Tag Archives: 90s

The Gleaming Crest

The_Gleaming_Crest_Adamson

Originally published in 1995, “The Gleaming Crest” was my first poetry chapbook (you can read more about it here.) Written while I was still in high school, this obscure literary gem from the 90’s deals with themes of adolescent angst, grandiose dreams, romance and coming of age. It’s only about 35 pages, but worth picking up a copy since it’s basically vintage at this point. The book is available from Amazon, but there are also quite a few copies floating around in locally owned book stores, record stores and random shops. It’s a great book to have sitting out on a coffee table if you want to get strange looks from guests who come over.

Purchase from Amazon

One Week 20 Years Ago

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[Fran and Stephen are observing from the roof of the mall]
Francine Parker: What are they doing? Why do they come here?

Stephen: Some kind of instinct. Memory of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.
– Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since Barenaked Ladies’ One Week was a popular, chart topping hit. I remember driving around Tempe in the fall of 1998 listening to The Edge 106.3 FM, and it seemed like this song was on the radio every 5 minutes…sometime between songs such as Harvey Danger’s Flagpole Sitta and Third Eye Blind’s How’s It Gonna Be? These songs were heard many times on trips to and from Blockbuster Video (as well as Hollywood Video) to rent and return erotic thrillers, midnight outings to Denny’s, lonely drives to North Phoenix, my job at Abercrombie and all the rest.

One Week was one of those cheesy songs that I would have never admitted to liking but knew the words to and would secretly enjoy when it came on. It wasn’t passionately hated enough for me to like ironically, the way I later did with boy bands and Vitamin C, it was at least preferable to rapcore, a genre which I loathe to this day. In 1998, I would have complained about all the music on the radio sucking except the oldies station. This seems laughable in the context of today, when nearly every pop song is processed gibberish. In hindsight, we didn’t know how good we had it! One Week has the feel of a relic from a much more innocent and carefree era. It might as well be 100 years ago and a different country. The plethora of pop culture references in the lyrics are characteristic of Generation X works made at what Bret Easton Ellis refers to as the “height of the empire.”

Watchin X-Files with no lights on,
We’re dans la maison
I hope the Smoking Man’s in this one
Like Harrison Ford I’m getting Frantic
Like Sting I’m Tantric
Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy

I remember thinking these lyrics were so dumb, but not because I was opposed to the idea of cheesy pop culture references in songs. It’s just that the particular items referenced weren’t things that I personally was into. I did after all, write a song about Michael from Melrose Place. To revisit and paraphrase that memorable line from 1978’s Dawn of the Dead, such things had an important place in our lives.

I felt as though I owed it to Barenaked Ladies to write something about One Week, given how much enjoyment this jam gave me in 1998. 20 years later I can finally admit it.

Chedda Cheese – Growing up in the 90s

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Canadian based rapper “Chedda Cheese” came out with the song Growing up in the 90s a few years ago. It should have been a huge hit but didn’t really get the attention it deserved. It’s a “backwards alphabet” styled song, which lists things which were popular in the 90s, incorporating them lyrically into the track. I’m more of an 80’s kid, but I came of age in the 90s so I can relate to most of this stuff (whether or not I actually “grew up” in the 90s or ever for that matter is up for debate.) Also there is some decade overlap here with certain items like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Metroid, Unitards and Zelda, each of which first gained popularity in the 1980s (though unitards actually achieved a level fashionability in the late 1970’s.)

Anyway, I heard this song a few years ago when it was first released, and it was so catchy that I still have the chorus in my head frequently, even though I’ve barely listened to this song since:

The snapbacks with those rims so shiny
in track pants watching Friends is where you’ll find me
This is what it’s like growing up in the nineties

I never was a fan of the show Friends. In fact I hated it, and I don’t recall ever sitting through a full episode in the entire run of the series. However, I did wear the shit out of plenty of pairs of Adidas track pants back in those days. Nowadays if you rock tracksuits, people assume you’re LARPing as a Slav (especially if you’re prone to squatting.) Not so in the 90’s. Almost everybody sported such attire. Enough about my personal wardrobe history and television show preferences though (for the record I watched Melrose Place and Party of Five.)

Bottom line, Growing up in the 90s is a rad jam and should have made the Billboard Top 25 at least. Chedda is a talented guy and deserves some recognition for creating this underground, retro-thematic classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlxru1H7osk

Life in Plastic, It’s Fantastic.

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Ahh yes, I’m driving down Scottsdale Rd in the fall of 1998 in my ’93 Saturn (soon to be totaled while parked in Santa Monica less than 2 years later.) I’m wearing a yellow button down shirt from The Gap and sporting frosted tips. Or maybe I’m wearing a blue Tommy Hilfiger windbreaker semi-ironically. What song is playing on the radio? Well, it could be one of many songs actually. Perhaps it’s Harvey Danger’s Flagpole Sitta. Maybe it’s Barenaked Ladies’ One Week or if I’m lucky, Aqua’s Barbie Girl.

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Yes I admit it, I loved this song. I was first alerted to it by friends that said it reminded them of my recordings, not that I ever made anything remotely as good as this, but I used to increase the pitch on my cassettes on 4 track to make my voice sound more indie and alternative, which my friends jokingly said made it sound like “that Barbie Girl song.” It brings back so many memories from a great time in the 90s. I used to think pop music was so shitty at the time, but we didn’t know how good we had it! Aqua’s Barbie Girl is actually a masterpiece, artistically, cinematically, aesthetically, musically, you name it.

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One of my favorite parts of the video is when Lene is getting her hair done and reading a cool looking (but fake) book titled My Little Sea Horse. Whenever I watch the video, I always think about how I wish that book actually existed and I could read it.

Life in plastic, it’s fantastic! Yes it was.

SEGA CD: Wirehead

Do you prefer to watch video games instead of actually playing them?!?

Then check out this game!!

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Wirehead was released for the SEGA CD in 1995. It was the first “movie” style game I had ever played. The graphics were full motion video, where you controlled Ned, a poor schmuck, who has a brain implant that allows him to be remotely controlled. It’s for this implant that evil agents are after him to steal his implant. Ironically, or not, it’s via his implant that you control Ned’s decisions to guide him through the game.

 

Wirehead plays like Dragon’s Lair, only with full motion video instead of animation. When Ned comes to certain “crossroads” you are prompted to make his decision on where to go. Usually you are given three choices which appear as directions, left, up, and right. Making the correct choice is trial-and-error for the most part. Each choice provided seems logical or completely ambiguous, such as going left down a hall, going up to exit the house, or going right into the kitchen. There is only one correct choice. Sometimes you have to go into battle mode, which you control whether to make Ned punch or kick. Again, they both would seem like good options, neither more appropriate than the other, but only one option is correct. Better remember to write it down.

 

The fun is that it feels like you’re controlling a movie, which was the developers intention. It was full motion video in a 16 bit gaming system era. Only achieved via the CD format. The gameplay might have been too repetitive for some people in that era of RPGs and fighting games.

The other reason the game is so good is that it feels like a 90s era sitcom. The style of clothes, the family safe humor and jokes, and the music. It could have been used as a pilot for a real sitcom on disney channel.

 

The SEGA CD was never a success in the US, but it had its share of solid games, and Wirehead was one of the last games released unfortunately. A forgotten console that needs to be checked out. If you’re not willing to play the game yourself, you can always watch the play-through of the game on YouTube, but you won’t see any of the funny cut-scenes of when you make an incorrect choice, which were the best parts.

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Watching Ned get mauled by a bear is always entertaining!!

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She won’t do windows….

I wish they would re-release the game for DVD players, using the uncompressed footage originally shot for the game. It would be a fun show!

 

What ever happened to Robert Sutherland Telfer?

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And just who the F is Robert Sutherland Telfer you must be wondering? Robert Sutherland Telfer played Scott Erickson in the 1st season of “Saved By the Bell: The New Class.” He was supposed to play a sort of next generation “Zack Morris.” According to Dustin Diamond in his book “Behind the Bell,” RST apparently was removed from the show and promptly replaced when it was learned he was a “radical conservative” and his views were discovered by all on the set. I found it a bit hard to believe that he would have been removed for this reason given that Saved By The Bell producer Peter Engel served as a dean at Pat Robertson’s(of all people!) school, but perhaps these decisions were made at lower levels. Not to mention Hollywood people, probably Peter Engel included, are quick to dump anyone or sell them out at the first sign of controversy/confrontation. And this was NBC after all… So if anyone knows what happened to the evil right wing reincarnation of Zack Morris and what he is up to now, let me know. IMDB indicates he never worked in that town again.


Brandon Adamson is the author of “Beatnik Fascism