Idolator
Not to turn this into "decades-old promo clips for post-punk bands" week here at Idolator, but listening to Rough Trade's unimpeachable Wanna Buy A Bridge? compilation this morning sent me on a journey into the YouTubed heart of darkness for a few grainy, turn-of-the-'80s jolts, only to come back with Bristol's awesome post-adolescent funk mess the Pop Group miming their deranged music to delirious footage of tribal dancing and society collapsing. Side note: that new billion-dollar 50 Cent/Akon advertisement for their killing prowess is improved tremendously by leaving "She Is Beyond Good And Evil" on to play behind it.
The Pop Group - She Is Beyond Good And Evil [YouTube]
The Pop Group - The Boys From Brazil [YouTube]
Comments
I'm puzzled: where did they ever SHOW things like this before YouTube came along? The BBC? Pirate television? Before anarchist double-features at Bristol cinema-communes? Discos? Concerts?
Also: there is never a bad reason to play Wanna Buy A Bridge?
The Rough Trade Post Punk 1 comp put out a few years ago was a revelation to me.
@dickdogfood: I sometimes wonder about that, Cabaret Voltaire had a few pretty sophiscated videos (for the early 80s) and I don't know where they aired.
It's amazing how the song "Beyond Good and Evil" hasn't aged one bit and it's nearly 30 years old.
Well, Cabaret Voltaire...I do remember seeing a bunch of their videos aired on (the totally fucking awesome USA Network series) Night Flight a buncha times but they couldn't possibly have been made with that show in mind.
Night Flite (or as it Flight?) was the first place I saw the Minutemen. NF probably-coulda-did show the Pop Group, somehow, someday.
Weirdly enough, some crazy shit also used to slip onto U68, for those in the NYC area in the early 80s...
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