The Reason We Gather Here Today...

I was wondering the other day. Aloud. To myself. Why does one really have a blog? What is the real reason society at large has gone blog crazy? And why am I in that mix? Why. Do. We. Blog?

Simple.

We all just want a forum to post links to YouTube videos.

I am no different.

One of my favorite hobbies... when my other hobbies go dry... is to search out my favorite music videos on YouTube. Who doesn't do that? I mean, seriously, they expect you to work for ALL eight hours?!?! So, with no real order nor importance to life, the universe, and everything... here are some of my favorite recent views. And, yes, pretty much all of them are from the mid-nineties... because that's when I was a rock DJ and that's where my soul lives.

The Spin Doctors- "You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast."

I grew a beard to match John Lennon whisker for whisker, but since I tried that circa-1994, I was constantly compared to Spin Doctor frontdude Chris Barron. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that the Spin Doctors second... not first... album was the first non-Beatle CD I ever bought. That album spawned this "hit." I love the mid-nineties video vibe here... the "let's write a video treatment about a cheeky misadventure for the drummer-storyline." Priceless. They just don't make that any more. Too much posing and posturing these days.

Bonus nostalgia: The line "We won't believe we cared/ I swear/ in a couple of years" was quite the comfort for a lonely, heart on my sleeve loser like myself back then.

Del Amitri- "Roll to Me."



This band is a lot better than this song will have them remembered as... and some props go to Zac Braff for trying to back that notion by featuring this song on Scrubs... but this video was a 1995 A+. I still think those are some of hottest "video chicks" to ever come across the wire. And what is funnier than adult heads on baby bodies? Huh? Huh? That's right... nothing.

The Bottle Rockets- "I'll be coming around."



Unfortunately I cannot find an official video for one of the best songs of the 1994-96 rock music scene. The Bottle Rockets did alt-country rock before Wilco was birthed from Uncle Tupelo and Ryan Adams discovered twang mixes well with power chords. "Radar Gun" and "1,000 dollar car" made waves, but this was a near-perfect pop rock. A hit that should-a-been. For whatever reason I loved this song then, forgot all about it, then dug it up about three years ago. I still play it constantly and it finds it's way on to many-a-mix CD's. Odd. Because it is a pop tune about infidelity. If only it had been a rap song... then it would have been a hit. My girlfriend probably hates the song, but she does laugh when Brian Henneman sings "knocking your back door down" because she's convinced it's a song about the "third option."

Semisonic- "Get a Grip."

Still the best rock band American ignored in the mid to late-nineties. Still the best band to be unfortunately labeled a "one hit wonder." And frontman Dan Wilson, as his current solo work proves, is still one of the best pop songwriters around. Damn it!!! I'm tired of trying to force this band down people's throats. I'll just have to settle for keeping them near and dear in that one corner of my brain where Pretty Woman and the TV show ED live. So, with sex still on the brain from the Bottle Rockets' song, I present the cheekiest song the boys from Minnesota ever put together. There are other songs... great and grand... deep and meaningful... but this one just makes me giggle like a school boy.



Tonic- "Open up your eyes."

Right as I transitioned from back-up DJ, writer, intern, "Ken, where's my coffee" to morning show co-host, Tonic burst onto the scene with this well-written, yearning three and a half minute opus. On the radio alone it sounded straight forward and perhaps a tad too earnest. Then the video hit. Awesome. More than just a silly video of a rollerskating, Tuxedo T-shirt wearing band skating through the suburbs, it also poked fun and took some brazen not so subtle shots at the then current music scene Tonic had set out to "conquer." And, plus, it has the best Mick Fleetwood cameo ever. (Which is a real category. Seriously.)

The Bogmen- "Suddenly."

Do you remember when the earth shattered and this band gave us all the great album "Life Begins at 40 million?" No? Noooo? You didn't know this band existed until just now. You still don't believe this band ever existed. How dare you, sir. The Bogmen were from New York. The Bogmen were funny. I saw the Bogmen live. And I can't wait to tell my grandchildren about the night GrandPop saw them open for the Barenaked Ladies at the Cal Poly auditorium that one night in 1996. Phew. Memories. Hold onto them.

And finally... for tonight's lesson...



That's right, little Timmy. In the 1990's... '96 to be exact... there was a spectacular hit single by a great band remembered only for recording the theme song to the animated show King of the Hill that contained the line "And give your ID card to the border guard/ now your alias says you're Captain Jean Luc Picard of the United Federation of Planets/ 'Cause he won't speak English any way." And it was good. Very good.