Archive for the ‘The Bunburys’ Category

The 80s Were Kind of Fucked Up

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

The next time I promise to do five posts in one week I’m going to stick to stupid dance music that I can talk about in 100 words or less.

The Bunburys
Fight (No Matter How Long)
This is the kind of weird, stupid shit I can only find at Jerry’s Records. I got this track off of a 12″ promo single. The single had no art, just a label that read the following:

“In the tradition of famous pseudonyms like Dr. Winston O’Boogie, George Harrysong, Klark Kent, The Glimmer Twins, Suzy and The Red Stripes, Lord Chocice, and The Barbusters comes The Bunburys. The lead vocalist and guitarist on this track is a core artist on rock radio, who is currently at a crossroads at his career. One listen and the mystery will be solved.”

Oooh! So mysterious! That label is right though, as soon as you start playing this record it’s more than obvious that the singer/guitarist in question is none other than Eric Clapton (as if the whole “Crossroads” reference on the label wasn’t hint enough).

What’s weird about this is that the label makes no mention of the other artists who make up The Bunburys. This was actually not a side-project or pseudonym for Clapton, he’s just a guest on the track. Actually, The Bunburys was a pseudonym for The Bee Gees.

Details on how and why the Bee Gees decided to record as The Bunburys are a little hard to come by, although this site fills in the details good enough. Apparently it was their manager David English’s idea. He was working on a children’s cartoon that taught the importance of teamwork and…um…cricket to impressionable young Britons and he had The Bee Gees created a theme song for the show. That track, “We Are The Bunburys,” was was released as a single in 1986.

Now, what I can’t find out is how/why they decided to re-release the single in 1988, with this decidedly non-children’s song as the B-side. I also cannot find out how the hell Eric Clapton got involved, and I certainly can’t decipher exactly how or why this track ended up on the soundtrack to the 1988 Olympics.

I’m just going to chalk it all up to “wtf 80s” and be done with it. I can’t think about this stuff too much, it makes my brain hurt.

Wall Of Voodoo
Do It Again (Extended Mix)
Do It Again (Bonus Beats)
Do It Again (Single Version)
Do It Again (Dub Mix)
Further proof of my “wtf 80s” hypothesis.

This is a cover of a Beach Boys song by Wall Of Voodoo, or at least the band that was calling themselves Wall of Voodoo in the late 80s (lead singer Stan Ridgway and two other members of the classic line-up had left the band by this point). I was a child in the 80s, and while I do recall a prevailing theme of 1950s nostalgia throughout the entire decade, even that can’t explain how something as batshit crazy as this manages to will itself into existence.

Even more out there, Brian fucking Wilson from the Beach Boys appeared in the video, which is so freaky and trippy that I’m surprised it didn’t make the poor bastard relapse into another psychotic episode.