It is the final day of Minnesota Week here on Another Flavor and that makes me very sad. To cheer myself up I am writing about a truly upbeat song by the most Minnesotan band in existence: The Hawaii Show. Now, you might think that it is strange that the most Minnesotan band has a different state in their name, but no matter. Check out this line:

“His mom is a slut and his dad is a dude who you always see hanging out at Deja Vu.” Deja Vu is a strip bar in Minneapolis. I looked it up on Yelp and the first review starts like this: “The Vu is the only strip club I have ever been to, and my review might be bias [sic] because I was there with a gang of Norwegian exchange students.” That is extremely Minnesotan. This is from the song “Super Fucked Up” which I will not be writing about.

What I will be writing about is a video from The Hawaii Show’s video called The Hawaii Video. The guy who does all the music for The Hawaii Show used to be in the best Minnesota band so far, Lifter Puller (also called Lftr Pllr, which is awesome). You may know them as the band where the singer and bassist went on to be the singer and guitar player in non-Minnesota band The Hold Steady. The drummer of Lifter Puller became a photographer whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone and other publications. The guitar/keyboard player from Lifter Puller started The Hawaii Show. I saw them once at the Weisman Art Museum for an event called “Funk at the Fred”. The Hawaii Show’s live shows were all lip synced. That is core to their performances. At one point the singer bit the head off a stuffed bat and spit fake blood into the audience and some got in my hair. Is that why I’m frequently disappointed by live performances? Probably.

Anyway, the slogan of The Hawaii Show is “It’s not just a headset, it’s a mindset.” I think you’ll see what that means here:

The video looks super washed out, but I’m pretty sure that’s just the way it was made. Maybe the wall behind him wasn’t really white and he was trying to correct for that? He does say in a song not appearing in this video, “That’s right, I’m white. You know, whiter than off-white.” It doesn’t matter. This isn’t technically only a music video. It’s part of a approximately 12 minute long video that includes songs, skit-type stuff (including Mr. Hawaii Dude making a booty call and then promising to arrive in seven-and-a-half minutes), and some other weird things. I’ll be writing about the video for the song Choaderin’ that appears at the beginning of this video.

The video consists primarily of a single man singing and dancing.

He’s a good looking guy, similar in many ways to a Minnesotan Tom Cruise.

The singing and dancing is interspersed with shots of the man doing aerobics in front of an aerobics video that he is clearly not too familiar with.

He keeps looking over his shoulder to make sure he is doing whatever the people in the video are doing.

At the beginning of the song there is a keyboard solo and we get some air keyboard from Mr. Hawaii Dude.

Then the song starts with “Aloha!”

“It’s time to say goodbye.” There’s some really good literal and semi-literal interpretation of the lyrics in this guy’s dancing. I also like that he works aloha in since it is The Hawaii Show.

While singing, he starts looking through his pockets.

This is awesome. What is he looking for? I don’t even care.

That’s not it.

While he does this he gives a real Minnesotan shout-out. The lyrics are, “It’s so easy to get up and go. It’s so easy to choad. I really think so, Minneapolis, Saint Paul. There’s plenty of girls and guys right here in the land of 10,000 booty calls.”

We get some good pantomiming here. “It’s so easy to hit the road.”

He’s really knocking that one out of the park.

Then he gets into it.

“Yo. It’s Friday ladies and yesterday’s gone and tomorrow’s gonna bum you out if you don’t make out today. Do you remember last year when it started to rain and we took cover in the parking garage and dudes with mullets were trying to parallel park next to chicks with heavenly souls?”

Are those the best lyrics every written? Probably in the top 5. Especially if you look at the make-out music genre. He also throws in a reference to Minnesotan sex shop Sexworld.

Now we get a great series of dance moves. We get the action hands.

This is followed by a little kick.

Into some important clothing-related prep work.

And finally the pay off. He has arranged his clothing to properly flow in the breeze while he puts his hands out like Jesus.

That fan is really doing some work.

There is an extended outro that ends with a solid finger point.

“Ladies call me later!”

I’m not sure if I can describe how happy this video makes me. It certainly has done more for me than any major religion or intoxicant. It is ridiculous and funny and catchy and beautiful. It looks homemade (and certainly is) but doesn’t seem to be half done. You couldn’t make a video like this with a big budget. Having a guy prance around in front of a fan is a decidedly lo-fi and lo-brow venture but it really works here. If you watch his face throughout the video he is really trying to be maximally entertaining.

I’m entertained and so should you be. Join me next week when we return to the 49 other states.

-PTD

Welcome to Minnesota Week here at Another Flavor! It’s day four and things are starting to heat up. Literally. Hahahaha! Haha!

Suicide Commandos are another inexplicably loved Minnesota band. I’m just realizing that this blog makes it seem like I don’t really like Minnesota music. That is preposterous. I love it. But maybe just writing a love letter to a video is not that interesting? I don’t know. Analysis of my feelings is definitely not a part of this blog because I’m a Minnesotan so we won’t dwell on this.

Suicide Commandos are an old school 1970s punk band. They have an affinity for the music of the 1950s and are bad at their instruments. They are also not too concerned with things like “song structure” or “melody” or “quality music”. Those things are not important. What is important, though, is making a pretty sweet early music video.

Burn It Down by Suicide Commandos:

I really like this video. It has a great, lo-fi energy that really connects with me.

It opens with a title card, which I love.

Cleverly, the title card starts on fire and then is all burned up.

Then, the song is introduced by a talking dog. In this case they use a dalmatian because of the fire theme.

Note: Talking dogs are extremely common in Minnesota.

Then, we get a series of people wearing firefighter hats who also introduce the song, or at least say the name of it. There’s this woman who is very angry.

I included a picture of this next woman because I love how her shirt really doesn’t match with the hat.

This guy looks really familiar. Is he an actor? Let me know if you can place him.

This guy seems a little out of it.

The comments for this video on YouTube are probably the only YouTube comments on any video ever that contain helpful information. According to these comments most of the people in the firefighter hats were local winos who were recruited for the video.

Then we get to see the band rocking out in front of a burning building.

These are not high tech special effects. The band is standing in front of a real building that is actually on fire and are recording this video. That’s what passed for special effects in the old days. Apparently that building, which was Suicide Commandos’ rehearsal space, was being demolished using fire (is that something cities do? Burn buildings down on purpose?) because it was condemned. The band wrote a song for the occasion and decided to film a video in front of the burning building. That is awesome. I think this might be the first case of a band writing a song specifically for a video, rather than the other way around. I don’t see why more bands don’t work this way. That’s probably the only way Rob Zombie works.

Look at these dudes! I can’t get over it.

The singer looks like a math teacher who creepily convinced some of his students to play in a band with him.

And sorry ladies, he’s married.

Sorry the picture quality is so terrible, but he is wearing a wedding ring there if you look really hard and squint. He’s a balding man with a beard wearing a button-up shirt and playing music in front of a burning building. I’d marry him if he wasn’t taken. Minnesotans clearly understand that looks (for men) don’t count.

By the end of the song and video the building is mostly burned down.

They add an ending title card as well to let you know who appeared in the video.

That’s sweet. Plus you get to see the band’s logo. I love that the title cards are off center as if they are literally holding cards in front of the camera. I assume that is what they are doing.

This video is pretty sweet. I’d like to think that if I knew when and where a building would be burning, or when a where a clock tower would be struck by lightning, that I would know what to do with that knowledge. I’m not sure. There’s a saying that you can’t know if the wind will come, but you need to make sure your sails are up to catch it. Or something to that effect. Maybe it’s that you can’t know if a wind will come unless you are standing behind a donkey.

Anyways, Suicide Commandos had their sails up and caught this fire. To burn it down.

-PTD

The Replacements are the Minnesota band. Everyone from Minnesota likes them, even if they’ve never heard their music and know nothing about them. Why is that? Well, I’ve been saying over and over again that people from Minnesota love Minnesota and everything that comes from there. Other than that, who knows? They are a really good band.

One thing I love about them is their nickname. Ask a Minneapolis scenester from the 1980s and they will start talking about “The Mats”. Now, you might be saying, “Why are they called ‘The Mats’?” Well, it’s an extremely complicated nickname and I love complicated nicknames. I have a friend named Ricky Greacen. My brother used to call him Ricky Wintertrate. Here’s why: My brother and his friends would call many things and people greasy. Something that was very greasy might be “grease concentrate”. Naturally, this eventually shortened to “greasentrate”. The first two syllables of “greasentrate” are pronounced like Ricky Greacen’s last name. There was a character in the snowboarding game for Nintendo 64 called 1080 named Ricky Winterborn. Thus, you get Ricky Wintertrate.

Okay, back to The Mats. So people at some point decided to give The Replacements a nickname. They started calling them The Replacemats. Funny, right? Then, they thought that was too long, so they shortened it to The Mats. So their nickname doesn’t even come from their band name, but from a joke about their band name. It’s even to the point that the url for their band site on their old record label is just http://www.twintone.com/mats.html. Awesome.

The other thing I love about The Replacements is that they are the most punk band ever. “Wait a minute,” you are probably thinking to yourself, “I thought the Exploding Fuckdolls were the most punk band of all time.” Well, you’re wrong. Although they have an excellently punk name, the Exploding Fuckdolls are not even close to as punk as The Replacements. Punk is not about cool names or clothing or music. Punk is about your attitude. Take a look at this music video:

Now that is a punk rock music video. Someone clearly told them that they had to make a music video. They said no. They were told that they really had to. So they said, “All right! We’ll make a music video. We’ll make a music video that will make them wish they had never been born!”

Obviously, since the entire video is about someone sitting on their couch, I will not write much about that video. That was from Tim, their first major label album. For their next album, Pleased To Meet Me, they made a video for the song Alex Chilton. Clearly someone told them that this time the band had to be in the video. So they made this:

This video just shows the band sitting around, not doing anything. This was hardly an improvement. By their next album, Don’t Tell a Soul, The Replacements gave in. They would attempt to make a normal video with people playing instruments and singing and acting like they wanted someone to like it. It seems like things didn’t go entirely as planned.

I’ll Be You by The Replacements.

The basic premise of the video is that band is following the hook of the song, “You be me for a while and I’ll be you,” by switching instruments occasionally. The band didn’t really commit to it, though. It starts simply enough with a weird and unnecessary broken glass effect.

The bass player is trying the hardest to impress.

He is wearing make-up, a bow tie, and a ridiculous jacket.

Quickly, though, the singer gets tired. He pulls the microphone stand over to a chair and has a seat.

The drummer does his best to play guitar, trying to make the video’s concept work.

The singer can’t take it and puts his head in the bass drum.

When the drum is struck it blows all the air out and he will suffocate. He hopes it works that way, at least.

The band gets it back together enough to play and sing a bit like a normal band.

But the singer walks off in the middle of the chorus.

The bass player tries to pretend like nothing is wrong.

Then, they set up another good shot. The singer sings the hook.

The drummer hands over the drumsticks.

And, instead of sitting down and beginning to play, the singer just throws the drumsticks away and walks off.

So it’s really the singer who is making no effort here. He refuses to commit to the concept of the video.

He takes off his guitar, throws it on the floor, and then sings for a bit.

Then he tries to walk through the drum set and probably hurts himself pretty seriously.

Most likely they had to stop filming after that.

The whole video is extremely punk rock. I feel like coming up with a reasonable concept and then just refusing to do it well is one of the most punk things you could do. But is it Minnesotan? I’m not sure. I guess it is really passive aggressive, and that is definitely Minnesotan. I’m going to say yes, this is Minnesotan. The Replacements are a Minnesotan band. They’re coming to your town. They’re going to be nice around. They’re a Minnesotan band.

-PTD