Man, remember life before Youtube? Not so long ago when you wanted to watch some old school videos you were either stuck with a crappy encode off some alt.binary or other, or alternately watching a garbage Realplayer stream. Thankfully, those days are over, and a homeboy or girl can easily wile away the hours looking for old, oddball (oldball?) clips, many of which I’m sure woulda disappeared into the mists of history otherwise. God bless the internet, archiving our society’s ephemera for all eternity, even our music videos. We here at ID:UD fancy a good stroll down ye olde Youtube path on occasion, and sometimes when we return we bring some presents for you. That’s because here at I Die: You Die we live every day like it’s Fuck Wit Dre Day. We celebrate.
So crank up your laptop speakers and get ready for a lightswitch rave, it’s the I Die: You Die Flashback Video Dance Party (with selected commentary)! Fullscreen that shit! (You can watch a non-stop playlist right over here.)
Borghesia, “Discipline”
The first time I heard this (back in the day if you will) I thought it was Laibach, what with the heavily accented shouting and martial sounds and the like. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Slovenia had sired more than one art collective/bangin’ Industrial group informed by fascistic imagery with homosexual overtones.
A Split Second, “Mambo Witch”
This is by far the best ASS (heh) video. Although the clips for “Flesh” and “Firewalker” are way more effective and moody, there’s something about Marc Ickx’s leather pants, haircut and ecstatic dancing and that make it impossible to look away. As friend to the site Gregg McG points out, this is the dude that sang “Muscle Machine”?
The Weathermen, “Poison”
Never trust a big butt and a smile. I don’t usually give much thought to the Weathermen (although I do enjoy watching their fans clash with fans of the underground hip hop group of the same name over at their shared Last.fm page), but come to think of it their sarcasm and political leanings kinda make them a proto-Snog in some regards. I should also note that a few months back JimmyJoe Snark III from The Weathermen put out a real cool record called Shipwrecks with Frank Spinath from Seabound under the name Ghost & Writer.
Poesie Noire, “Earth”
Oh word, this track is like some kinda middle ground between darkwave and EBM. Love the outfits, between the giant puffy tops and the tight shortpants they look like Klaus Nomi dressed up for a game of ‘Merican Football, which is a neat idea, if you think about it.
Greater Than One, “I Don’t Need God”
Dudes, did you know that the husband and wife team behind Greater Than One were also Church of Extacy? I had no idea! Thanks Wikipedia!
Ministry, “Same Old Madness”
Super rare, this is actually the very first Ministry video. Like all their synthpop stuff it’s totally disavowed by the band, and this song never appeared on so much as a 12″ single. C’mon Al, it’s 2011, how come you’ll put out like 50 covers records but I can’t get this on CD? Hook a brother up!
SUPER BONUS VIDEO!
U96, “Das Boot”
U96 would go on to be pretty big in Eurodance circles, but their 1991 take on the theme of the movie of the same name is on some straight techno-styles, son.
