Pop in my Vitaminic

These next two songs were both finds from Vitaminic, a European-centric MP3 site that launched in the late 1990s. Sites like these, when I had a job that was a bit less pay-attention-to-everything-around-me intensive, filled the void that MP3 blogs do today in a way; although the focus of MP3 blogs is tighter because of their single-editor nature, the earliest iterations of these sites had pretty valuable editorial content. Ah, for the days when money flowed to dot coms like Aquavit at a launch party!

Huckleberry: Morocco: A very pomptastic tune from a Scottish band that I (still) don’t really know much about — you’ll probably not be surprised that this band is somewhat difficult to Google — this song, when I first heard it, filled my y2k void for songs that could easily be the accompaniment to stomping around and making grand gestures. Tom was nice enough to send me a copy of their not as drama-filled, but still catchy “The Lives of the Saints” single a few years back; you’d think that would help me out in terms of hunting this band down, but all my searching has only turned up a bunch of English lit curriculum pages. Curse you, Mark Twain! (Visit Kaleidoscope Records, which has some Huckleberry singles for sale.)

Elks Skiffle Group: Beep Beep Cyberbaby: Yes, the cyberocity of this song is a bit clichéd (although at least they didn’t go the ‘let’s embed ICQ sounds into our song so people know what we’re talking about’ route), but the song itself is so delicate, my mind conjures up something floating away on a fluffy cloud every time I hear it. Could that something be … a puppet? It could very well be; Elks Skiffle Group is, apparently, made up of puppets from outer space. (Visit Happy Beat Records, the Elks Skiffle Group’s label.)

(Addendum, a self-promotional one: I’ll be spinning records at WPRB this afternoon, from 1ish-4 p.m. ET. Listen in, and request songs — you can send your requests to the IM name “WPRB DJ”. Hooray, Internet!)