very important personal message from the super groovy music video spectacular: i can hardly believe, friends, just how long it’s been since i’ve posted a music video here. when i think about it i don’t only feel sorry, i make this face from the i’m sorry cover, and hold it. the good news is i’ve been writing and also taking long solitary walks around new york city thinking about what videos i’ll post as we hit no. 1000. tune in soon for them!
#994: weezer - say it ain’t so (late night with david letterman, 1995)
with all due respect to the new musem’s nyc 1993: experimental jet set, trash and no star, the show is off by 24 months. ‘95 was always the year. there was something about being 11 years old in 1995: a time of bullies in jnco jeans and heroes in airwalks, when a young new york city was enjoying the second year of the giuliani administration, ira kaplan looked like my babysitter’s boyfriend, matt sharp was still in weezer, nick taranto and i organized an epic baseball card sale in mr. zoffness’ central school class to help fund a trip to our nation’s capital, and rivers cuomo looked like leon neyfakh. magic was in the air.
#993: r.e.m. - strange currencies (1994)
did you know that this is the nine hundred and ninety third video shown on the super groovy music video spectacular? that means after this there are six videos before the thousandth. so all of them will be of world-historical importance and excellence—this one, of course, has the best selection of sunglasses ever seen in a music video.
being at #993 also means it’s been 441 videos since #552 (karen dalton singing blues jumped the rabbit and shuffling around her kitchen), we’re 780 videos past #213 (yellow magic orchestra’s tighten up on soul train), and already 190 videos beyond video #803 (when otis redding wept my girl on ready steady go!).find him and the other nine hundred and ninety two by clicking this magical random button.
#992: sister rosetta tharpe - this train(1964)
i don’t know what or where glory is, but commemorate martin luther king’s holy day by listening to a glorious person play gorgeous music. sweat, shout, shake, rejoice, rewatch and follow her her down to the riverside! and then look at the skin color of every single person clapping in the audience in the final shot, less than fifty years ago, when black americans couldn’t enjoy this ecstatic music their sister was making.
#991: kleenex - nice (1978)
what’s your favorite primary color post punk deutschland ditty about poodles from a band named after facial tissues? this one.
here’s late-1960s african music that sounds exactly like bubbling water just before a rolling boil. it’s so mellifluous and alive and ecstatically lush and warm and gentlemanly and perfectly creased that you’ll think the maestro who made it would have to be known as something like le seigneur, which is exactly what tabu ley rochereau was called in the congo, where he played with history’s second most-important nico.
i found the album on my favorite website, global groovers, which you should explore after you download tabu ley rochereau & l’african-fiesta national’s le peuple. buy something like this, too. they’ll put you in a good enough mood to read jeffrey gettleman’s devastating reporting on what’s happening these days in the congo, where le seigneur made such beautiful music.
#990: elvis presley (with scotty moore & d.j. fontana) - blue christmas (1968)
do you know that look in elvis’ eyes when he’s onstage with his childhood friends in his ‘68 comeback special? when d.j. fontana is thwacking an empty guitar case with his drum sticks, scotty moore is playing the case’s guitar as well as he did in 1955 when the three of them were still called the blue moon boys, and it all makes elvis so happy that he sings a wrong word after the chorus and has to muffle a vibrato giggle? that’s what i hope your holidays are like, friends, and your new year, too.
#989: ace frehley - new york groove (1978)
one of the great mysteries of american history is why kiss pretends they’re playing along to new york groove here in the video, when everyone knew it was from one of those four solo albums that each member of kiss made in 1978.
they were all released on the same day, featuring different bands of studio musicians with sad and un-kiss-like names like allan schwartzberg and steve buslowe. gene simmons also had cher, joe perry, janis ian—janis ian!—and something called the citrus college singers on his.
were he, paul stanley and peter criss so upset about ace frehley having this shimmering and sparkle-eyed song to himself that they insisted on being in the video, pretending to play? or did ace hire impersonators to lend the video weight? it’s own of america’s profound, intractable enigmas and no one will ever know.
the cover of ace frehley, released the same 1976 day as gene simmons, paul stanley, and of course peter criss
a disturbingly accurate predictive (!) chart by the genius jonathan richman in boston’s vibrations magazine, september 1967
#988 : jonathan richman - now is better than before (1985)
from jonathan richman’s first 20 years in show business by jonathan richman: “mr. richman was born in boston in 1951. he started to draw pictures all day long from the age of 5. played baseball all day long from the age of 9. this would not leave time for anything else, would it? he took up guitar at 15, started playing in public at 16, and by 17 had caused many people to leave coffee-houses… quickly… with their hands over their ears, and by 18 was sure he wanted to sing professionally… he left home at age 18, moving to new york. since he was ten years old and first was taken there by his parents, he wanted to live there and also his favorite rock band the velvet underground was there along with the artist andy warhol (since deceased)… he admired their sincerity, their dark sound, and their ability to improvise both lyrics and music onstage. his first place to stay in manhattan was on the couch of the personal manager of this velvet underground. after two weeks the manager and his wife and the other person staying there felt that jonathan… well… he immediately found work as a busboy (unbelievably incompetent) and as a foot messenger on wall street.” (emphasis mine)
