| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Carl |
Posted - 07/26/2006 : 17:36:21
This article about YouTube talks about The Pixies appearance on Dennis Miller, but only for a few paragraphs, so as it's four pages long, I only posted the relevant paragraphs. I'm sure the link will stay active for a while anyway.
[EDIT]Added another article, commenting on this one!
http://www.observer.com/20060731/20060731_Tom_Scocca_pageone_offtherec.asp
I already knew this when I’d watched the moment live. I realized what YouTube was doing
to television when I found myself watching Dennis Miller as he conducted a post-
performance interview with the now-canonized turn-of-the-90’s band the Pixies on his talk
show. He strolled up to the mike and introduced himself to the lead singer, Black Francis.
“Black, I’m Embarrassingly White Dennis,” Mr. Miller said, and I cringed. Fourteen years
after the fact.
Suddenly, via YouTube links, those lost moments click back into view, as if a telegram from
your great-grandfather were showing up in your e-mail. When the Pixies popped up on my
laptop, playing on Dennis Miller, I was transported: I was standing in front of my dorm-room
television, 14 years in the past, in the peach-tinged glare of an early-generation halogen
torchiere. The Pixies more or less invented what would be called alternative rock, but broke
up before it finished becoming a viable commercial category; they were not a band you heard
much on the radio, let alone saw on a talk show.
I felt a gleeful kick as Black Francis scurried up to the mike and announced they were
covering a “Reid Brothers song”—a secret handshake to us viewers who not only knew the
Jesus and Mary Chain, but knew the Jesus and Mary Chain’s names. The band tore through
“Head On,” just like they’d torn through it in 1992.
But then Mr. Miller—the sly rebel comedian, the Saturday Night Live legend, who knew
enough to book the Pixies on his own show—came over to greet them. And he was … a
tool. He was smarmy; he was stilted; his floppy West Coast suit was ridiculous. He wasn’t
funny.
He wasn’t funny? I was sure Dennis Miller was funny in 1992. I remembered it. He came on
funny in the 80’s, with force. We all watched “Weekend Update” and recited back the best
parts between bells on 10th-grade Mondays. Then when we were in college, the talk show
was funny too, even if it did bomb. He only descended into unfunniness over the next decade,
taking the wrong projects, hardening into a cranky, right-wing bore. But I knew he was funny
before that, just like people knew Brando wasn’t a fat blob in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Nope. He was lousy. YouTube had him dead to rights. There was another clip of him, from
earlier, sitting down with David Letterman at the height of his SNL fame. Mr. Letterman?
Funny. Mr. Miller? Lousy, lousy, lousy. Everything that would make him a washout on
Monday Night Football was already on display: the obviously canned pop-culture
references; the clumsy timing; the attempt to mask his stiffness and incompetence with
smugness. What had the 20-year-old me been thinking? How could I have been so wrong?
But you can’t live without television anymore. The Pixies, at one point, tried to defy it—
recording an unwatchably tedious music video for their single “Velouria.” It was a single take,
in ultra-slow motion, of the band members running across a field of rocks and out of view. In
the music-video industry, it was an act of self-immolation: It’s widely held that the video aired
only once. As I write this, it has been viewed 2,917 times on YouTube, and someone else
has posted a tribute video.
Dennis Miller.
http://www.gawker.com/news/music/pasty-gen-x-guy-wont-stop-talking-about-how-he-caught-pixies-at-middle-east-back-in-89-190049.php
  
Pasty Gen X Guy Won't Stop Talking About
How He Caught Pixies at Middle East Back
in '89
Without the assistance of recently-
Condefied reporter Gabe Sherman, the
Observer's Off the Record column is free
to roam to the wildest corners of editor
Tom Scocca's imagination -- like an in-
depth look at YouTube! And today, that
means peppering your article with
anecdotal nostalgia:
Then the Pixies popped up on my
laptop, playing on Dennis Miller, I was transported: I was standing in front
of my dorm-room television, 14 years in the past, in the peach-tinged glare
of an early-generation halogen torchiere [...] I felt a gleeful kick as Black
Francis scurried up to the mike and announced they were covering a "Reid
Brothers song"--a secret handshake to us viewers who not only knew the
Jesus and Mary Chain, but knew the Jesus and Mary Chain's names. The
band tore through "Head On," just like they'd torn through it in 1992.
YouTube wha? Clearly Scocca would much rather be writing about his beloved
Pixies -- in the slow media summer, who wouldn't? -- so in the spirit of
opportunity, we're allowing him to share his top 10 Pixies songs (iTunes playlist
obviously TK):
Tom Scocca's Top 10 Pixies Songs
1. Bone Machine
2. Break My Body
3. Gigantic
4. Gouge Away
5. The Holiday Song
6. In Heaven
7. Oh, My Golly!
8. Rock Music
9. There Goes My Gun
10. Where Is My Mind?
Bonus: Debaser, as covered by a Japanese band called Feed
There you go! Now you don't even have to read the article.
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