Dance Party USA – Nine Inch Nails style

This video, unearthed by media gossip site Gawker of all places, shows Nine Inch Nails performing on some American Bandstand bastardization back while promoting Pretty Hate Machine, probably sometime in 1989. Along with being absolutely ridiculous, it shows two things: how closely related dance and industrial music are and were at the time and just how out-of-step with the mainstream Nine Inch Nails were. Obviously Trent’s label at the time, TVT, had no idea how to promote the band. Trent Reznor was at one time considered one of the most important figures in music. And while he continues to push boundaries with new marketing and distribution models, it would be nice to see him stretch himself musically, so he might once again seem so out of place in the mainstream.

“Down In It” – live on Dance Party USA

Old AC/DC videos are funny…

After their massive triumph with Back in Black in 1980, and For Those About to Rock We Salute You the following year, AC/DC had to deal with what every other dinosaur rock band of the 80s struggled with – trying to remain relevant in the music video age. Do you ever wonder why most of the Aussie rockers music videos are variations on the five peice playing a big stadium show? These clips, all from the Fly on the Wall home video should shed some light. Come to think of it, something about this whole thing reminds me of Guitar Hero – minus the animated fly.

“Fly on the Wall”

“Danger”

“Sink the Pink”

“Stand Up”

“Shake Your Foundations”

After ditching the concept video from it’s repetoire for years, the band returned with this rather ridiculous clip for “Stiff Upper Lip” in 2000. From the album of the same name, the boys just couldn’t resist carrying the innuendo and double entendres into visual form hosing down the fans from their “stiff upper lip.”

“The DJ never has it/JAMC’s ‘Automatic’”

But youtube does. Or at least, some really early footage of the Jesus and Mary Chain in England, back when people used to riot at their shows. My friend Christian saw this years ago and sussed it out on the tube. It’s pretty interesting if you’ve never really understood the fervor that surrounded the band’s early gigs. Try and spot the young Bobby Gillespie – he used to play drums for them…

Pinhead Gunpowder Live @ 924 Gilman

Green Day seem at a bit of a loss for what to do next. The Bay area three piece stunned pretty much everyone when their 2004 record American Idiot sold a bajillion copies and propelled the band back to their Dookie-era heights. After releasing the single “The Saints are Coming” with U2 the band disappeared and have been slow to re-emerge. But really what does a punk rock band do after playing the Super Bowl with one of rocks most narcisstic bands.

When a band at Green Day’s level go on hiatus after a big album and long tour, the members usually go off and form other bands or do solo albums. Billy Joe, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool formed a second band together and started playing 60s inspired garage rock. Unfortunately, there’s about 6 dozen other bands doing the same thing and a lot of them do it better than Foxboro Hot Tubs. Billie though, did have another band. Pinhead Gundpowder started before Green Day hit it big, back wen he was also writing songs with Rancid, and have had various levels of activity over the years. And since Green Day is going through an identity crisis, we get to see Billie back with Pinhead Gunpowder earlier this year at the legendary all-ages punk club 924 Gilman in Berkeley, CA.

It’s a dance off…

I want to learn how to dance like this. New Jack Swing was the convalessence of R&B and Hip-Hop that occurred in the late 80s and early 90s. Bobby Brown, early Boyz II Men and Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” are great examples of the sound. VH1 recently paid tribute to the genre at one of their Hip Hop Honours shows. But it’s Kid ‘N’ Play’s great 1990 flick House Party that stands as New JackSwing’s greatest inflitration of the mainstream. Oh, Martin and Gina are in their somewhere too…

Classic Footage: Green Day – Jaded in Chicago

Here’s a gem of a find. Much Music used to play this concert way back in the day, when they used to play concerts on a semi-regular basis. In fact, I think I have a VHS tape with this on it somewhere at my parents house. So the gig is from way back in 1994 when they were just starting to really take off. What I love about this gig is that Green Day are still throwing in quite a few tracks from their early EPs and albums like their opener “Going to Pasalaqua.” And while the last time I saw the band (on the Warning tour) they were still playing a couple of those old tunes, I suspect it wasn’t long after this concert that they dumped most of those songs from their set. It’s also refreshing to see the band full of self-confidence from their success, but not yet full of the kind of false self-importance making a concept record tends to give musicians.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I wanted to get the whole concert here and unfortunately whoever posted it on youtube cut it up into individual tracks.

Going to Pasalaqua

Chump

Longview

Burnout

Coming Clean

When I Come Around

Welcome to Paradise

2000 Light Years Away

Basketcase

I Was Alone/Dominated Love Slave

F.O.D.

Paper Lanterns

Christie Road

She

Classic footage: Saves the Day – “The Choke”

The quality is crap, but you get the idea. This is the once fantastic Saves the Day playing somewhere a long time ago. Something about the energy between the band and the crowd makes me love this video. The way EVERYONE is singing along, and Chris Conley’s right in the crowd. I saw these guys open for Gob and Face To Face at the Icehouse (which was normally a strip club) in Victoria eight years ago, and it’s still the best bar show I’ve ever seen. They released three wicked LPs, then jumped ship from Vagrant and dropped one big, fat flaming turd or an album with this as the lead single. Oh, how the mighty fall. Insult was added to injury, cause at the time my three favourite bands – The Get Up Kids, Dashboard Confessional and Saves the Day – were all signed to Vagrant and proceeded to drop shit records in quick succession. I could have cried.

and to keep the good times rolling, their swan song…