More Frivolity

Britpop Nostalgia Week here in Deonandia is almost over, but not before a few more fun old videos. Yesterday I mentioned Shaun Ryder who, while virtually unknown in North America, is considered a legend in the UK. Here’s his most famous offering, “Step On” by the Happy Mondays:

Since I know someone is going to ask, the extras are speaking Malaysian, not Japanese. And the dork dancing about with the maracas is the ageless Bez, who rumour has it started out as Shaun’s drug dealer. Ironically, despite comparable drug abuse, Bez has aged more gracefully than Shaun. Here’s Bez winning Celebrity Big Brother in 2005:

But who wants to see Bez? We’re more interested in the train wreck that is Shaun Ryder. In the following clip, Ryder appears on a UK TV show to pretend he’s Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols,and ends up swearing so much that he is thereafter banned from ever appearing on the show again:

Now let’s shift gears a bit and look at another fellow, Stuart Price. Price has been called a “musical genius” by many, but I doubt if I could find 10 people within a 100 mile radius of me who could tell me anything about Price. He tends to go by many names, including “Jacques Lu Cont”, which was his monicker when he “fronted” the one-man band, “Les Rythmes Digitales.” In that manifestation, Price would pretend to be French, even giving English interviews through a translator! Here is what I believe to be the finest music video ever made, for its satirical look at the 1980s:

Price was also Madonna’s tour director and wrote many of her songs in the past decade. Then he created another band, Zoot Woman, and plunked himself in the background playing bass. All before he was 30. Here is the hypnotic Zoot Woman video for “Living In A Magazine”:

Is it me, or does the singer look a lot like Michael Rosenbaum, the dude who plays Lex Luthor in Smallville:

And thus endeth this week’s plummet into musical frivolity. Tune in next time for a return to our regular topics. Same Wat time. Same Wat channel.