Flannel redux

[slipjig3]

Oh, dear gods, am I nostalgia-whipped these days. I basically got hit with a convergence of several strong influences at once:
1) Resumption of work on the Lemmings' Encyclopedia (more on that in another post);
2) Receipt of the link of from Jodi, which instantly planted my brain in the middle of Champaign-Urbana circa 1991;
3) Discussion with rafaela about ten-year-old MTV Buzz Clips, which led to her burning a soon-to-be-received CD crammed with the likes of Veruca Salt, Superdrag and Whitehouse's "I Could Never Be Your Woman"; and
4) Indoctrination into the world of the iCrack iTunes Music Store.

The end result: I have been jonesing for early-to-mid-90's alternative like nobody's business.

You know what I'm talking about. We're talking about music from between 1990 and 1996, from Singles to just-pre-Lilith Fair. We're talking about the time when "alternative" was The Thing, back when there was an overly pat media construct called Generation X. We're talking about the stuff Kennedy played afternoon in and afternoon out on Alternative Nation, in the days when you could mention Gavin Rossdale without mentioning Gwen Stefani first, and when the sky collapsed because the Butthole Surfers and the Flaming Lips (get this) actually got into heavy rotation.

I am in such big trouble.

How big, you ask? Well, it started with a list. Just a simple list, just for giggles, of what songs I would include on a 90's-alt mix, no artists repeated. That list soon reached three figures without a lick of effort. And that was bad, because it made me think. It started to occur to me just how long it's been since I've heard "Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog, and and I began to regret not burning Urge Overkill's version of "Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon" off of Kristi's copy of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack before she bailed town. Then I blew the dust off of my

That's when I got onto iTunes and started downloading. Y'see, I've been hoarding those free-song Pepsi caps at work by the handful, and I've been tearing through them like a scimitar through a Ring-Ding. If you want proof that there's something wrong with me right now, here's what I've procured so far:
"Beercan," Beck
"Big Bang Baby," Stone Temple Pilots
"Plowed," Sponge
"Low," Cracker
"Laid," James
"Something's Always Wrong," Toad the Wet Sprocket
"You," Candlebox
Gods help me: "Stay" by Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories
And now I'm on the verge of sinking even lower, because iTunes has very wide gaps in their available inventory. The problem is that these days I'm only one of maybe 50 people who actually wants this music, so the used CD places are breaking their necks to unload it all. I noted recently that Jennifer Trynin's Cockamamie and Letters to Cleo's Aurora Gory Alice are going for 75 cents apiece on Half.com. For the love of Hannah, somebody stop me, please...

I am seriously in need of a 12-step program right now, folks. I'm finding myself pulled in directions I shouldn't be—I'm now pining for music that I was never all that fond of before (like Blind Melon and the Cranberries), not because I think they've improved at all, but because they instantly bring me back to That Time. No, I don't know what it is about that six- or seven-year span that has taken control of my brain. All I know is that I'm bordering on obsessive at this point. If they haul me off in a canvas shirt with really long sleeves, you'll know what happened.

(Oh, and if anyone's got a copy of "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe" lying around, I'd be most grateful. Thank you.)

Comments

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

I have Cockamamie. And I still listen to it.

Actually... I could very easily join you in this.

GET AWAY!

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

*evil cackle* Oh, I am so taking everyone down with me on this one. *cues up "Send Me on My Way" yet freaking again*

[yendi]

You don't already own Cockamamie? For shame!

And you've seen the "Charts" sections of the iTunes store, right? So you just go to any year and see what Billboard stuff is available.

And there's no shame ever in buying Lisa Loeb stuff. Becuase when she tires of Dweezil, I intend to make her mine, so anything that adds to her fortune is a good thing.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

*giggle* Certainly no shame in Ms. Loeb, no, Just indicative of how far gone I am in this.

And I must be missing something, because I'm checking out the Charts section, and there's nothing here that allows me to search by year, only by artist. What am I doing wrong?

Re:

[yendi]

Yeah, the charts are only sorted by year (although you can search the entire store by artist), but I like browsing by whatever was hot in a given year.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

No, actually, I want to search by year, but can't. It only brings up an enormous artist listing, which does me little good right now.

[rafaela.livejournal.com]

I have created a monster. Apparently, though, while you had this stuff as the soundtrack for your post-adolescent angst, it was the soundtrack for my early adolescent angst.

I'm seriously thinking I need to burn you another CD.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Pretty please? *grin* (And thank you thank you thank you again! You are truly a goddess on earth, m'dear.)

[antsswarm.livejournal.com]

I thought it was Hobo Humpin' Slobo Bitch.

Good Lord, do you remember the video, with the red haired girl and the gigantic lollipop?

I loved the '90s.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Nope, it's "Babe." I remember Rolling Stone's review of the video more than I remember the video itself, only because it began with the sentence, "Every now and then, something comes on MTV that makes you sit up and say, "What the hell is that?!" There's a few other videos out there to which I think such a description would handily apply.

This is your life

[daev.livejournal.com]

2) Receipt of the link of from Jodi, which instantly planted my brain in the middle of Champaign-Urbana circa 1991.

That's Brian Dear's PLATO People site, which intensely creeped me out when I saw it. He's intending to write a book on the PLATO computer network, both the technical and social aspects. Taken seriously, that means a guy I've never met is writing a history of my entire social life at college.

Luckily, he seems clueless. He didn't even know who I was, or Lauren, or slipjig, or any of the other people actually associated with the late-'80s, early-'90s PLATO social scene. I don't intend to help him out. Some stories are better left buried.

Re: This is your life

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

I kind of notices the tendency to ignore the Plato-in-decline years. Pity. Still, just seeing a page printed in cheap line art and orange-on-black type gets me all giddy-like. I'm easily susceptible to such things.

[daev.livejournal.com]

Whitehouse's "I Could Never Be Your Woman"

Wasn't "Your Woman" by White Town? If that's the same song, it's from much later than the early '90s. It's ridiculously compelling, though -- be prepared to have your brain parasitized.

Irrelevant story about "Your Woman": White Town was on a tiny local Champaign-Urbana label called Parasol. One day a British DJ (Mark Radcliffe, I think) played "Your Woman" on his BBC Radio 1 show. The next morning, Geoff Merritt (former Record Service employee, running Parasol on the side) woke up to a phone call from EMI Records in England saying "The entire country is trying to buy your record but nobody knows where the hell Urbana, Illinois is." They gave him a truckload of money for the rights, and now Parasol is flush enough to put out all sorts of money-losing retrospective CDs of defunct Chambana local bands.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Ack, my mistake. Yeah, that's the one. It's actually a 1997 release, but I'm willing to bend the 1996 cut-off slightly for exceptional circumstances (Semisonic's "Closing Time" will likely get the same treatment).

That was a Parasol release?! Omigod, I am thoroughly impressed. (And I thought Hum getting national airplay was a big deal...)