Though most people know me as a “film guy”—somebody who seems more interested in movies and movie history than just about anything else—I’ve sometimes thought of myself as being a “music guy.” But like everything, my deep involvement with music goes in bursts. Most recently, I just have not had the time to have the same level of passion for bands and the live music scene as I did 8 years ago. I also don’t have the disposable income I once did (remember when you were the age at which you have approximately NO essential expenses? I hardly do).

Many of my musical interests have come and gone. If you had asked me 10 years ago whether I would ever stop being interested in Dave Matthews Band, I’d probably have said “NO.” If you had asked around that time about the best jazz musician I’d ever seen, I’d have probably mentioned Victor Wooten. DMB and Wooten are still fine, I’ve just moved on. As a matter of fact, if you had asked me 10 years ago whether or not I’d be interested in early 20^th century composers, or obscure soul jazz and organ records, I’d have probably looked at you funny.

One of my consistently favorite bands—one that I’ve never quite moved beyond, or away from, because of their tendency to constantly re-invent their sound, yet do-so always within the parameters of a base cohesion—is Soulive. Having not kept up with them as much as I would have liked, though never keeping their music out of rotation for long, I recently decided to visit their website. Well, as it turns out, I choose a good day. I managed to “re-discover” them the very day that their new album, Up Here, became available on iTunes and Amazon. What luck!

I should backtrack a bit. Soulive began as an organ trio, a revitalization of a perennial 1960s favorite—Eric Krasno on Guitar, Alan Evans on drums, and Neal Evans on organ/keys/bass—recording a debut EP in 1999 called Get Down. They very quickly took to the road. In early 2000, I was pretty heavily involved in the tape (yes, cassette tape) and CD trading scene. The roots go back to the diligent Grateful Dead fans who made amateur recordings of the band and made dupes for friends and total strangers, always ready to share enlightened tunes with new people. In 2000, I was fairly heavily into Phish, DMB, somewhat into the Dead, had started to get interested in Pink Floyd, and was also sampling some of the other tastes of the then booming—probably more so than now—jamband scene, especially moe. and String Cheese Incident. I was in heaven, having graduated from mundane musical tastes to musical bliss. So much to listen to, so little time. Well, sometime in May 2000, I got my first Soulive bootleg. My sense is that the first recording I had of the band was their 04/13/2000 show from Hartford, CT, though one of my firsts was certainly a little recording from 04/29/00, a show at University of Hartford that sounded poorly attended (re: quiet) but certainly hooked me.

I kept tabs on the band for about a year. They were at once super-tight, crisp, and disciplined in a way beyond most of the music I was into, and at the same time could get loose and improvisational. They always brought the heat, so to speak, and I don’t think I heard a “bad” recording or show from that era. During that year, they released their acclaimed, full-length debut Turn it Out, a recording constantly regarded by a certain set of fans as their core sound. A turning point for me was in late Feb 2001, when I heard a recording of a fantastic double-bill show featuring Project Logic (DJ Logic’s much-missed band) and Soulive. The recordings were of either 02/03/2001 or 02/04/2001. I eventually got both, but started, I think, with the show from the 4^th. Those concerts became my default discs, the place to turn when nothing else sounded appetizing, interesting, or exciting.

I picked up Get Down and Turn it Out in anticipation of my first Soulive concert, which happened to be tacked-on to the toughest ticket of the year, a DMB homecoming show with Neil Young and Soulive as openers. Myself and site co-creator Bobby were in attendance, arriving early to catch the whole thing. Soulive sounded big, but not big enough to fill Scott Stadium, but I still enjoyed the show. My first proper gig with them, though, was at the 9:30 Club on 12/01/01, during their excellent tour with a singer called N’Dambi. Soulive had hit the relative big time by this point, and I was thoroughly enjoying the very tight—though somewhat overproduced—Doin’ Something, their first album for the mighty Blue Note label. I remember the concert pretty well because I had—that day—snagged a winter job with what was then called Waldenbooks, thanks to a friend, a company for whom I would work, in some capacity, for 6 more years. The concert was something of a celebration for this promise of money to come. Anyway, that show was super tight, totally blew me away, and bumped Soulive up to being in my top tier. Another great show I attended from this approximate era (though by this time they had launched their Blue Note follow-up Next) was on 04/28/02, during their “revue” tour which included a full horn section, N’Dambi again, DJ Mister Rourke, and ended with a 30+ minute version of “Tuesday Night’s Squad,” with unofficial 4^th member Sam Kiniger eventually leaving the stage—still playing—spinning in circles. Quite intense.

For the next several years, Soulive were my go-to band. I missed them occasionally, but usually went to great lengths to see them play. My fondest memory of them was seeing them—relatively early in the day—at a one day festival in Waterloo, NJ, August 2003. There was a really heavy line-up for this mini-festival, with SCI headlining, Medeski Martin and Wood, the Disco Biscuits, and Kaki King also there in force. Myself and friend Andy managed to maneuver right to the front for their set, and I unobtrusively held up a small sign, on which I had sprawled “Cash’s Dream,” then-as-now my favorite Soulive composition, recorded way-back on Get Down. Eric Krasno saw it and smiled. I don’t know if he could read it or not, or if I was just damn lucky, but they opened the show with my favorite song! As experienced a concertgoer as I was by that point, it was definitely one of my best live memories.

Soulive kept putting great albums out. Their self-titled “live” disc came out on Blue Note and was their last U.S. release for that label. Their Break Out, released 2005, is a favorite and features Reggie Watts on vocals, who at the time was still associated with Maktub (the band only tours occasionally these days). Their association with the Concord music group—a rich, diverse label that now owns the Prestige jazz catalog—lead them to help re-launch the venerable Stax label in 2007 with No Place Like Soul, another excellent album of instrumentals and vocals.

Up Here is pretty great, something like No Place Like Soul meets Turn it Out, with a deliberately lo-fi sound mixed in. The album represents another turning point for the band. Despite strong albums for Velour (founded in part on the strength of Soulive, and former home of excellent bands like Topaz and Kudu), Blue Note (the most renowned jazz label of recent years, as in the 1960s), and Concord/Stax, their new album is on their own “Royal Family Recordings” label, which will eventually include solo projects by each Soulive member, and takes care of big side projects like Lettuce, a funk-party band which features Neal Evans and Eric Krasno.

Anyway, this may read like an extended advertisement, and in some senses it is—Soulive are a favorite band that I’ve been following for 9 years, and unlike other favorites, they still tour, have not broken up, and are never stagnant. For the original sound, look to Get Down and Turn it Out; for refined, up-beat funk, try their first Blue Note records; for variety, Break Out and No Place Like Soul hit a pretty broad range of genres without ever feeling lost. Finally, think about buying Up Here, a new, forward-thinking album with a sense of history.

]]> http://www.virtualfools.com/audio/steady-grooving-a-personal-history-of-soulive/feed/ 0 http://www.virtualfools.com/film-tv/from-the-archives-lost-rock-roll-film-encyclopedia-reviews-1/ http://www.virtualfools.com/film-tv/from-the-archives-lost-rock-roll-film-encyclopedia-reviews-1/#comments Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:08:54 +0000 Kevin http://www.virtualfools.com/?p=299 Sorry for the impossibly long title to this post. Back in 2005, I was lucky enough to provide some support research and capsule reviews for John Kenneth Muir’s book The Rock & Roll Film Encyclopedia (eventually published in 2007 by Applause Books).  The book is jam-packed with information about rock films and the conventions of the “rock genre.”  I wrote several reviews for the book–though you’ll have to get a copy to find out which ones–but two were left on the cutting room floor.  Below is one of those reviews, which didn’t work for space issues (the other, coming soon, dealt with what could more appropriately be called a “Rap” film, a genre that John decided deserved its own full-length book treatment).

The London Rock & Roll Show (1973)

Film Editor: Thomas Schwalm.  Cinematography: Peter Whitehead et. al.  Produced by: Peter Clifton.  Exec. Produced by: Ron Faulk and Ray Faulk. Directed by: Peter Clifton.  Running Time: 84 min (some prints as short as 24 min)

Peter Clifton’s film of the historic pioneers of rock and roll, shot at Wembley Stadium on August 5th, 1972 and produced for theatrical release the following year.  Both nostalgia and energy hover over the sets by Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley and the Comets, Little Richard, and headliner Chuck Berry.  The mixture of performance and interview gives a good sense of the paradox confronting most of the musicians: despite a decline in popularity, the demands of the show are to bring a slate of greatest hits to a new generation of rock fans more familiar with The Who and The Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger makes an appearance and puts the age question into perspective).  This mini-festival drew the gamut of British youth sub-cultures, and part of the pleasure in watching the film now is in witnessing the Teddy Boys, Bikers, Rockers, and proto-punks strut their stuff.

Diddley’s bluesy set sports solid renditions of “Road Runner” and “Mona.”  Lewis brings his rollicking showmanship and outspoken personality to the fray, indirectly clashing with Little Richard for the title of the King of Rock (a title later given to Bill Haley by an announcer).  Compared the stage presence of Lewis, Haley’s run-through of “Rock Around the Clock,” though a crowd-pleaser, is trite and hopelessly dated.  Little Richard, in extensive interview sequences, points out the greatest irony of all—for all of his showmanship and passion, his music (and rock music in general) has always been consumed by a mainly White audience.  Richard’s extended set brings bravura to “Tutti Frutti” and “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” amongst others, but his pessimism dampers the celebratory veneer of most of the concert.  Berry closes, combining the performative sense of Little Richard with the mastery of Diddley.

As a movie, The London Rock and Roll Show feels haphazard, though the inclusion of candid interviews makes it a curiosity piece worth searching for.  The mixture of “the old” with the burgeoning possibilities of “the new” attests to the longevity of rock, but in the process gives a truncated shelf-life to some of the tamer aspects of the Golden Age sensibility. Available on DVD.

~~~~

Note: One of the lead cameramen on this film was Peter Whitehead, whose film TONITE LET’S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON is one of the best on the British scene of the 1960s.  Whitehead had a knack for capturing the energy of rock.  He was responsible for chronicles of The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and Pink Floyd.

]]> http://www.virtualfools.com/film-tv/from-the-archives-lost-rock-roll-film-encyclopedia-reviews-1/feed/ 2 http://www.virtualfools.com/film-tv/bowie-as-the-image/ http://www.virtualfools.com/film-tv/bowie-as-the-image/#comments Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:48:30 +0000 Kevin http://www.virtualfools.com/?p=210 Bringing this to everybody’s attention, thanks to Cinebeats, one of my new favorite blogs.  If you are a fan of 1960s and 1970s cinema, specifically arty/exploitation stuff, give it a look.

David Bowie’s musical persona is tied up in the way in which he physically performs.  By the time he and Ziggy Stardust found international attention in the mid 1970s, there were very few–if any–other musicians who had so much of their meaning as a start invested in how they looked, acted, dressed, and posed.  While Bowie is widely known for having electrified the screen with his otherworldly role in Nic Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), many people don’t know that he had staked out an acting career long before trying to make his way as a rocker.

A very friendly YouTube channel dedicated to Bowie’s work has been kind enough to share The Image (1967), a psychologically-minded horror short that has long been nearly impossible to see.  Briefly: a man creates a portrait of another man, but as it nears completion, he becomes increasingly disturbed by his work and the storm outside.  The man in the portrait somehow comes to life and stalks the artist.  In desperation, the artist violently lashes out against his creation.

The film feels slightly amateurish at times, but that mostly has to do with the fact that it was Michael Armstrong’s first professional short.  Armstrong had a somewhat obscure career, but he eventually settled into artfully conceived horror (Mark of the Devil) and sexploitation (Eskimo Nell) work.

The Image is worth watching.  It is unsettling and baffling in the best tradition of horror shorts.  Along with other forgotten fare like Peter Sykes’ The Committee (1968) and Barney Platt-Mills’ Private Road (1971), it represents a totally marginalized artifact from that period of British cinema.

The first time I heard Love Lockdown was a video of him performing it live at the 2008 EMAs. I couldn’t understand what the hubbub was all about, but assumed the video recording quality was what was getting in the way. Then I heard that version of the song linked from his website and still wasn’t that impressed. Little did I know that the song was just not finished.

Finally, Kanye posted an mp3 to his blog of the final version of the song and damn is it good. It was especially awesome that he was releasing the song for free to create a buzz. The blog entry’s title is also interesting: “AFTER PERFORMING AND HEARING THIS IN THE CLUB I DECIDED 2 MIX IT AND MASTER IT AGAIN…”  He used technology as a testing ground and confirmed that music doesn’t have to be made in a black box. He even released the stems for the remix inclined. After a long discussion with my friend, I’ve come to realize this isn’t all about marketing–rather it’s a genuine desire to produce the best material possible. Have other artists done this before? Absolutely. But I think it’s still an interesting example of iterative artistry and I hope we see more of it in the furture.

What I was actually listening to is the third single off of Kid Rock’s most recent album “Rock n Roll Jesus.”  And by most recent I mean from last October. Three singles in 9 months? Pretty good, Kid Rock.

So basically this piece of garbage is Kid Rock singing inane lyrics over top of Werewolves of London with a little Sweet Home Alabama mixed in. What you get in return is a song that offends the sensibilities. I don’t even like Werewolves of London nor do I really even like Sweet Home Alabama before. But let’s examine a snippit of Kid Rock’s brilliant songwriting:

We didn’t have no internet
But man I never will forget
The way the moonlight shined upon her hair

Whenever I think of the Internet, I think about the moonlight in a woman’s hair.

And we were trying different things
We were smoking funny things
Making love out by the lake to our favorite song

Pretty talented to rhyme “things” with “things”!

Now, Kid Rock says that all these events took place in 1989. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that 1989 was a really popular year for the 1974 release of Sweet Home Alabama. Correct me. PLEASE, CORRECT ME.

I’m glad you found a softspot in your heart for that song, Kid Rock. But it sounds to me like you REALLY prefered Werewolves of London, as that is what you so heavily sampled. Or did you basically just want to gank a catchy guitar rift and piano medley so that you had all that time to write those really GREAT lyrics?

I just can’t believe people listen to this drivel.

Though long neglected, my blog and I just celebrated two years of at least monthly updates. If you have never visited, Notes on Culture is mainly my hub for various projects I’m working on or for writing that doesn’t quite fit into my other projects. Take a look back at the two+ years worth of material, including book reviews, film notes, and writings on arts policy.

Notes on One Song: Donald Byrd’s “Fancy Free”

Was their 1970 album “Psychedelic Shack” a good idea? I think so, but a lot of other people probably do not. The band combines their ethereal vocals with fuzzed-out guitars, spacey sounds, and some nice countercultural touches. While far from the ideal flower children, The Temptations really tapped into some of the interesting things associated with the music of peaceful protest. While stuff like “It’s Summer” is probably truer to the group’s older material, something like their cover of War’s “War” shows where their new sympathies lie.

The highlight is the introspective track “Take a Stroll Through Your Mind,” a lengthy, often understated trip into the self. This is pretty far-out from typical Temptations music. The closest kin that I can think of is Marvin Gaye’s “A Funky Space Reincarnation” in scope and aim.

Check out this video of a subdued, but fascinating, performance of the title track:

I attempted to rectify this that first year of college. My room had become the place to play Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, so 80s radio was always on. I had enjoyed 80s music before this, but getting a hold of the whole soundtrack furthered my love of the era and sent me looking for more of the music that I had just missed growing up. I knew I wanted to make a good 80s mix to listen to in the car that summer. It needed not to just be my favorite 80s songs piled together, but it needed to have some sort of progression in the track order. After all, track order is just as important as song selection. Looking back, that first 80s Summer Mix was pretty weak—too many of the big hits surrounded by stuff from Vice City.

I also went about constructing a Summer Rock Mix and a Summer Rap Mix. The idea was that they had to be newish songs (within the last couple of years) that I had discovered within the year. So it wasn’t my favorite rap songs of all time, but rather a survey of what I listened to recently. I’ve kept up this tradition for five sets of Summer Mixes. I’m contemplating replacing the Rap Mix with a 90s Rock Mix, as I just haven’t really listened to hip-hop/rap this year. I’m excited about the 80s and Rock mixes, though. Both of them have gotten stronger over time.

Like thousands of other people, I recently discovered the website muxtape.com. It’s a place where you can upload up to 12 tracks into a single online mixtape, which others can listen to on the site in a Flash audio format. You can’t create fancy pages or multiple playlists—Muxtape is about simplicity. So in the spirit of loving 80s music and my excitement for the upcoming Summer Mix season, I’ve created a 12 track playlist of some of my favorite 80s songs. This was extremely difficult, considering it was hard enough for me to pair down a 9-hour long playlist for an 80s party last year. This mix isn’t representative of the breadth of my existing mixes nor does it try to throw in really obscure things to prove how cool I am. These are just Eighties tunes that I really love.

The 80s Muxtape

And keep your eyes and ears peeled for the straight up bokista muxtape.

But, Bobby, what’s Virtual Fools? Well of course it is a blog, but it’s not my blog. It’s a place that has existed before people even used the word blog. We used to have “news” updates that would let people know about new content, but those posts weren’t generally entries on their on. Virtual Fools started as a place to post articles about popular culture before blogging took off. Old articles would take the shape of stories about visits to the boardwalks, movies and games, and even “Funny IMs” and even some comics.

Then Kevin and I started posting some of our schoolwork on here and the site transformed into a place less for irreverent humor and instead thoughtful commentary on culture. We’ve had a handful of contributors who have changed throughout the years, but at the core it’s been a place for Kevin and I to write material with a personal slant. It has never, however, been a blog in the sense of a Live Journal–a blog where we write about our lives beyond what’s relevant to the other topics we’re writing about. I’ve never had such a blog. I mostly keep my personal life to myself.

Despite this, I can’t write about what I want to today without throwing a bit of my personal life in here. It’s an intersection of media and my life that I have a strong emotional connection to. Really, it’s a thank you to someone (and a group of people) who will never read it. It’s a little heavy compared to what mostly appears on Virtual Fools, but I needed a venue.

Like most people, there haven’t been a lot of constants in my life since childhood. That’s to be expected. We all grow and change and move around. It’s one of those things that at some point you learn and you soon get over it. I’m fortunate to have been surrounded by great friends and family through the years. But beyond these supportive people, there’s been another voice in my life that dates back to my childhood.

That voice is radio god Don Geronimo. He’s half of the team that does the Don and Mike Show on my local DC station WJFK. Even though I live in Atlanta now I still think of that as my local station. I really enjoy entertainment talk radio and I’ve written about it before. Even as a kid I enjoyed snow days or days where I went into school late so that I could listen to the morning zoo on the light rock station. I listen to a handful of shows these days and love podcasts for the same reason. There’s something wonderful about a medium where voices have to do all the work. It’s always new and engages the imagination.

Through all that changes, the Don and Mike Show has really been one of the most constant things in my life. I remember it vividly. I was in the car with my dad and it was around Christmas time. He was picking me up from a friends house and had the radio on. The jockeys were playing a game where a listener had to call up a family member and speak only in Santa “ho-ho-hos” to win money. If the person they called stayed on the line long enough the cash was theirs. Seems like a silly radio gag, but that moment means a lot to me.

Coming home from middle school I used to enjoy sitting next to my bed and listening to Don and Mike while doing my homework. At that time the show aired from 3 to 7 (and for a little while 2 to 7) and they provided new entertainment every single day. I listened to them through highschool as well. It was harder at that time because I would miss episodes because of afterschool activities. Then the show moved to a 10 to 2 slot and I couldn’t hear it at all. It became even harder in college because my town didn’t have a station that syndicated the show. But I always made an effort to find a way to listen. I was even lucky enough to have a best friend in college who also was a listener of the show. The day they started podcasting recorded segments of Don and Mike in our last year of college was a great moment. Again I could reconnect with a show that I only caught snippets of. I haven’t missed an hour of the show since.

Why do I write about this now? Well today is the day that Don Geronimo (real name Mike Sorce) is retiring. Dating it back to that nighttime Christmas segment that I still remember, it’s been 14 years. He’s a great broadcaster and it’s sad to see him go.

Three years ago Don’s wife Freda was tragically killed in a car accident. I remember climbing into my car at 3:10 that day and something seemed amiss. Don wasn’t on the air and the tone of Mike and newsman Buzz Burbank was somber. I had missed the news as it was first announced at 3. After a few minutes they repeated the story and I remember tearing up. Freda was often a part of the show, calling in for commentary or to reprimand Don’s silly antics. I was driving down to visit Kevin in Williamsburg in the middle of the summer. I drove down 95, dreading the moment when I would lose WJFK’s signal. When I came back home from that little trip I remember talking about it with my dad. Even though we both listened to the show, we never really talked about it. After all, at times I was a little young for the material–didn’t really want to talk about “dialing for transvestites” with my dad. But we shared that moment of sadness.

Don didn’t come back until 20 days later, when he took the microphone by himself and shared his feelings on air. What makes Don’s radio presence so strong is his ability to share his personal life with millions of listeners across the country. Other radio people might talk about things that go on at home, but Don really spoke from his heart–something difficult to do when you’re mostly making fart jokes and talking about American Idol. But he shared his feelings about Freda that day and it was one of the first times I had to deal with death since being a kid. You might be skeptical, but I learned what it’s like to deal with death from this.

I didn’t know it at the time (or maybe I did but didn’t want to know it), but when I shared in that moment with my dad over Freda’s passing, my dad knew that this moment would be all too familiar. He had been battling with cancer for seven years and the fights were getting more difficult. I always remained optimistic about the situation–sometimes, I think now, disillusionally so. But it even if was harder, it seemed so much better to be positive than negative. It’s the difference between hope and dread. We never talked about it and I honestly was shocked when I my mom called me at college and told me that I needed to come home immediately, no more than a month after Don Geronimo came on the air to talk about the love of his life and how she was taken from this world. Don’s radio presence after his wife’s death was strong, even if behind the scenes he was being torn apart. I learned that life is difficult and we have to find ways to cope.

I associate Don’s voice with my dad. It’s comforting. And, at this point, it has been the male voice in my life for longer than any other.

So today, as Don signs off the Don and Mike Show for the last time, I’m sad. I’m sad to be losing this show that has entertained me and kept me happy. We knew it was coming, but we thought we’d hear Don’s voice until May. Don decided that he needed to accelerate his retirement to get his life in order, and as much as I’m sad, I can understand. But I’m sad to be losing a bit of continuity that has existed when all else has changed. I’ll continue to listen to Mike O’Meara’s new show, but it’s the end of an era. The whole team is a great bunch of broadcasters. I can’t thank Don enough for the hours he’s given us and for the happiness the show has provided in my life.

Thank you, Don Geronimo.

I went by the Continuum Books booth in hopes of getting some discounted 33 1/3 series books. For those who do not know, the 33 1/3 series presents small (almost pocket-sized) books each about one particular album. The implicit argument in each book is that the album under consideration is important, that is somehow different from other albums generally taken to be similar, and that it deserves to be considered as such by a reading public. The series has attracted a lot of fans, from people cut in the obsessive mold of the main characters from High Fidelity to folks who just like tunes. That these books were not heavily discounted at the Continuum table this SCMS (as in previous years) was a surprise and I didn’t end up buying any new titles. But, I have been thinking about the single album-single book format.

I think that an interesting departure from this – and please correct me if such a series already exists – would be a series of small books on single songs. While this blog post is obviously not a book (one does not need to be the distant relative of Johannes Gutenberg to notice that), I would like to take a few minutes to discuss a single song and its associative interests. That song, as mentioned before, is “Born Slippy/Nuxx.”

I won’t go into the history of the band (try this) and won’t say too much about my individual response to their music (but I will point you here, as Joe seems to have had a similar interest in them). Rather, I keep thinking about why “Born Slippy/Nuxx” sticks out in my head as the quintessential song of 1990s British techno – in contradistinction to Oasis – “Wonderwall” as the quintessential British-grunge-invasion song – and why this particular Underworld track seems to have lived beyond much of their other music. Note that they are still active and touring, that they could well forge a new anthem of equal distinction.

I realized that they answer lay in the song’s visual (I’ll explain) element and how that element circulated in mid 1990s pop culture. Of all of Underworld’s music, much of which is in accessible in terms of track-length and its use of electronica subgenres not friendly to radio play, “Born Slippy/Nuxx” lived on. “Born Slippy/Nuxx” (technically “Born Slippy .NUXX” was a B-side remix to the single of “Born Slippy.” In typical plunderphonic/techno/electronica fashion, the most worked-over mixes (in some cases several stages removed from original production) are often the most memorable.

Underworld’s song came to be conflated with two grand visual traditions of 1990s British-Visual culture. For example, watch this stellar example of a 1990s electronica music video and think of its associative influences:

The music video links the song (a kind of expresses stream of words and sounds…nothing particularly unified) to the radical, off-kilter visual iconography that the 1990s loved so much. This is the pulsing, oppositional, avant-garde Underworld, a band tested at clubs, raves, and by the, well, underground. Compare to this other visual use, here one of the most globally recognizable series of images of 1990s Britain:

To many, this video (and the film of Trainspotting itself was seen by many as more of a feature-length “music video” and less as an adaptation of an important piece of Scottish literature) is what “Cool Britannia” was all about. In 1996, a Newsweek article declared London the “coolest” city on the planet. Mirroring the similar declaration from Time magazine in 1966 that London was a “swinging” city, the 1990s idea of “Cool Britannia” was a mixture of policy (a kind of friendly climate for arts and culture under Blair and his labour government), people (real: Scary Spice, Noel Gallagher ~ fictive: Bridget Jones, Mark Renton), and place (London, but also the industrial North of 24 Hour Party People). History has shown us that the whole thing was blown a bit out of proportion, but the artifacts still remind us that the period was influential. “Born Slippy/Nuxx” plus the mythology of Trainspotting and the club/drug culture were an absolute zenith of this decade. Street-wise, self-destructive, and excessive, “Cool Britannia” was a late-game attempt at re-asserting British cultural legitimacy.

My general point is that one song, in its various iterations and locations, can have a big impact. There are many others just waiting to be exposed.