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People! I ask you — no, I beg you — to watch the above video, starting at around 1:00, and observe until the end. Take a moment to formulate an opinion, free of bias. Once you think you know how you FEEL about this rock combo, please head out to the following web address to learn a bit of back story about the band in question:
http://www.thecoolgroove.com/hello.html
At the end of this long journey of discovery, please tell us what you think of the band in focus, both pre- and post-backstory. Speaking for myself, I can honestly say I have never experienced a performance that so completely filled me with equal portions of seething hatred and earnest enjoyment. I am in such deep spiritual torment I think I ought to check myself into a monastery, or a loony bin, or something. This band has completely shaken my faith in everything.
I look forward to your responses, and… help!
HVB
Mime should never mix with rock, or anything else for that matter. It should remain pure and in its own universe, which never intersects with mine. Damn you, hvb!
The backstory was actually hilarious and fascinating. It’s unbelievable that there’s only one degree of separation between these clowns and Jesse Winchester and Gram Parsons — later Hello People drummer (not in this video, I don’t think) N.D. Smart.
And I wonder, what’s with the TV show where in the opening all the dancers are black and and at the end they’re all white?
First of all, that theme song for the show – I didn’t realize The Specials’ song with “JB” in the title, listing all the James Bond movie titles, wasn’t an original, or at least an original piece of music.
Second, I dig the host’s white nehru-collared shirt!
OK, this clip should have a Parental Advisory Board warning on it. It’s as morally corrupt as the rape scene in A Clockwork Orange. Maybe more so. I am tempted to remove this post from the Halls of Rock for its outrageous and completely tasteless content!
But I’ll leave it here, because this is a fascinating find worthy of further investigation. Perhaps we can track down a member of two from this band and do an RTH interview…
Thanks, hrrundi. I’m disturbed but delighted.
My first reaction was “Why are mimes miming music?” Is a sly commentary on the nature of tv band performances? But the music was just so twee (I wanted to get up and do the frugg) and didn’t seem to go along with the potential for rich, ripe irony. It seemed to be more in line with one of the bands from A Mighty Wind.
Back story – interesting, but didn’t change my mind. I would have liked the artiness to be more, well, arty.
Some more info for Mr. Moderator re. the Specials Sock To Em JB. Esp. check out the end:
http://funky16corners.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/rex-garvin-the-mighty-cravers-sock-it-to-em-jb-pt1-aka-whats-in-a-name/
Very cool, ladymisskirroyale. I, too, first assumed that song was a tribute to James Brown. I haven’t been to Funky16Corners in some time. Good to get reacquainted with that fine blog.
Man, I figured it would be bad when the host says they’re running out of time and the only thing they did was the opening of the show. I hated everything about it. Then I read the backstory, and now I hate everything and everybody.
Except Titus Andronicus. I can’t hate them. Hey, Oats – you were looking for new ramshackle fun awhile back – have you checked out Titus Andronicus’ The Monitor? I’m really loving it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fqHr_KGPY
Cool fist-pumping song, 2K, and a very cinematic video. It reminds me a bit of the Hold Steady, from what I’ve heard by them. If they’re actually from Bergen County, NJ, as one of the comments on YouTube indicated, a couple of those guys were premature in growing their NJ Devils’ playoff beards. Go, Flyboys!
Truly the stuff that nightmares are made of. I need a beer after watching that!
Haven’t watched that video yet, but — as with the Hold Steady — I hate the Titus Andronicus stuff I’ve heard so far. A) I despise all indie-rock with a heavy Springsteen influence, except for The Constantines. B) Lead singer’s got that awful Conor Oberst style of singing, like he’s getting punched in the nuts the whole time.
Ha! I thought you might hate that, Oats. Perhaps, as with The Boss and the Hold Steady, I’d quickly grow tired of this band after one song, but I don’t mind hearing a few more energetic, journeyman rockers like this the rare times I flip on a music radio station.
What was their manager thinking, allowing them to get mixed up in mime? It could have at least have been something more socially acceptable, like a religious cult, or smack. We can only be thankful this never caught on with the kids thinking it was “cool and groovy” to do mime.
This is the part of the story that cracks me up:
“Etienne De Crux, the father of French mime … taught painting to a group of musicians. Since these musicians learned to paint so quickly, De Crux reasoned that musicians could also learn mime and apply it in some new way to create a new form.”
Hey it seemed like a good idea at the time. Remember that there are other mime-related Rock Crimes. David Bowie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiKWEf2luMY
Leo Sayer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2o2kdd_Veo
And Bill Graham got his start in showbiz as manager of the San Francisco Mime Troupe and started in concert promotion as a way of raising funds for their legal defense. I guess someone had the good sense to charge them with a Rock Crime.
Oh mime, so much to answer for!
Hello People: another of the many 60s mellow sunshine pop bands. Okay as an appetizer, pretty slight for a full meal.
Titus Andronicus: Saw them live. Every song had a I-IV change, with no discernible melody, as far as I could tell. Like Oates said, an emo band crossed with a Civil War reenactment.
Let’s not forget: “mime is money.”
I forgot you hated The Hold Steady, Oats. Craig Finn does some of the between song speeches, I think. They make them sound real old. I thought this would be something I wouldn’t like, but a friend just kept bugging me about it, so I bought it. It’s been really growing on me and I seem to like it more and more the more I hear it.
It’s certainly a hell of a lot better than The Hello People.
Very pre-twee. The mime who started them on their career is actually a very well known mime, apparently, one of the greats. It creeped me out, of course, but my girlfriend burst out laughing the moment it started and repeatedly said “I really really love them.” Can we assess this simply as music? I doubt it. Still, as music: it’s like a bad pop version of a Pink Floyd song you wouldn’t have liked in the original. Another quote from Lorraine: “Once you get into mime, there’s no turning back.”
Wow! Thanks for this (I think?). Weird, weird, weird that “Children of Paradise” spawned this group’s identity. I imagine this to be like watching The Association on bad acid.
Who did people find the most creepy? I vote for the keyboard player. A frozen smile that all but screams “I’ve got a dirty little secret”.
Here’s more mime for you to hate: Howard Jones used to tour with a mime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FagjnIgUk6Q&feature=related
After all of the RTH criticism of Randy Newman and Mick Jagger for blackface performances, it’s about time we got around to criticizing rockers in whiteface.
Yeah, the creepiest creep in this band is definitely the keyboard player, though I gotta give a mad shout out to the flautist, for managing to play the flute as though he was miming it. In a tam-o-shanter, of course.
The tune itself is kind of enjoyable, in that extremely twee Association-lite kind of way. But the band, the performance, the Look… it’s like I’m in hell. First they peel off my skin, then they roll me in rock salt. Then they sit me down on the edge of a giant razor blade with a 200-pound weight on my lap. And THEN the Hello people hit the stage.
The song really didn’t register with me at all, I was wanting to like it but the visual was so weird.
I’m fond of twee-Association type stuff/sunshine pop. The song sounded pretty good really but before I could even trust my ears…as you suggest, the hammering clockwork orange-like quiet horror of pain came creeping in. It is now linked with the song. I’ll hope to revisit it with sound only sometime when the scars heal. Perhaps 2020 or so. 😉
Can you imagine watching this over and over if you were sick with a high fever?
So do you think these guys in the band look back on this and say “Yeah, maybe that mime thing wasn’t such a great idea”….
I’m disappointed. I assumed that the backstory was going to reveal that this was a real-life version of that band from Get Smart, and that in fact they were all neo-Nazis and the quiet, twee, mellow-groovy music was covering subliminal neo-Nazi messages.
Which I guess kind of betrays my opinion about the music.