Holy fuck you guys, there’s a video for “Punk Rock Girl” by the Dead Milkmen!

Back when I was in high school, we didn’t have yoooooooutube for listening to the punk rock music, no siree. We didn’t really have records anymore either, though. We did have dial-up internet, and we’d somehow find ftp servers and upload a few songs to get a good ratio and then download some random music, like this very song, and have our minds blown. After a scant four hours of effort.

The moral of the story is, goddamn, Joe Genaro was a cutie. Not that high school me would have cared. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, I guess. Wait, wrong song. The opening riffs of this do still give me a rush, though. That’s how you know it’s fucking punk rock.

While my taste is ever-expanding in a breadth of directions that can make it seem erratic or even random, there are a few things that I predictably love. A very incomplete list:

• Disco
• Scandinavia
• Subversive collage
• James Dean
• Homoerotic references to the American West

Today I remembered a music video that actually encompasses (or refers to) all of these elements. What is such a paragon of mitchcodom, you might ask? It is “Summertime Cowboy” by Husky Rescue, a quasi-forgotten gem from the murkily remembered year of 2005.

Husky Rescue is an ambient pop band from Finland (the bastard stepchild of Scandinavia and Russia). I love how this song has a dreamy ambient quality, especially in the synthy piano riff, but also wailing guitar and a tight rhythm section (who doesn’t love meaty drums with snazzy high hat?). I’d also be lying to you if I said that I didn’t love the visuals– 2D Cowboy E.T. dancing in a boat/mysterious darkling plain (later to be killed in a disco by Cloud Cat’s laser beams) warms my heart with every viewing. God bless the Finnish conception of the American West– if you’ve never seen Leningrad Cowboys Go America, this is your personal invitation.

I like to think that this song stands as a reminder that in between the indie rock renaissance of 2001-2002 and the nudisco dance explosion of 2007, there was still good music being made, preparing to bridge the gap.  I wonder what’s coming out right now that I’m not hearing but would love.

I’ve never seen the film Roadie, but I found this clip on youtube the other day and think that it might be worth watching:

If not for Blondie’s cover of Johnny Cash, then for Blondie’s insane outfits worn while covering Johnny Cash.

This song makes me cry every. single. goddamn time I hear it:

Including today. Once my friend Stephanie and I tried to karaoke it, but we had to stop and apologize for being too white. Wyclef Jean, an undersung genius.

Oh, Happy Day! There’s a new Beyoncé video! Check out “Why Don’t You Love Me”:

Things that I love:

• She’s parodying/inhabiting the role of post-war (up through 1970s) housewife, one that we usually seen in the context of being oh-so-very-white.
• It was filmed with a vintagey/Super 8 kind of feel, which somehow contributes to Beyoncé’s even-more-than-usual face-melting hotness.
• This video is ostensibly about a man who wronged/is wronging her, but there are no men in the video. And let’s be honest here, who needs men when we have so much hot Beyoncé to look at?
• That funktastic driving bassline and percussion, combined with the lyrics (“I got beauty, I got class, I got style, and I got ass /And you don’t even care to care”; “There’s nothing not to love about me”) make this a pretty decent “You wronged me and I am ANGRY” anthem, though I’d like to see a little more tooth. “Good Luck” by the Basement Jaxx, you’ve almost got some competition.
• She feather-dusts her Grammys. Yeah, that’s right.
• Did I mention her runny eye makeup? While drinking those giant fucking martinis? Sweet Jesus, that pot roast isn’t the only thing that’s on fire.