39: Where's Your Head At - Basement Jaxx

I don't know, naughty funk version of the hokey pokey.

That's a great sentence.

Hello and welcome to We Can't Rewind We've Gone Too Far,

your favorite semi-regular podcast about music videos.

And today we are joined by our favorite semi-regular guest, Anna.

Tell us, Anna, where is your head up?

Hello, it's first is lovely to be back.

It's been a while. And yeah, my head, that's a very good question. I'm not truly sure. I've

been to some pretty cool and intense costume parties. And so I feel like I'm in a bit of a

realm of between reality and dreams. And besides, my aunt always told me that she never knew where

my head was, but that my feet are firmly on the ground. At least your head's not in a monkey.

Oh, I don't know about that.

It might be.

Or a dog.

So now let's talk about Where Is Your Head At by Basement Jax,

which was a request or suggestion by an actual listener.

So hello, Chris.

Thank you very much for your absolutely banging suggestions.

People are listening.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, I know.

Finally, some confirmation.

Thank you, Chris.

Where's your head at?

Where's your head at?

Where's your head at?

Where's your head at?

The video for Where's Your Head At?

was directed by a tractor.

Wait, no, I'm sorry.

It was directed by Tractor,

a group of filmmakers who directed a few music videos

before turning their hand to commercials.

The other music videos in question being

the Yeah Yeah song by Flaming Lips,

Push the Temple by Fat Boy Slim,

Plug It In, also by Basement Jax,

and the very not safe for work

Baby's Got a Temper by The Prodigy.

The music video itself shot in Prague and stars Damien Samuels as "The Man" who has received a call from a scientist who claims to have "the latest thing in pop music".

How mysterious. Let's talk about that.

Uh, right. Open floor for everyone.

Uh, that music video I forgot existed.

Uh, and it awoke some absolute nightmares.

Very good music, really good to bounce around, but the visuals were definitely striking.

I really liked how they went from the puppetry to the CGI.

I think that was a very good transition.

But yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if that is the latest thing in pop music.

It sounds like things got a bit out of hand.

But the CGI is genuinely very good for something done in...

97, 98?

Oh no, it's good for the time, but you know, it inhabits that uncanny valley kind of scenario that it was just like spooked out.

shot in Prague. It's a guy who is a music producer, insert of some description probably,

who has received a call from a scientist who claims to have the latest thing in pop music.

There is an interview which goes weird where the scientist produces a band, we think, made of

monkeys. Then things get out of hand and a whole underground kind of hostel movie by science

research factory for

monkeys and humans

and shenanigans ensue.

The guy is sort of established as a dick

straight away when he's

on the phone in the taxi. You call him Prague

the armpit of nowhere. I think that's a bit unfair to Prague

frankly. Some really good music videos

done in Prague.

He's kind of established as a music

industry dickhead is what I got from it.

Of which there are a few I've heard.

Not based in real life.

Are you sure? The effects

are pretty impressive for the time it's like you can kind of see that the human face is sort of

jotting out with the monkey face oh yeah it's giving like animorphs i quite like that the idea

of like the monkey's situation yeah i was like especially captivated by the little puppet monkey

at the start and then change because it was good it gave me some nsync kind of puppetry but then

you know the arrival to the lab and then be him being like involved in the whole trial thing and

then also gave me all the vibes of you know animal studies in the 50s people trying to i don't know

talk with dolphins and that kind of shit the kind of research that we would now they see as as very

unethical but that it was going on and it was a bit terrifying to be honest to think about that

But I'm glad, in a way, I'm glad that the monkeys had a bit of a rage going on there.

I feel like I did have a bit of a flashback towards 28 days later, but probably because

I watched it last week.

So I was just like, oh my God, is that how it started?

Are monkey bands the future?

And the follow-up question, are monkeys the optimal animal to have a band?

And a follow-up question.

What would be the most optimal or the most perfect animal to have in a band?

Should you have the option?

You know, apparently there is a death metal band that the vocalist is a parrot.

Don't quote me on that.

I will double check my information, but apparently, yes.

When you say a parrot, do you mean the actual bird or someone dressed as one?

No, no, no, no, no.

An actual parrot.

Yeah, metal band, parrot lead singer.

Yeah, the name of the band is Heatbeak.

Sure.

Yeah, American death band featuring Waldo, a gray parrot.

So yeah, Heatbeak is the name of it.

So I mean, I don't know about many other bands.

Yeah, I mean, again, 50s trials, I know that they were trying to teach dolphins to speak English,

giving a lot of drugs to a lot of species.

So I don't know who could be the best one, but I feel like monkeys can be quite dexterous.

I can kind of see a monkey playing a xylophone.

Xylophone.

You know.

Fair enough.

Specifically a xylophone.

Like maybe a drum kit as well.

I feel like it had further like motor skills.

I don't think like a violin might be a little bit difficult.

Like not that it would be impossible, but I think it would take a long time to train a monkey to play a violin.

While training a monkey to play a xylophone, I feel that's pretty damn doable.

But what do I know?

I don't work with...

I mean, I do work with animals, but not in that capacity.

Have you tried, though?

I have tried getting my cats to meow at the right time after playing a chord on the guitar.

It does not work.

Yes, but your cats are a demon sponsor.

Well, at least one of them.

Oh, little Pip.

Maybe cats, actually, for a band.

There is the cat piano.

Oh, yeah.

of the cat piano so it would be like you know i'd be like the monkeys in theory they are only in

control when they're being like puppeteered the cats if you just let them lose they'll run away

from the cat piano i don't think they'll decide to stay and chill and meow with paint if we ignore

whether they're physically capable of doing it because i feel like if we ignore that then it

depends on genre like i think capybaras would be great at kind of like shoegazy sort of uh sort of

stoner rock explain just because you know if you like copy bars just because they're always just

kind of hanging out there they're not very fazed by anything i think i could imagine a capybara

doing some sort of improv shoegaze stuff you know do you know what i like this uh new question

let's rate animals as per genre so shoegaze stoner rock capybara heavy metal parrots apparently we

literally have one yeah so that yeah that's sorted i think i think capyvirus would be reggae to be

honest they'd just be there chilling with like i don't know with little birds picking on them and

they're just like what would be what would be techno what animal is hyperactive enough for techno

bears and cocaine there's some birds that are just like in spring are just like really like

screaming fuck me so yeah seagulls oh seagulls oh seagulls oh they totally have that vibe absolutely

yeah oh yeah no seagulls 100 you just like techno techno seagulls you just you just have them like

play everything and you do the drop and you're just waiting for the drop and instantly the drop

is just the seagulls screaming i like it could be a type of bird for like samba because they do like

the mating dance and stuff like that there's definitely a samba bird out there peacock peacock

some peacocking some peacocking nice oh my god i went to a party and it was the straightest party i

have ever been to in Berlin.

Did they have those in Berlin?

Well, apparently they do.

I was not expecting it.

And I went in and it was really funny because the beat from the DJ, it sounded like it was

saying peacock because it was a peacock.

And there was this one woman surrounded by three men in different stages of undress.

It was like a wife beat that kind of thing.

And then there was the other one without his shirt already and spinning the shirt around.

And the other one was just like dancing with his hips, kind of like thrusting.

And I was like, now that's peacocking.

I felt like I was watching a nature documentary about like human intercourse and the cazolation

habits.

I don't know.

Yes, I stopped dancing.

I was just like watching those people.

Did you have David Attenborough in your head narrating all of that?

And now we see the female surrounded by potential mates.

She has to make a choice.

Who is it going to be?

The one with all the shirts showing his endurance and athletics by spinning it in the air.

This January sounds like the straightest part you've ever been to of anyone.

It was hilarious.

I stayed for the laughs in the anthropological study that was that place.

When you put it like that, the distance between us and monkeys playing music doesn't sound so big.

Maybe this video's onto something.

There was a cage as well, and there was people dancing inside the cage,

and it was very monkey-like because they were climbing on the cage and shaking the bars and screaming, but in happiness.

Okay, going back to genres, punk.

Punk. A betta fish.

You're going to have to Google that.

I've put pictures of all of these animals in the chapter art.

if you look at your phone now you might be able to see it

unfortunately Spotify does not support this yet

but other podcast apps are available

I'll leave some links in the show notes

anyway, bye to the show

How do beta fish, yeah

beta fish?

Like a beta fighting fish

I have no qualms

Confirmed it

Can you see it?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah

I gave one to my brother when I was little

as a present for his birthday

and he called it Lars Frederiksen

and that fish loved punk and he used to live right next to my brother's speakers and he would like put

a rancid for him and he would just like be vibing it was hilarious like and i never seen such an

expressive fish in my life not even better fish in general just that one specific fish well to me

that specific one but it's like the whole beta vibe is fighting and then they become all big with

the crest not saying the punks are inherently violent but i suppose if they do you know if they

get a bit uh frisky the the whole thing just like shows up and they're like how to make them play

i don't know maybe you could have like little buttons you know how an arduino situation we can

engineer engineer our way around this problem yeah we can give him a mac uh and just imagine one of

those like apple like i use my laptop to make music but with like it like you know a dog

do you know how do you love that i'm not a mac user david why are you i know we're pretentious

good you know you play oh so pretentious what would be heavy metal a crows a murder of crows

i think we're stereotyping here don't i don't get the vibe of crows for heavy metal they're

probably into classical music yeah maybe something like something like very emotional emotional rather

classical music like Bach well like the or like because he plays a lot of organ and his music is

very very like intimidating all I'm saying is I don't know this I do have a crow tattoo on me

oh I love that you should befriend you should befriend crows at the park I do they'll bring you

trinkets I like crows they're cool uh that's not to say I don't like heavy metal I like metal music

what we have left

we have

2000 Indy

so what is the

crappiest animal

that exists out there

oh yeah

I forgot you

hated bird

the most boring

animal that exists

what's the most boring

animal

are they boring

worms

apparently

some people think

it's the sunfish

there's someone

who wrote an entire

rant on reddit

about the sunfish

being absolutely useless

this is the second

fish of google today

that's a weird look

yeah

they're massive

but they have

very very tiny fins

so they can't

they wreck themselves or swim very fast.

Oh, that's perfect.

So they're just like this buoyant giant and they eat jellyfish.

But the thing is, not many other animals eat them

because since their diet consists of jellyfish,

they're not very nutritious.

So they're just left alone to roam until they become gigantic.

Sounds perfect.

Sounds absolutely perfect.

Really.

I've seen many arguments for saying that the most boring animal is the sunfish.

They're cool, though.

I think they're really cool.

I mean, there are people who like 2000 indie music and that's also fine.

But that's perfect because like if you leave them alone,

they either become massive and all-encompassing and like Coldplay

or they just fizzle out like...

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like that one-hit-wonder kind of style of thing.

Oh, I don't know.

I'm terrible with band names.

Kaiser cheese.

You can see I'm good with fish names.

Yeah, yeah.

Random fish.

I also know a lot about sea slugs, but when it comes to windy band names, I don't know.

What genre is a sea slug?

Oh, it depends.

They vary so much.

Like, honestly, they are absolutely amazing.

So I feel like a sea slug would encompass the entirety of the, like, Latin American songs.

The entirety, all of it.

Because there is one for everyone.

Don't let the walls carry on you

We can't live all the world without you

Don't let the walls carry on you

You get what you give, that much is true

Don't let the walls carry on you

You turn the world away from you

Keeping on the nature documentary bent,

do you think that the bands who have the urge to trash the stage

Does that come from when we were monkeys and we just wanted to fuck everything up?

Is it like an animal instinct to trash a stage?

I think it's almost like a response of when you're like really pumped, you know, like,

like when you do something and you're like really pumped, mixed with like cute aggression,

you know, when you see such a cute animal, you want to squish it.

So I feel like it's a mixture of feeling the love of the crowd and that there is a cute

aggression in a certain way of like you know like even if thrashing everything around is a good way

to go i do feel like it's a very expensive habit i can't remember which band it was but um there was

one band where they would trash everything and then all the techs would run on and try and fix

everything like glue the guitars back together and yeah yeah i don't know like if it was like the last

show or maybe it's a goodbye show of a band and your guitar is already kind of falling to pieces

I think it might be a nice way to say goodbye and then maybe like toss the pieces to the crowd.

I think that might be a good, a good farewell show.

This sounds like an incredibly healthy safety risk of destroying like timber shards into people that are going to lodge into their eyes.

Yeah, I don't think it happens anymore, really.

We have like laser beams that could blind people in clubs and nobody cares about, I don't know, them bouncing off mirrors.

They should, but they don't.

So who knows if they would care about a shard of metal or a splinter because of the woods.

But I don't know.

Who knows?

But I think it would be a good way to go.

I mean, it's in a band.

A band.

A good way to finish the lifespan of a band.

So it's not your like...

I'm actually secretly dreaming of going to the final gig of a band.

They're going to trash their music instruments.

They're going to...

This is how I'm just going to go.

This will be my end.

I'm happy.

I think a lot about what I'm going to be when I reincarnate, but I don't know.

Like how I'm going to go is an enigma.

If a reincarnation exists and if I can choose, I have my mind settled on what's going to be.

So I've got grand plans for the future.

Is it the betta fish?

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm going to be a sea slug.

One of those like really cool, colorful ones.

Nice, nice.

No borders, just going to hang out in tight pools and chill.

Be great and look awesome.

And eat some jellyfish.

So they eat the jellyfish and they pass the stings to their bodies.

So if any animal tries to eat you, you sing them as if you were a jellyfish.

Just really cool.

So I want to be one of those and be just like left alone from being eaten and just chat with

the other creatures.

Anyway, those are my plans for the future.

So David, what do you want to reincarnate as in your next life?

Possibly a capybara.

I feel like they just have the ultimate sort of social way of dealing with stuff

where they just walk up to any animal and they're like,

and none of the animals seem to give a fuck about them being there.

So I'm just like...

Capybaras are really cool.

Like I grew up with a lot of capybaras around me because, you know, Brazil.

They're from Brazil.

So yeah, but they're pals.

But sometimes what happens is like they invade people's houses and they go through their trash and they disappear.

And because of the like the rush of popularity, Capybara suddenly got like the maintenance of like population control and all of those things.

A lot of people are trying to get them as pets.

And yeah, it's becoming a little bit of a problem as far as I'm aware.

But, you know, I love a Capybara.

They're one of my favorites.

The best rodents.

Are they actually as chill as the internet makes them out to be?

Or is that a myth?

No, they are as chill as that.

They really are as chill.

There is this nature reserve where the main protected species there are alligators and

capybaras.

And they're just chilling one next to the other.

And usually there's a little bird poking at the capybara, eating the little fleas that

they have.

But they stink.

No.

They are wild animals.

They reek.

I would not have one in my home.

But I love passing by and saying hi to them.

They're cute.

What do you want to reincarnate as Nelly?

I'm curious now.

A cat?

No, no, no.

I really like asking those questions, but then not having answers to them.

Monkey musician?

No, because then that would require me to have some musical talent.

And I don't.

I don't know.

I genuinely think Kroos is pretty fucking cool.

Flying would be cool.

Yeah, you could do that.

Don't eat me, please.

I'm going to be a smushy thing.

I'm going to be smushy.

Don't eat me.

No, I'm not.

I'm not going to.

I'll be in the opposite side of the world probably.

Or I can become a seagull and just annoy the living shit out of everyone and still be a

protected species.

Which seagulls are in the UK.

Yeah, you would eat a lot of chips.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'll just be stealing people's pizzas and unattended food.

And I'll be like, fuck you.

Last time I was in the fringe festival, I went to get myself a crab and I gave like two bites

onto the crab and the seagull came out of nowhere and just took it away.

I was so angry.

It was a crap situation.

In a way.

But yes, I was very upset about my crap.

That was reincarnated in LA,

if you presume that time isn't linear.

That was just future reincarnated in LA,

stealing your crap.

Yes, thanks to letting me know I shall haunt you

next time you go to the fringe.

So, anything else to say about this video?

Sorry, what's missing video?

I'm enjoying the wandering path.

This is taken, I think it's perfect, but just

I feel like we're actually obligated to actually talk

about the video. Would monkey bands

be a good way to reduce ticket prices?

No, because people

have to pay more because they

have to be kept and taken care

of and vets and

all that. I was just wondering, what... Next question.

I just thought one there. What

is the business plan here? Monkeys are

cheaper. Are they cheaper? Surely you have

vet bills to pay and all that stuff. Like

musicians, you can just kind of let

them get on with it. They usually stumble

I've been listening a lot about cults and I was listening about like the children of God which

don't listen about that it's awful yeah uh strong do not recommend uh but I would imagine uh you

know if we're talking about the music industry and the way it currently stands and how shit people can

be I think it would be like monkeys in a compound being forced to perform uh so I think that would

be cheaper um because yeah they would just be there almost like circuses factory farming for

musicians you just keep keep keep them monkeys going through isn't that's what's happening at

the moment anyway or has been happening for a while oh well they're getting replaced by robots now so

it's fine well no all the other music musicians like all the literal music factories in the like

the 90s that was chilling it churning out all the big boy bands and like girl bands they were just

literally created oh god yeah like factory cookie cookie cutter that's the objective of the the

monkey the monkeys to accelerate manufacturing bands there's a quote from a website that i can't

remember the video contains the dig at the smugness of the dance music industry when a performing monkey

band with human faces become the future of music i mean i see that i did i did get that from the video

So I'm glad that they gave me the message.

Cool. Okay. We reviewed the video.

The puppetry at the start, I really, really liked it.

I think really passed on the message.

the whole idea of like, you know, the way the criticism to the music industry. So I really,

really liked that. And I liked the transition and like how at the start, the producer was just like,

what the fuck is this? It's like some puppets and the piano, the fuck's going on. And then

it's suddenly taken to the lab where they see, it feels almost like going from a very shitty

prototype to a semi-finalized product. And I just like the idea of how the two of them sit next to

each other. Because quite often, when I have to try and give people an idea of what I'm thinking

for doing as like in a creative areas, like graphic design, and sometimes the first draft

to try to explain the situation is absolutely shit. But then, you know, when everything comes

together, it works. It looks really good. So I like that. But I also especially like that it

ended with chaos ensuing, which to me is the only good solution for the situation that those

monkeys were in and thinking about the industry music the way it is. So I feel like it was a very

well-rounded story, to be honest. I miss videos like this that have a lot of money, a lot of

creativity in the creative process. It's a nightmare for you all through and through. The CGI, as we

already mentioned it's it's great for its time but also it utilizes the limitations that it had in a

very good way and i think it knew it had limitations he knew how to use them in a very very very effective

creepy way which i guess was the reason and also they allowed to show this in like daytime tvs the

90s were a fucking trip yo it does have that kind of 90s edginess that you get so much give me kind of

jurassic park vibes they were too concerned about whether they could they should they'd never stopped

and ask if they should or whatever the fuck was life finds a way the music industry finds a way

to make itself worse and worse and worse this is an alternate timeline where instead of it all

musicians getting replaced by ai they got replaced by monkeys honestly i think i would have preferred

this timeline actually to be honest but it's a good video it's a classic it really is i had never

seen it before and i've heard the song so many times before as well so it's just it's funny sometimes

to just watch the things like,

oh my God, what's going on?

Which I find is often what happens

when they listen to your podcast

and then they go like,

wow, this is just a lot.

Take a look at our short notes

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