VH1Classic thoughts (first in an irregular series)


Why does Neil Young not use a conditioner?

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That Platinumweird video fooled me the first time. Well, 85 percent. There was this slighty off quality, the tell-tale whiff of anachronesis. Strange, if they'd gone to just a tiny bit more trouble they could really have made it look like a time capsule from 1974. It's just a little too stylish. Fact: Dave Stewart really was signed to Elton's Rocket label, he was in some hippie-type band called Longdancer.

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Why do bands (e.g. the Allman Brothers) have two drummers? It's not like you can really hear any difference.

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Debbie Harry used to have really healthy gums.

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What's the deal with the dancing of the guitarist and the bassist in Fine Young Cannibals? All that leggy, crab-wise, shake it all about stuff. One of them in particular looks like he's got muscular dystrophy. Actually he moves his feet in almost exact analogue to the way Roland Gift sings...

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As sexy as--

.... the fine, fair hair of the young Rob Halford.

.... the bare, hairy, cut-off-T-shirt arms of that (very able) drummer in John Mellencamp's band

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Ron Wood is the quintessence of the post-"It's Only Rock'n'Roll" Stones utter (if still enjoyable now and then) irrelevance, isn't he? It's like its all embodied in him, he's like the custodian or mascot or emblem of their copped-out-ness. I was really quite taken aback when Nikki Sudden mentioned towards the end of our interview that his grand ambition was to write a biography of Ronnie. It's hard to think of a figure further removed from the spirit of postpunk, really. I started the Boogaloo talk by describing postpunk as a one giant answer record to "It's Only Rock'n'Roll" and i'm not entirely sure what I meant, but in some vague mystical sense it seems true.

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Cool how the video for "I Can't Go For That" literalises the glittering production with its reflected light bouncing off the instruments dazzle. It's the only tune by Hall & Oates I've ever liked (bought the single at the time) and the hard-hearted cynicism of the fending-off-intimacy lyric ("I can't go for being twice as nice/I can't go for just repeating the same old lines") still gives me a shiver with its abrasive adultness.

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Can anybody explain Mott the Hoople to me? I dig them fine enough as music, but they're one of those bands that are About Something, right? There's a Dylan-meets-glam kinda thing going on. The "spirit" of something or other.

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I always forget about Slade.