Trying To Get Creative Juices Flowing.
I am feeling so blah these days and as if I am just in holding pattern for going to Los Angeles on the 10th of May to go to Cruel World Festival and hanging in L.A. for 9 days. It is a weird feeling because creativity bubbles up from time to time but I just push it to the back of my mind until it dissipates. It is a weird way for a person like me to function but there are just so many distractions here at the parent’s house and I am not feeling like I can just ignore them to be able to create. Instead, I wait for a trip away and back to reality. Reality in this case being the world away from Spokane, Washington.
I am reading a book at the moment called Better Than Sane: Notes From A Dangling Girl by Alison Rose.
I have no idea who Alison Rose is really. From the book? I can gather she is a moneyed young lady who wandered NYC and L.A. attempting to do something, I gather from reading to try to act or model, and just seemed a vagabond who would end up knowing interesting people. Younger people today would call her a “Nepo Baby” but I am not sure I would. Yes, she came from a rich family but that was just a safety net for her as she wandered the world trying to find her place. Isn’t that sort of what we all wish for? To not have to worry about ending up on the streets while we find out who we are and what we want to be? In any case, I find the book very well written and engaging. A peek into her life in the 60’s/70s/80s.
I am midway through the book and will try and finish reading it in the next few days. Maybe afterward I will Google the author and see what she is about beyond this memoir/essay book she has written sometime back in the 1990s.
Last night, as I tried to wind down and get tired? I tore the plastic wrapper off an VHS tape of Rock Video Monthly that a friend sent me.
This VHS had never been opened and I had never encountered it before. It was interesting because it had a lot of 90s era commercials at the beginning and midway during the presentation. There was even a “news break” that gave entertainment news of the time. All very interesting because it was like a time capsule. It is strange to be even enjoying the commercials because they are from a world that no longer exists.
The music videos appeared to be promo videos so not the finished versions that were given to MTV or music video platforms. More made for the industry to promote new songs to possible places that might give them airtime. I looked the videos up on YouTube and the “official videos” are quite different from the ones on the VHS.
The music was okay…Beastie Boys, Sleeper, Gene, ect. Nothing overly exciting but one song stood out and I never knew of the existence of the song before or the band.
Everyone Will Crawl by Charlie Sexton Sextet
Please give the link a click and be as shocked as I was about how decent the song is. The video on YouTube is different than the one on the VHS I have in many aspects. It looks like it was recut for release on MTV in the YouTube version. Still, I was surprised it was the standout on the compilation.
I was not aware that Charlie Sexton had a group at that time and was making music then. He was a “one hit wonder” in my mind with “Beat’s So Lonely.” It was his only song to get any radio play where I lived. I am aware he had a whole career and still does since he is now touring with Elvis Costello. So, a decades old VHS tape alerted me to a song that is quite good from 1995…in 2024.
I did a bit of Googling and found out that the VHS was through a monthly subscription service where people paid $3 for the tapes. On them they got 10 videos to see before everyone else. Very interesting.
I have another of these VHS tapes from Rock Video Monthly to watch that the friend sent. It has also never been opened so I am curious to see if it is more of the “promo versions” of music videos like this one was. I may watch it very soon because it is fascinating getting this window into the past.