MAGIC
UNICORNS
MUSIC
VIDEO
ME & ELVIS
Our big video, written & directed by Tom Stern and Alex Winter.
HAVE A BEAUTIFUL DAY
Super 8 footage of our last official gig, edited by Devin Rice.
BOUNCING OFF THE SATELLITES
Rough video footage of the band at Memphis' famous Antenna Club.
ff from the HUMAN RADIO ARCHIVES......(to be updated occasionally!)
Semi-dramatic duet between Ross and Peter, made a good break for Kye to reset delays and Ebe to collect stick shavings! A real favorite of our dear friend Will Owsley (RIP), who talked our friend John Fields into pitching it to Joe Cocker who politely (but no doubt gruffly) declined. I'm halfway reaching for Tom Waits here. Not even close.
Though a little preachy, this tune always went over live, giving our FOH sound guy Kyle Miller sixth man props, and our light tech Pat Thomasson much landscape to illuminate. We have always loved our delays in this band, and this tune gets plenty of 'em. But we gotta back off some of those background vocals. Lord have mercy that's a lungful!
Our dear friend and California representative Richard Young (who also gave us Monkey Suit and Wienie Roast) concieved of this...one of our first tunes we ever played. Weird chords+hallucinogenic lyrics=South End favorite. This is a cassette tape recording from the audience, so the jibber jabber factor is high. But elevation was achieved.
More obscure selection from the later days of the band, recorded at Sony Tree, Nashville. Like Owsley, Ben Folds, and the other "pop" kids running around the building late nights, we enjoyed the run of the place after hours, learning how to abuse the machinery without breaking it. Got its moments. Except maybe "girl, hurl, hurl!"
We liked to open the show with this one, as it set a good tone for the evening, even though we did get tired of the "I'm a numbskull" message. Written (like many HR tunes) around the chorus bass riff, which is carried with great gusto by Steve Arnold, one of the few fellows who make the thumbstruck bass thing work for me. Few do.
Go figure. Songwriter writes goofy "I knew Elvis" song with frenetic ska beat, band personifies it, and it becomes a good set pick-me-up. Band gets record deal, producer adopts same goofy tune as meditation on the maturing of rock 'n' roll. It's got Elvis in title+band from Memphis=our single. Here it is as it was first, live on-air from Beale St. Memphis.