Thursday, January 25, 2007

Music Video Thursday: "Heartbreaker"

Dread Zeppelin is quite possibly the world's greatest reggae band doing Led Zeppelin covers with an Elvis impersonator. Actually, they're quite possibly the world's only reggae band doing Led Zeppelin covers with an Elvis impersonator, but that's not really important right now.

"Heartbreaker (At the End of Lonely Street)", a mash-up of Zeppelin's Heartbreaker and Elvis' Heartbreak Hotel, appeared on Dread Zeppelin's 1990 release Un-LED-ed. I remember seeing the video for it on MuchMusic at the time - in particular, one scene that attempts to explain the origins of the band, where a milk truck (driven by Tortelvis) collides with a Ford Pinto carrying a reggae band, resulting in Dread Zeppelin. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find that video online, but I did find a video of them performing it in concert. While the exploding automobile quotient isn't nearly as high in the concert video as in the MuchMusic one, it is a marvelous performance that showcases the band's showmanship:



If anyone manages to stumble across the other video for this song online, please let me know where to find it - I'd be ever so grateful, thank you, thank you very much...

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Music Video Thursday: "The Hardest Button to Button"

I'm not sure if I really understand The White Stripes. There's just the two of them - Meg White on drums, and Jack White on just about everything else (but primarily guitars and lead vocals). They claim to be siblings, but they were actually married in 1996 and divorced in 2000. Jack is a very versatile and talented musician, but it seems sometimes that Meg is barely able to keep a steady beat. I'm just not sure I understand them.

But I guess I don't really need to understand them to enjoy their surprisingly catchy tunes or their eye-catching videos. "The Hardest Button to Button" is one of their most famous videos:



And you know that you've made it when the Simpsons decide to parody you.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Music Video Thursday Returns! "Until the End of the World"

Happy New Year everyone! It's 2007, but I feel like I'm stuck in the 80's again - I've got a brand new Apple computer (but a little more powerful than my old Apple ][+), I've been playing Time Pilot (but in MacMAME instead of a dimly lit arcade), and tonight's video has a sort of 80's vibe to it (even though the song is from 2002). Here is Norway's Apoptygma Berzerk, and "Until the End of the World":