Thursday 20 March 2008

The Jesus And Mary Chain video by Jesus And Mary Chain

The all-reaching power of John Peel was such that I once walked into my parents' dining room in the late 80s to find my father listening to The Jesus And Marychain's "April Skies" and tapping his foot.

In those days Radio One shared an FM frequency with Radio Two and the end of whatever light music programme he listended to in the early evening would be followed at 9:00pm by the familiar theme tune, John Peel's laconic chatter and whatever non-playlist music was exciting him enough to play that night.

The Jesus And Marychain had exploded into our consciousness in the mid-80s with "Never Understand". The (old grey) Whistle Test screened the disorientating video (a formula which this tape reveals they repeated for all subsequent clips bar one) and a superb performance which caught even the unflappable Mark Ellen off-guard when they kicked over their instruments and sat sullenly on the stage at the end.

This tape is repetitive - in a nice way. But it's also VHS sized... and sitting with other VHS-sized video cassettes is a prime candidate for liberation.

Someone out there wants it. Good for them.

(I admit to capturing this on my PC for posterity.)

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