Haircut 100 'Love Plus One'...tiki music video?

I just saw this video on VH1 Classic tonight and all these years later it seems that it has some vague relevance to tiki/exotica with it's crazy lost island set design sorta like this Yma Sumac LP cover:

On a nostalgic note: I remember seeing this video in the very early days of MTV and, believe it or not, thinking it was a breath of fresh air, which at the time I guess it was. I had never seen or heard a song like that before, and I thought it was just underground and weird enough for me to like in 1981 or whenever it was. Just goes to show how drastically your tastes can change over the years...

The animal skin-clad "native" girls were Bowwowwow's teenage back-up singer/dancers, Boo and Fufi. Fufi was BWW's drummer's little sister, I think maybe 13 at the time. Chronologically, that is. Street-wise, about 28.

PJ, that about wins the award for the MOST obscure music biz info!! (And ya gotta love the idea of, "Hello, love; I'm Fufi of BowWowWow.")

How on EARTH did you know that?!

[ Edited by: purple jade 2005-08-25 09:39 ]

On 2004-05-27 22:59, donhonyc wrote:

On a nostalgic note: I remember seeing this video in the very early days of MTV and, believe it or not, thinking it was a breath of fresh air, which at the time I guess it was. . . .

Video killed the radio star. (The Buggles?)

Buggles it is, and Kid Dynamo is one of those songs from the Living in the Age of Plastic album that gets stuck on infinite loop in my brain. That and Elstree Remember Me.

Oooooooooooh the 80's

Got a little story for you all about The Buggles, et al. If you're interested pull up a Mai Tai and lend me yer ears:

1979. A record store opens up in my neighborhood at a nearby, very suburban shopping plaza. It was a very interesting time. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 'Damn the Torpedoes' and Neil Young and Crazy Horse 'Rust Never Sleeps' had just come out. Simultaneously New Wave was just begining to break. So at this record store (run by a young guy who I can only describe as a guy that looked like Sting, but with long stringy hair instead of spiked hair) there was an new/ old-fashioned looking Wurlitzer jukebox that you could play tunes on for free when you came into the store. This thing was packed high with brand new New Wave songs that I had NEVER heard before. Not only had I never heard the songs, I hadn't heard anything like them. "Message In A Bottle" by The Police, "Money" by the Flying Lizards, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles, and "Bionic Man" by The Fabulous Poodles were a few of the tunes on there. Some other bands I remember were Bram Tchaikovsky, Flash and the Pan, and Sniff and the Tears. When I heard these songs on the jukebox, it just about blew my little just turned 13 f'in mind! This was a good 2 years or so before MTV was even an idea! Here I was a budding Aerosmith fan (they were still raunchy then) and along comes these crazy-ass songs. I mean just to remember how foreign "Message In A Bottle" sounded to my ears then cracks me up! That is such a radio standard now, but back then it was a really WEIRD song, and so were The Police. 'Regatta De Blanc'?....huh?? What's that you say crazy blonde english bass player? I could go on about this, and should probably get off my arse and write a book or something. But that particular time in music was VERY interesting. They just don't cultivate pop culture like that anymore.

By the way I used to drive the Sting-guy owner of the store crazy, because I would come in there everyday and not buy anything and just want to talk about music. I did buy some things on rare ocassion, but whadaya want...I was 13, the only cash I had was lunch money. I did however win an autographed copy of Cheap Trick's 'Dream Police' at this store because I stole a stack of the entry forms filled them out at home, and discreetly deposited them in the entry box when I went back to the store. I still have that signed copy today...25 f'in years later!

THE END :drink:

[ Edited by: donhonyc on 2004-05-29 02:02 ]

Truly fun times they were. I remember being the first kid in my school to have a Sony Walkman. I had a cassette briefcase filled with every new sound I could get my hands on. It was a very cool time in that so many diferent sounds were out all at once. I felt like my head was going to spin.

And it usual did as I cranked up my walkman whilest playing the latest video game to cross the threshhold of the shop I worked in.

And Cheap Trick Dream Police was in the first stack of records I ever got for Christmass. The opening slapped me and made me pay attention.

TG

On 2004-05-29 02:00, donhonyc wrote:
1979...just turned 13...

Ooooh! donhonyc is OLD! Bwahahahaha!

I remember New Wave, D'ya remember WPIX-FM before it became "Love songs, nothing but love songs?" Back when it'd play Flying Lizards, Jango Edwards & Garbage (with their great single "Big Wazoobies" b/w "Bicycle Seat" (Sample lyric: "Life would be really sweet/If I could be a bicycle seat")), Wazmo Nariz ("Checking out the Checkout Girls"),M-Tune ("Computer Games")... Plus the Clash, the Jam, XTC, & any number of bands important to the wiring of my brain.

PS- 1979 was my Sophmore year of HS, & the year I began taking College courses. In 1980 I began taking computer science courses & the die was struck.

You can't talk about pseudo-tiki new wave era music videos without mentioning Split Enz.

Hailing from New Zealand, they occasionally used Maori art and tiki images on their record sleeves.

In their "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" video, they land on an island (NZ) and encounter women doing traditional dances, and Maori warrior fellas with moko tattoos. The song also mentions Aotearoa (the Maori word for NZ). That track is on (IMHO) their best disc, Time and Tide... many songs about sailing and the sea on that one (Haul Away, etc).

I never completely understood their name until recently.

Split Enz.

Enz:
pronnounce 'enz' like "en, zee", and it is NZ, or New Zealand.

Split:
division between Maoris and whites, or if you prefer, the split in the landscape between the north and south islands.

Split New Zealand:
It is both a description of their homeland, an a cultural observation.

JT-

Don't Kiwi's say "N-Zed" for NZ, the way the Brit's do? Someone out there please clarify?

Ha ha, nice one.

Okay, the name of this band is pronounced:

"Split Enzedd"

Not

"Split Enze"

:)

On 2004-05-31 10:12, tikibars wrote:
Split Enz.. . .Hailing from New Zealand, they occasionally used Maori art and tiki images on their record sleeves.
Split Enz.

Enz:
pronnounce 'enz' like "en, zee", and it is NZ, or New Zealand.

Split:
division between Maoris and whites, or if you prefer, the split in the landscape between the north and south islands.

Split New Zealand:
It is both a description of their homeland, an a cultural observation.

Incredible tiki observation. Tiki as part of the new-wave social fabric/popular culture and I never knew until now!

A pal of mine who is a huge Enz fan read these posts and told me that I was on the right track in analyzing the name, but in reality the name comes from some advice the band were given early on: if they were to be successful, they'd have to leave (or split) from NZ.