for eternity. I think people saw Let's Active as this like warm, fuzzy, cozy band largely because of this warm, fuzzy, cozy video. And I think that's great. Why not? Because Mitch is a warm, fuzzy, Mitch is awesome. I did have the pleasure of meeting Mitch. We interviewed him for 35,000 watts. The story of college radio, a documentary that's now available on to be by the way. So go watch it. Mitch talks a lot about let's active and, and, ⁓ how college radio helped let's active find their audience and Phil's Phil shows, you know, they would show up at a town that they were like, man, we're probably going to get like 10 people and the venue would be packed. And it was because they got like a couple of plays on the college radio station. And that was before even, you know, they were getting this kind of 120 minutes airplay. So. If you haven't seen the film, watch it because Mitch is just a delight and he really is a good guy. So they went on to record three full length albums. They opened for REM on several different tours. So they certainly had a good run. It's weird that maybe they're not as well known as they are because they really did get a lot of exposure thanks to their association with IRS and thanks to their association with REM. But then they ended up disbanding in 1990 and really Mitch went very hard into just focusing on his production career and producing albums. He's produced records for dozens and dozens of bands and we've talked about that I think already in the past, but that was really it. They got back together in 2014, ⁓ Mitch and Sarah, and then a couple other people who had played with Let's Active later on in their run, did like a benefit concert and that was really it. So Let's Active is another one of those bands that we've talked about a lot that had kind of a good run. throughout a couple albums, got one or two videos on 120 minutes and then just kind of petered out, you know, for whatever reason. Let's Active has that extra interesting bit about Mitch Easter being involved with it, given that Mitch, you know, had such a history as a record producer. But an interesting band that I don't think gets enough credit, I think a lot of people would probably like if they went, you if you like R.E.M. or you like that vibe, Let's Active is great. So I'm curious to know, I don't know what you guys know about the band or if you knew about them before, so I'm curious to hear.

speaker-2: what you ⁓ let's active. I think I'm going to hear like. early 80s bad electro pop. Like that, that just sounds like that. But so anyway, I never liked the name of this band. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they don't really like it either. All that said, I have to say that I loved this song. Loved it, loved it, loved it. This is just a great little early jangle pop song. Super hooky, super catchy, great beat, great sound. I loved everything about it. And the video, well, like you said, it's nothing too spectacular. It does feature cute puppies. So I'm certainly down with that. I also got the full approval of my nine-year-old daughter because of the puppies. I really liked everything about this. This was a really pleasant surprise. So I didn't get a chance to dig into more Let's Active, but I definitely will. was very impressed with

speaker-1: Yeah, I had never heard of them either or I'd never heard them I'd heard of but never heard anything by them And so yeah, I liked it too Great song first thing I thought of first band that popped into my mind is kind of a comp was like the romantics from the early 80s like the minute I heard that guitar part that kind of Popped right into my head. The other thing I thought was kind of interesting about this is that this song has got really clean production on it it's really crisp sounding and Like some of the stuff he did for REM, the production stuff, like Murmur in particular is what I'm thinking of, has got a kind of a muddy, you know, all the instruments kind of mushed together kind of sound to it. And so I was a little surprised by just how clean the production on this was because it didn't really sound like the production on those early REM stuff or, know, especially on Murmur, I should say. But yeah, man, I love the song. I love the video. I love the puppies. I think everybody did. The one thing I did a couple of things, my favorite shot in the entire thing is at one point they've one of the puppies sitting up on one of the drums. And you can see the drummer a little bit in the background. And I think the bass player like leans in and is kind of singing to the puppy and he gives a huge yawn. Like she's singing to him and he's giving a real big yawn there. then a little bit after that there, you can see the whole band playing and two of the puppies are back in the background just laying down like catching some Z's or whatever. So, so yes, the puppies were absolutely the MVP's of this video. I hope they at least got paid scale or something for their time because they deserved it. Yeah, that's what made the video, but man, yeah, I really like the song. ⁓ And so, yeah, definitely, probably need to go back and check some more of these guys out.

speaker-0: Yeah, you won't be disappointed. I mean, this is what they do. This is what Mitch does. You know, he's a great guitar player. He has a great ear for pop music and for catchy hooks and for production. so, you know, if you like this, this is all of that. And then they were able to continue to put out this type of music for a while. You know, they aren't a super, super long lived band, but what they did put out is consistent. They have another, yeah, a couple of other singles and then, like I said, three full albums after the that are very solid. So if you haven't heard them, go check them out. If you like puppies, for God's, yeah, man, how often do get to see puppies in a music video? Like it was amazing. Yeah, they make the video completely. First time I saw it, it's funny, because you don't, they don't come in until probably what, like 60 seconds into the video. So you're like, okay, well, I mean, performance video, great. And you know, it is what it is. And then, ⁓ yeah, just. Great idea. love ⁓ it when a plan falls apart and the replacement plan is even better than the original plan. I can't imagine it would have turned out any better if they'd actually gotten the dogs they wanted. So excellent, excellent, excellent all the way around. Okay. We are moving on and ⁓ we have another somewhat unremarkable video, but a really fantastic song to talk about. Keith's going to take us there.

speaker-1: Yeah, so today I'm going to talk about the song Ball of Confusion by the band Love and Rockets. you And kind of like Big Audio Dynamite, exactly like Big Audio Dynamite, Love and Rockets is a splinter group from an older band that's probably, you know, considered to be more influential. And so that's actually where I'm going to start. Love and Rockets is the three members of the group Bauhaus that were not Peter Murphy. Bauhaus was a band in the early 70s or late 70s, early 80s that basically created the genre of Gothic rock. I don't really know that that's something that existed. before those guys came around. ⁓ their first song is called Bella Lugosi's dead. ⁓ and then kind of it goes from there. You know, that's, that is a typical bell house song title right there. ⁓ these guys were, were all about the theatrics, ⁓ of on their stage shows, you know, Peter Murphy was famous for coming out and kind of the black crushed velvet tuxedo, you know, kind of the, with his as pale as possible and with his black hair, I'll slick back a real vampire look to him. And I, you know, I was trying to remember this. I saw their reunion tour, ⁓ in the aughts, ⁓ and Scott, you were there too. I'm almost positive they did the bit where they lowered Peter Murphy down, ⁓ upside down to seeing Bella Lugosi's dead, didn't they?

speaker-2: I don't remember, honestly.

speaker-1: maybe they didn't do it in the show we saw, but that's something they did in the past in some of their shows. They would suspend him from the rigging of the stage upside down and lower him down upside down to sing into the microphone hanging upside down. So these guys were absolutely committed to the bit of being a goth band and really created the genre. They put out four albums before they split up the last Bauhaus album. didn't have a lot of Peter Murphy on it. He was ill at the time. And so he was not involved in that just a whole lot. And that created some tensions in the band after the album came out. The last Bauhaus album, they broke up. ⁓ Two of the guys that went on to form Love and Rockets, and those three are ⁓ Daniel Ash, ⁓ Bow and Voice and guitar, ⁓ David Jay with bass and also some vocals and Kevin Haskins on drums. ⁓ After Bauhaus first broke up, Ash and Haskins formed a band called Tones on Tail and did a little bit of work there. And then they made kind of an abort attempt to get Bauhaus back together. And the four of them were supposed to meet up and play, just do some jamming to see how it went. And the guys from Love and Rockets all showed up and Peter Murphy no showed them. And so they just decided to jam together, just the three of them. And at that point decided, you know what, let's, let's do this without him. Let's make our own band. and got back together without Peter Murphy and then that's what became Love and Rockets. The band name Love and Rockets was taken from a comic book series. It's not something I've ever read so I don't know anything about it but that's where that came from. They formed in 1985, like I said it was the former members of Bauhaus. They had seven studio albums. The first one came out in 85, the last one in 98. So they were around for a while. This song actually was not originally on any of the studio albums. It was released as a single. Later on it got added to like different, you know newer editions of their first album But the first the first edition of their first album didn't have this on it This was just a single this song is a cover which I didn't I knew at a certain point I can't remember when I found out I didn't know it initially But I had never heard any other version of it I'd still until doing my prep work for this had never heard anything. So it was originally done by the Temptations which is You wouldn't think a band like Bauhaus or Love and Rockets, a splinter band from Bauhaus, would be covering The Temptations, but here we are. So I went back and listened to The Temptations version of this song and it is fantastic. It's really, really good. lot more horns or a lot of horns that aren't any horns in the Love and Rockets version. A lot more of the kind of Temptations style, you know, vocal harmonies that work really well. The one thing I was kind of surprised about when I listened to this song, the Temptations version of it is that the bass part in the Love and Rockets cover of this song is lifted directly from the Temptations version of it. And the reason that surprises me is because this is a very quintessential David Jay bass part. mean, almost all of David Jay's bass parts are really melodic and fluid and extremely repetitive. And that's what the bass part in this song is like. And so this, when I first heard it, I just figured that, you know, David Jay put his own bass part down on it because it just sounds exactly like something he would play. But no, this is, this is actually the bass part from the original song. It's sped up a little bit. ⁓ but yeah, that, that bass part was meant for David Jay. don't, can't believe somebody else played that before he did. This song has been covered some other times, famously covered by Tina Turner. That was a side from, ⁓ Love and Rock. It's probably the biggest one. The song was written by a couple of guys in one named Norman Whitfield, one named Barrett Strong. Ball of confusion. It's talking about the earth, the planet. It is a ball of confusion and the lyrics are all kind of, you know, bagging on politicians and consumerism and, just kind of the evils in the world. And it's just. You know, we ran into this once before when we did the, the spirit of destiny song stranger in our town. It's kind of depressing when you go back and listen to these songs that are 14, 15, even 60 years old that have social commentary about the state of the world. And you listen to them today. And they are just as relevant today as they were at the time they came out. You know, this song could have been recorded yesterday and it would be relevant not to get too deeply philosophical here or anything. It's just kind of here we are 50 years later after this song was originally recorded by the temptations, you know, 40 years after love and rockets did it. And, and yeah, all of the things that are complaining about all of the ills of society that they're talking about are still here, still with us. So way to go. We've made great progress in the last 50 years since Baller Confusion. The video itself, ⁓ I should just say before we get off the song, I love this song. This is awesome song. You know, I like a lot of Love & Rocket's stuff. I only have one of their albums. I have Express. It's a pretty good one. These guys are kind of hit or miss for me, but ⁓ aside from the fact that this is a cover song, this is one of the best things they've ever done. So if you're at all interested in Love & Rocket's, absolutely check this one out. The video, as we mentioned before, is not terribly exciting. It's a performance video. It's in black and white with some colors splashed in there, here and there, mostly red showing up at different... times the only thing I can really say that I really liked about this video is the fact that sometimes the Background is completely white and sometimes it's completely black and it'll switch back before them and it gives it kind of a really Almost like a stroboscopic effect occasionally when it's going back and forth and then just kind of is kind of neat because you get all of the band like suddenly you can hardly see them they're all in the dark and that's suddenly it gets very bright and they're the right there out at the front and so that's the only really kind of cool thing about the the video is how the background kept changing like that. But otherwise, yeah, not a whole lot to write home about on this video. And really, that's about it. I mean, to me, it is a cover song, but it still is like very, a very quintessential Love and Rockets song. Like if you listen to this song and you really dig it, you're going to like Love and Rockets. That's, you know, this is just, this is what they do. This is what they sound like. And it's a great example of it. So yeah, interested to see what you guys thought.

speaker-0: Yeah, I love the song. I always have since the first time I heard it. I think I probably started probably heard this for the first time on retro radio before I even started doing the show. If I'm guessing, ⁓ or maybe in maybe at the kitchen club, like on a retro night, not knowing that it that it is ⁓ a cover song, but really digging it. I, I agree about the baseline in particular, because like, if you heard the song and then you listen to like so alive back to back, the baselines are just so similar in their vibe, their sound, the like you said, they're very repetitive, but they've got just a groove and to know that like, yeah, he didn't write one of them that was it was original was really interesting. is very fun to go back and watch the Temptations. I watched a live, a video of them performing it live on like a TV show in probably the early 70s. It looked like early 60s. I love how, I guess what I was surprised by was how political the Temptations were. Cause I don't think I really associate that with the Temptations. And then they're the way they were delivering like, and looking at the camera and just like, I mean, they were kind of being almost confrontational in their presentation of the song which I really liked and like you said it could not possibly be any more relevant to today's situation. I don't think you would have to change a single word of it and it's still really really really unfortunately relevant. I also watched a version that I did not know existed because I it's funny I was just talking about this movie the other day I've never seen this movie front to back. This song is performed in Sister Act by the Nuns. I don't know if you guys got to see that performance of it but it's another very interesting take on the song.

speaker-2: I've seen that movie a few times and I did not make that association.

speaker-0: Yeah, I'm assuming maybe it's Sister Act 2. I don't know the difference between the two for what it's worth. This song does, yeah, get performed in one of those films. I think it's the original, but again, I just saw the clip pop up on YouTube. was like, well, I gotta watch this and see. The one thing I took from the video, and Keith, you might be able to answer this question for me. Daniel Ash has a very unusual guitar technique where he's... overhanding his guitar and kind of like doing a bar chord like on the overhand is that something he always does or is that just unique to this particular song do know

speaker-1: I really don't know actually because you know I don't guess I've seen a lot of Love and Rockets videos or seen them live or anything so I don't know if that's something he does all the time. It is very much... Like a lot of his guitar parts are like the part in this where it's, like a single note just hit over and over, of, know, deal just kind of created a droney noise that he'll like just change a little bit. So it wouldn't surprise me if he played that way all the time, but I'm not really sure. I will say though, that Daniel Ash was one of the, recipient of one of the most backhanded compliments I've ever heard in my life, uh, from Peter Murphy, of course, uh, because those guys were famously kind of prickly with each other. I was watching and it was 120 minutes, actually, this, uh, an episode we'll probably get to at some point as we go down in the future here. He was being interviewed by Dave Kendall. It was about about the time his solo album, Holy Smoke came out and they were talking a little bit about old Bauhaus and what the other guys were doing these days. And I can't get, I don't know if I got the exact quote right, but it was something along these lines. Peter Murphy says, Danny can still only play those same three chords, but he plays them really well. So yeah, that was a Peter Murphy's take on Daniel Asher's guitar playing.

speaker-0: I mean he's not wrong.

speaker-1: No, no. But he does play them really well.

speaker-2: We're talking about the time we saw Bauhaus live. I wish I could remember if he did that vampire thing. What I do remember though, is Peter Murphy walking out on stage at the very beginning and going, obviously talking to this nine inch nails crowd that probably didn't know who they were. And he goes, we are Bauhaus. We are British. We are older than you and we are incredibly good looking. And then they started playing.

speaker-1: Sounds very much like a Peter Murphy quote.

speaker-2: Yeah, it was just very Peter Murphy. So I also did not always know this was a cover. I remember going back and hearing the original, which like you guys said is fantastic. It's one of those great sort of 70s neo psychedelic R &B songs that became a thing around that time. think Sly and Family Stone or Funkadelic and The Temptations obviously, I mean, you this isn't my girl. They they've been around for a while at this point. And I think they were trying to sort of latch on to what was happening in in music and a lot of Motown artists did that but The Temptations were one of the one of the groups out of the Motown scene that really lasted a long time and that wasn't common then but that's that song is Fantastic. And you're right, the bass line is almost exactly the same. I didn't realize that Anthony Michael Hall played bass for this band when I saw the video, but I keyed, keyed. This is a great 80s take on this song. It's obviously the same song, but it's just different enough. It has sort of that 80s like pounding rhythm and it's a little electronic, but not completely, you know, it gets a little funky with those bass fills. I really, really liked it. I also, I thought the video was good too. It had a look that pretty... was pretty commonly used at this time. For what it's worth, think it works for this song and ⁓ the era it came out in. But yeah, I really enjoyed hearing this again. It's been a while since I'd heard it. So yeah, this was a fun revisit.

speaker-1: You know, I'm wondering, talking about, you you don't really think about Motown as being really ⁓ like political, you know, having a lot of political songs coming out of there. This was a little bit later and I'd have to look at the timeline to see exactly when it, when it happened. But I, I remember reading about when Marvin Gaye released what's going on or was putting the album together and Barry Gore, you didn't really want to put it out because of the political nature of it and kind of got talked into it. I wonder if... you again, I'd have to look at the timeline because I'm not sure that came out before this, but I'm wondering if that kind of kicked the door down for a little more kind of political. Yeah. Political stuff.

speaker-2: 100 % right. And I didn't think about what's going on being the sort of kickstart of all this, but it may have been. I want to say what's going on is like 68 or 69. So. Yeah, and so that would not I didn't I did not put that together that would not surprise me at all if that was the impetus to all of this to the R &B music becoming a little more political and also embracing a little bit of the psychedelia that was popular at the time as well.

speaker-0: Yeah, as I say, they're reflecting what's happening in society with the civil rights movement and then the Vietnam War. Like all this is happening. A lot of music that was coming out was starting to be very, very upfront and political. And I'm sure there's no reason why a black artist would be any less likely than anybody else to be like, you know what, we need to, we need to start talking about this stuff, you know, and regardless of what record label you're on, if you're Marvin Gaye or if you're the Temptations, you might be able to actually get that done, you know, to go to a Barry Gordy and be like, Hey, We want to make this we want to make a statement. I'm putting words in the temptations mouth I don't think you know, maybe they did maybe they didn't but I wonder if that yeah, you know, they're the society is moving in that direction You have a lot of turmoil going on it makes sense that those artists would want to reflect that and Maybe they were finally able to you know to get Motown to sign on to that I'm sure it's an interesting story because that that isn't like when I think of Motown that isn't what I think of but that clearly did happen, know later in its in its life So boy, we're about to change gears now As we get seriously political and then ooh boy we are about to not not even you know, yeah We're on it. Well, we're going to a different place Yeah, it's it's in a way it's not changing gears, but I think it's safe to say this song is not political I don't think unless I misunderstood

speaker-1: sort of changing gears.

speaker-2: Bye.

speaker-0: If it is, it's over my head. all right, folks, it's time for the mystery song. As usual, it is not disappointing in the least. It is the one I was hoping. I didn't get to choose this week. This is Scott's. Scott's about to take over. But I will say I was secretly hoping that this was going to be the choice. And Scott heard my prayer. And here we go.

speaker-2: So we have talked before about how we picked these things. It should surprise no one that the song Here Comes the Bubbleman by The Bubblemen caught our eye. I wish that I could say that we're super clever and pick this because of its connection to the episode and I can't say that. We are not that clever. This is just a happy accident. So maybe we're just lucky because it kind of seems to keep happening. But as it turns out, the Bubblemen are the side project of none other than Love and Rockets, who we just talked about. I listened to the song first. was really hoping that this was some sort of extensive side project that ran alongside the Love and Rockets thing. But it really isn't that. It's kind of just a one-off that they did in 1988. There were several variations on it, including the Bubbleman rap, the Bubbleman rap dub, et cetera, et It's all kind of the same thing, just different mixes. couldn't find- ⁓ I listened to you. You better believe I I couldn't find much more than that about it. So maybe you guys were able to go little deeper than I did, but that's really all I've got. It's kind of like ⁓ a two sentence blurb in the middle of Love and Rocket's Wiki page about the Bubbleman. It doesn't go much deeper than

speaker-0: don't think I didn't listen to all

speaker-2: The reason I do wish there was more of this is because I really liked this. It's wonderfully weird and silly and I was really into whatever this is they're going for here. It sort of reminded me of The Residence a little bit, like kind of an avant-garde thing, but not so weird that it's like off-putting or difficult. And maybe a little touch of Devo here too. The video also is great. It's super silly and weird, just like the song. So it's perfect for it. It's just the band in bee costumes kind of roaming around and... and rocking out or whatever, but I just thought it was great. I mean, obviously wearing the costumes. So maybe we wouldn't know it was Love and Rockets. I don't know. But I mean, obviously everybody figured it out. As much as I'd love to I'm super clever and I picked this because Love and Rockets are on this episode, that's not true. We just picked a song at random that had a funny title. And here we are. That's the Bubbleman.

speaker-1: I will give this an A plus for commitment to the bit. These guys, they went for it. I'm going to have to give it a C on everything else, I think. I don't think, like the song was not terribly spectacular. It sounded to me kind of like something that they were goofing around with before they got ready to really start recording. Like, you know, we're just playing around and caught that riff and was like, and then like, okay, well, that was fun. Let's get down to business now and really record a song. So. ⁓ So I can't say that I liked the song a whole lot. I didn't dislike it either. Like I said, it's just kind of a ⁓ kind of just there for me as far as the actual song goes. But the video is fantastic. That's like I said, for commitment to the bit, they get the highest marks because Yeah. The whole thing in those costumes, all of them running around in those, in those weird like Bumbley B type bubble men outfits. Like at one point, one of them's riding a motorcycle wearing that at another point, one of them's riding a horse on it. They're like doing all these different things aside from just playing the song, wearing these ridiculous outfits. ⁓ and yeah, this was not something that I even remotely knew existed until, until we did this very, very high marks for commitment to bit. Otherwise it's okay.

speaker-0: It's the opposite of the other three songs we talked about where the other three like, you know, great bands, great music, so-so videos. This is obviously like the video is kind of the thing here. The song is very. you know, almost throw away. It's not terrible. I actually had it stuck in my head today because I watched the video a couple of times and I started kind of singing it to myself. But I mean, it is just kind of, you know, the bubble men are coming. That's like basically it. I love the outfits. I love, like you're saying, Keith, I like the mundane things that they are doing. Like they're getting gas, you know, they're like coming out of the subway, you know, they're just walking around in these ridiculous suits. I think the residence is probably a good comp. I thought also of the network, which is a Green Day's side project where they're, you know, they're their mast and like it was a mystery for a while. it actually Green Day or is it not? And they're able to obviously, you know, Green Day in this case was doing like a new wave synth thing. So they're able to do something different from what they normally do, which I'm sure is kind of the point for Love and Rockets, which is ⁓ clearly very different. My first note was like, I almost don't want this explained to me. I kind of want it to be this just pure thing that exists in the universe. And I don't, don't know if I want to peek behind the curtain and know. So maybe it's good that we didn't, we weren't able to find a lot about it. I'm also, I have a hard time. Because of the way I think of Bauhaus and the way I think of Love and Rockets and the way they present themselves obviously as a band, it's hard for me to picture those same guys in these outfits running around, but I'm sure it is. I think that actually is those guys. Maybe it's not, but I think, you know, I don't know any reason why it wouldn't be, but it's just, it's so very different from what... you you think of when you think about House of Love and Rockets that it makes me appreciate it that much more than if it was another band that was already kind of silly or whatever and they were doing this. It wouldn't have the impact it had on me when I found out this was Love and Rockets because it's just, it's just wild. The other thing that happened while I was watching this was there was this little tiny voice in the back of my head that was like, you have seen this before. Something about their outfits, something about it was ringing a bell and I couldn't figure out what it was. couldn't figure out why. And thankfully, once again, the YouTube algorithm helped me out with this. This was featured on an episode of Beavis and Butt-Head. And it is the moment, I, Beavis may have said this more than once, but this is absolutely a moment that I remember because Beavis says, they're gonna get medieval on my ass. Cause he was afraid of them. He sees this and he thinks that he had a dream about these guys attacking him. So the whole time they're watching it is Beavis just freaking out because they're reminding him of this dream where they are kicking his ass. Butthead's trying to basically talk him down and Beavis is just losing it because he is terrified of the bubble men and he's afraid that they are going to in fact get medieval on his ass. that brought back this flood of memories of like, I'm pretty sure that at some point, which I think a lot of us of our age did, we were stoned watching Beavis and Butthead and saw this. And if know, beef is a butt head, they usually only showed like maybe 60 seconds or 90 seconds. it isn't even like they showed the whole video. And I doubt that, you know, I was probably half paying attention. I was probably stoned, like that something about those outfits and though, and that just like the tiniest little bell was ringing in the back of my head. And I was so glad that I got to see, ⁓ the beef is a butt head clip. Cause I think that's why I would have run. I can't imagine any other way I would have ever run across this or why. I would have known about this, ⁓ if you, so if you have, you guys didn't happen to see that while you were checking it out, search up Beavis and Butthead, bubble man, and surely it'll come up. The clip I saw was recorded off of MTV too. So I'm assuming this was like a later replay of Beavis and Butthead that someone had recorded. But yeah, that you do in fact get to see them react to this clip and I highly recommend it because it really.

speaker-2: 10 minutes away from doing just that.

speaker-0: It brings it all home. yeah, what a fun, silly, stupid thing that exists and I'm glad it does exist.

speaker-1: I think I can commiserate with ⁓ Beavis there. I don't think I would want to see those things following me around if I was out late at night and looked behind me and those three guys were bopping along there. That would in fact be a disturbing scene. yeah, Beavis, we've gotten it right on that.

speaker-0: Yeah, ostensibly happy bubbly creatures, but if you're at the gas station and look over at night and see them there, you're probably not gonna interpret it that way. It's gonna be interpreted more in a beavis kind of way. So hopefully none of us will have nightmares tonight about the bubble men coming to get us, but it is in fact possible. What a great way to end the episode. The connection with Love and Rockets blows my mind. fact, A, the fact that we chose it not knowing that. I think... And we talked a little bit offline about that's probably why 120 minutes showed it because obviously they knew about the connection and whatever, but we did not. so.

speaker-2: Played it back to back with a Love and Rocket song. I don't know if it was that.

speaker-0: So they probably mentioned it and we, um, we haven't got to the area of, so, well, let me just put this way. So we have been getting these playlists from 120 minutes.org, their website that has painstakingly put these playlists together from people reporting in like, I remember, you know, I had this episode or I remember this episode. And we haven't really got to the point yet where a lot of recordings of the actual. Broadcast of 120 minutes, you know are on YouTube But I think that it's gonna happen more in the future Where we can actually go back and watch the episode and be like, ⁓ they talked about you know, so we can't say ⁓ yeah Dave Kindle like talked about how this was this we can't say for sure because that doesn't exist that we know of for this but I'm hoping in the future that sometimes when these things come up we can actually go and watch the the broadcast of 120 minutes that we're talking about and be like, ⁓ yeah, they You know, they did this and sometimes 120 minutes.org will make notes of like, Dave Kendall interviewed so and so, or, you know, they did talk about this, but, that didn't exist for this. So we don't know exactly, but I'm sure they did tie these together. Like why would they play them back to back if that would be a hell of a coincidence if they played it back to back and didn't.

speaker-1: Although it happened randomly for us. Yeah, true.

speaker-0: It happened once, it could happen again. All right folks, that's May 19 of 88. All three songs that were our normal choices are really good songs. If the videos don't float your boat, I can see that they're pretty straightforward, but all three songs are really great. Big Audio Dynamite has a number of songs you should check out. Let's Active, same way. If you like Jangle Pop, you're going to find a number of other songs that are just as good as Every Word Means No. Love and Rockets, man, there's Bauhaus and Love and Rockets is a whole thing to dive into. I don't even know that you need to necessarily be like a fan of goth or... Because I wouldn't consider myself necessarily like even back in the day like a goth person or that I was a fan of goth, but man, they both, both bands, Bauhaus and Love and Rockets have such good just music. Like yeah, it's goth and yeah, it has a vibe, particularly Bauhaus. I think Love and Rockets a little less so, but don't be turned off by that. I guess what I'm trying to say is don't be turned off by that label. Like go check it out. for yourself and see what you think about, know, Bauhaus first and also Love and Rock it. Or maybe work your way backwards. Maybe it's easier that way to do it, but.

speaker-2: Bauhaus is goth, like there's no two ways about it, but it's also just really good. Like you may not like the whole goth vibe thing, but, but Bauhaus was just a really great band and, there is no denying Peter Murphy's vocals. Like the guy is just fantastic. So I'd also steer you to his solo.

speaker-1: I also think goth has kind of taken on a little bit of a different connotation than exactly what Peter Murphy and the rest of the guys in Bauhaus were doing. It's become kind of a different thing. So you kind of get an idea in your head when you hear goth about one thing and there's no really other way to describe Bauhaus than goth, but it might not be exactly what you immediately jumps into your head. They are not the sisters of mercy. Let's put it like that. They're very definitely doing their own thing or were doing their own thing.

speaker-0: Yeah, I think that's what I was trying to get to is like goth has Changed a lot even between Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy much less now 30, you know years on from that Goth is still a thing there are people I think that tie it back all the way to the roots of Goth which which Bauhaus is absolutely at the very very root of all that But I do think there's also people that maybe are only exposed to goth through I don't know walking into hot topic or whatever and or like, you know It conjures up an image in your head and I don't necessarily think that that image, you know that you would get today by talking about goth is what you're going to get if you go back and listen to Bauhaus and if you're not familiar with them. So maybe try it because I think you'll be kind of surprised and maybe even delighted by early Bauhaus. The bubble men, the bubble men are coming. Absolutely. Go check that out. Like right after the podcast. can listen to it. In 20 minutes, you've got the entire, the entire bubble man experience. Yeah, the bubble men are coming and the bubble men rap are.

speaker-2: entire catalog in 20 minutes.

speaker-0: two different, two very different songs really in a way, but they give you exactly what they say they're gonna give you. can't imagine that many people are familiar with it, but just go check it out. It's too funny not to. And then go watch a Love and Rockets video and try to imagine in your head that these are the same people, because it's difficult to hold those two ideas in your head at the same time, but it is apparently true. Thanks for tuning in everybody. Don't forget about 35,000 Watts, the story of College Radio. It's available right now on Tubi. It's also available on YouTube and Amazon Prime and Google Play. Mitch Easter, again, who is in Let's Active and we talked about in this episode is in that film. And it's a nice little romp through College Radio, the history of College Radio. So please go check it out. Don't forget to tune in with us. Next time right here, we'll be talking about June of 1988 on our next episode. And we'd love to have you join us again on 120 Months.