yessaday i stumbled on youtube
looking at the killers doing utmw (ok, i guess)
and i notice theres a killers song called spaceman
and i wonder……
is it…? that spaceman….?
and suddenly my mind is flooded with memories of the mid nineties
and my very very miserable life
starring as a hermit in my own home
either being anxious waiting for some smack to be delivered
or feeling sleepy and stupid after it had arrived
(there was a fucking lot more of the first option, fiendss)
anyway i used to watch a lot of telly in those days
as i waited waited waited waited
and it was then that i first ran into babylon zoo
by the way the killers spaceman was a song theyd written themselves (ok, i guess)
not the babylon zoo spaceman
now dig this
babylon zoo was one guy
an english sikh called jasbinder singh
he went by the name of jas mann
in his home 8 track studio one day circa 1995
he came up with a song spaceman
its a pretty bloody good song
in itself
one olde sk wouldnt have minded writing
tho maybe i wouldnt have been quite so heavy on
the androgynous bleat button
nevertheless a very very good song
glammy ziggy shiny weirdy… all that stuff
(look sorry i have a bit of a penchant for that stuff…done right!)
anyway he got a deal a video was made
but nothing really happened
not much later
arthur baker remixed the record as a twelve inch
now i dunno about you
but i used to buy the occasional 12 inch
and some of em ran at 45 rpm n some ran at 33 rpm
so one can imagine the scenario
some astute ad execs go to the record co
they say
we look for music for levis ad
record co go try this
AND PUT OUR JAS’S SONG ON AT THE WRONG SPEED
but guess what…?
the ad men dig it
they insist on it at this wrong sped up speed
the ad comes out and is massive success
meanwhile jas was initially horrified
what have they done to my song? he musta been bewildered
waiting for his big break…and now this
his manager n record co convince him to stick sped up bit
at beginning n end of his spaceman single
he gives in
the record comes out
new bits added to video for sped up bits
the song is cut down a bit
the song sells in the millions and becomes fastest blah blah blah
still this was not when i first caught up with jas
it was a little bit after that
after the success of spaceman
babylon zoo got to do a real video
and guess what
i do hereby declare it the best rock video i ever saw
then or now
the song is animal army
which is a cheeky bolanish glam stomper
a pretty good song…not a classic tho
and perhaps not ever destined to be a hit
oh but the vid is a fucking corker
and back in the mid nineties
as i sat like an idiot in front of my idiot box
one night
this video came on n it blew my mind
the whole thing was all kinda silvery
and jas first appears pushing his face thru this building
jas himself is so handsome
like an alien reflection of tyrone power
slimmed down n in a silver space suit
his hair is cut or done up in some style …you cant really figure it out
jas comes crawling along this chrome bar between buildings
everything all white n silver n metallic
people swinging of these lines
down in the street elephants n leopards rampage thru the streets
the first line of the song is
tryrannosaurus (sic) marching towards us
giving away the t rex connection immediately
tho its more in spirit than in actual execution
anyway the vid is a marvellous futuristic thing
we rocket thru jas n some girls retina
and find our inner jas
whos there all tangled up in weird DNA or something
the elephants stomp on cars
crocodiles erupt from sewers
jas has got his silver spacesuit on n long fingernails
and he seems deliriously outta control
as he straddles the metallic pylons between buildings
its funny its wild its flashy its trashy its super
its rocknroll
and at this moment jas has got charisma oozing out his poor pores
anyhow
this vid really was a breath of fresh air after grunge n rap n boy bands
and in those days you couldnt just watch vids whenever you liked
you had to wait for em to come on
and animal army wasnt played more than twice or 3 times that i saw
so it sorta remained a mythical video for me till yessaday
when i remembered it and watched it about 5 times
i still love it!
jas mann…wow …what a true glam star….
from some occidental parallel universe..
he could play the part of the singer from that book
the ground beneath her feet (a recommended read!)
yeah
go n check it out at you tube
animal army …babylon zoo
thats what i call a rock video!!