C&L's Late Nite Music Club with The B-52s
By Howie Klein Thursday Apr 10, 2008 10:00pmThe B-52's are often thought of as "the other" great alternative band from Athens, Georgia. Like R.E.M. they have a pretty hot new album (Funplex) out (which we debuted here at the LNMC in early February). They've been around since the mid-70s and I got inspired to make a little clip for "Private Idaho" (from their second album, Wild Planet) when I was researching a story about a lunatic fringe candidate from Idaho who is running for office because another candidate had his elk herd shot. The powerful Gus Van Sant movie, My Own Private Idaho was made 10 years after the B-52's released their song and Van Sant says he was basically remaking Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 with an influence of John Rechy's City of Night but Van Sant says he took the title from the B-52's song, which he first heard while visiting the state around the time they put it out.
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Yeah, no comments.
It's "cool" not to like the B-52's. It's even cooler to like them.
I'm at the mall on a diet pill!
I used to dance to that tune in the early '80s at some club in Moscow, ID. But Larry Craig and Helen Chenowith are scary folks! So are those crazy aryan and neo-nazi types!!
great, just great, I luved that song, and you.....you just clockwerked Orange'd me...
mumble mumble grimace, next you'll want me to change my moniker...
duncanidho @ 4:
Why would you want to change such a fine moniker there? One of my favorite characters from Dune!
"great" would never be a word I would use in describing them
There are some great riffs in there. They were really good back in the 60's when the Marketts recorded them!
I saw them a bunch of times. Still like em a lot
And now for something completely different:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5_0iZQ-TuA
Full screen if you can support it.
miss kitty Hussein:
:wave:
Just passin' through.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qf8y7v0WIE
;)
The other great Athens GA band? Why, Pylon of course:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9OuD6xagLE
Does anyone know if "private Idaho" is an expression that existed before this song? If so, what did it mean? I remember when this song came out thinking I'd heard the expression before, but now I don't know if I'm remembering correctly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67K9NnnVGWw&mode=related&search=
;)
JM @ 3
"I used to dance to that tune in the early ’80s at some club in Moscow, ID. But Larry Craig and Helen Chenowith are scary folks! So are those crazy aryan and neo-nazi types!!"
Chenoweth died in a car accident in Nevada. She was holding her grandchild (by marriage) on her lap when the car went off the road. Both she and the baby were ejected. Baby was fine but Helen died.
She died breaking the law, totally endangering an innocent child, and in typical Chenoweth misguided rebellion against any government infringement on her personal liberties, she didn't have a seatbelt on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T880ah7clnAMy mistake. Please do click on previous entry.
So sorry!
Speaking of wild potatoes:
I was washing my hands in a crowded mens rooms
at O'Hare Airport and much to my dismay and chagrin
I see a man very casually walking away from a urinal
with his potato hanging out past the sinks and almost out the door.
Needless to say he didn't wash his hands.
IT WAS the same Senator Larry Craig living in his own private Idaho
Fraught with danger looking for a stranger...
in many different airports.
The 52's PUT Athens, GA on the map. Period.
REM was later. And I love them both.
Private Idaho.
A pure hard CORE expression of anti white supremacy housed in Coeur d'Alene at the time, and THEY n them bastids were finally run outta town and outta Idaho. No doubt, the 52's had SOMEthing to do with that, in the end run, decades later.
The 52's are the most UNDERRATED protest band of any time.
They were and are, besides the college crew fun, senders of a great message. And they came from Athens, GA. Before, REM.
Props. That's all I'm sayin. Give them props. They EARNED them.
And Private Idaho, it was a hard prop to earn.
Fuck the white hoods. All of them. Give them their own Private Island.
Howie, on this one, you da man.
Harumph.
The first time I heard Planet Claire it drilled a hole into my brain and is still echoing around in there. As for Rory Gallagher, I'd heard of him practically all my life it seems but had never HEARD him. A few weeks ago I finally did and fell in love again. Thanks for all the great music guys.
Not much of a fan, but "Channel Z" rocks.
I'd say the two great Athens bands were/are The B-52s and Pylon. REM are and always have been overrated, precious, largely boring and I guess you could say they were the first emo-rock band. (That's not meant as a compliment.)
GlobalH @ 11:
Just saw Vanessa and the boys this past year... great as ever!
I remember as a kid watching the B 52's first appearance on Saturday Night Live, probably in the late 70's, and I honestly thought it was a skit! I'd never seen anything like them before. But I was hooked instantly. I had a similar experience when Devo appeared. I loved that era of music, we haven't seen such courage and creativity in rock n' roll since. The Ramones, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, the list goes on and on....actual musicians who wrote actual original music and it was actually good.
I feel bad for kids today, they don't know how bad they have it. Britney Spears? My God. The music industry has destroyed itself because of corporate paranoia, nothing original gets any airplay or promotion...
This is one of my favorite's, I loved "Revolution Earth" too.
This picture was the actual reflection on Cheney's sunglasses.
If you like the 52's you'll love their new CD, Funplex. I don't have to play it constantly in my car. I can stop any time I want.
Really.
Very sweet and down to earth people. I very much enjoyed the time I spent around them. Heard most of Funplex while stuck in a Border's two weeks ago. It sounded good.
-AF
Andrew Sullivan Is A Fraud
Chenowith, Craig ... jeez, what is it about the Potato State?
Great song by a great group. Love Kate Pierson's voice ...
The Marketts reference above is apt, but shouldn't be applied only to the B-52s; so many bands of that era just recycled riff after riff from the first half of the 60s, including a lot of more "serious" bands like The Jam and The Pretenders. That's one of the reasons it was hard for a lot of people to take postpunk bands seriously at first. This band and The Revilloes epitomized for me the kitschiest expression of the late 70s/early 80s obsession with the early to mid-60s: surf guitars, Courreges boots, vinyl minidresses, skinny ties, black-n-white checkerboard patterns, ski pants, geometric bouffant hairdos, etc. The most early-60s-sounding band name from the era, though, was The Go Go's, whose pre-fame music also exhibited a slight surf rock sound.
The "other great alternative band from Athens" is, of course, Harvey Milk.
2 Ruthless People Says: It’s “cool” not to like the B-52’s. It’s even cooler to like them.
I’m at the mall on a diet pill!
If you can fit on a diet pill, you're too small already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EPP3gkh_00
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