I feel like I have done too many of these type of posts lately rather than my observational or day-in-the-life type posts, but there hasn't been that much going on in my life lately. So, this is all I am left with. Enjoy.

I am unique amongst those my age that I know in that I don't have great and fond longings for the days "when MTV actually played music!" I remember well many of the videos we used to watch back then, and frankly most of them suck. Seriously, go watch one of the cable channels that plays old videos. Watch about an hours worth of them and remind your self that these are the best of what was on then and that there was once a channel that played stuff like this--and much, much worse--24 hours a day. Not a pretty picture, right.

But, lately, I have been spending far too much time at work searching YouTube for videos from the early 90's. The ones I watched in my teenage years, the songs that I loved. Some of them are not as bad as I remember them being, some are worse. This is a small selection of them, most from the early 90's, some possibly a little later.

Frank Black - Los Angeles

I love this song, and the video still makes me laugh a little. From the part where the faux metal/grunge section of the song kicks in to the Beatle-esque outro. And besides, how often does one get to see Frank Black ride a hovercraft?

The Afghan Whigs – Debonair

One of my favorite songs from the early 90's. Good thing the song holds up better than the video..

Belly – Gepetto

Back in the day--God, I feel old saying that--if you really wanted to be cool and hip, and you were in a band, the easiest route was this: get yourself a female bass player. Everybody cool was doing it: White Zombie, Toadies, Smashing Pumpkins, and Belly among others.

School of Fish – Three Strange Days

Better Than Ezra – In The Blood

Everything is angstier in black and white.

Curve – Crystal

Cuckoo, the album this song comes from, is still one of my more favoriter albums, I can still listen to and enjoy over half of the songs today 13 years after its release. The video falls in the genre of "Hey, lets make a video that looks like we are performing live on stage, with lights and a stage set-up, but not have it be a live performance." You know, that genre.

Hum – Stars

Jellyfish – That is Why

One of the great and longstanding benefits of the internet is that it allows people with really obscure interests to discover that they are not the only ones who liked that odd thing that they like, whether it be an obscure 80's t.v. show, a one hit wonder band, or some bizzare sexual practice. Jellyfish is a band that I thought no one else but me liked, until I got my first computer with a modem and found some fan websites for them. In an ironic related note, one friend who particularly hated them was the guy who got me into Ben Folds Five, a band that was reported to be heavily influenced by Jellyfish.

Mazzy Star - Fade Into You

A quote from a friend upon hearing an acoustic guitar and electric slide based song that my band had just recorded: "Wow. If you had recorded that in a tunnel it would have been Mazzy Star."

Ned's Atomic Dustbin – Grey Cell Green

"Ooohh, look how 'alternative' we are, we have two bassists!" The bassists from Ned's Atomic Dustbin were a heavy influence upon the bass player from blink182, which is obvious when you hear this song.

Chagall Guevera – Violent Blue

I wrote earlier about growing up listening to Christian rock and how my parents eventually loosened the bonds on me and my sister and let us listen to other music. The chapter in that story that I skipped was this, before that loosening there was a Christian musician that I had discovered that was all mine; my parents did not listen to or like him. His name was Steve Taylor. Steve was a mix of some parts of Bowie and Byrne and Clash with a biting satirical edge that offended many in the evangelical community. After getting sick of the constant controversy that accompanied his music, Steve left the Christian music scene in 1989 and, along with several of the top studio musicians in the Christian music scene, and formed a band called Chagall Guevera. The band released one great album, got a positive review from Rolling Stone, toured Europe briefly, and then were dropped from MCA during its early-90s restructuring in the midst of recording their second album. A crying shame, if you ask me. I think they might have broken through in the changing music scene of that time if given time to record another album and some kind of push from their label.