Ooooooooh! So pretty!
Is the prospect of another gloomy Monday taking the luster out of your week? Well, it’s time to treat your ears to something fancy that won’t require you to make another hole in them. This is the day The Nest digs deep to find another lost pearl of pop music out of that clammed up oyster we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive! DJ Scratchy isn’t expecting much from you this Valentine’s Day… only to listen to this gem of a lost song she found buried under the jewelry box full of cubic zirconium. As for the Sponkies…. well, they get Ring Pops. Here’s a diamond in the rough…
MTV became one of the most popular and influential cable channels of the 1980’s, and seems like such an icon of the decade that it’s hard to remember that Music Television wasn’t exactly an overnight sensation. It took a few years for MTV to establish itself within the music industry with its dedication to playing nothing but music videos… a format that was relatively new to its viewers and not all that well thought of by many of the established acts in rock. Because of this, MTV was forced to fill its early on air time with a wide variety of videos attached to songs that were well out of the mainstream…
The production values were nonexistent… but the cheese factor was through the roof.
It’s a shame that my family didn’t get cable until 1984… by which time MTV had largely escaped the weird variety of its growing pains. But VH-1 Classic, in its glory days of showing nothing but classic videos early in this millennium, helped catch me up on a lot of what I missed by being too young and too poor to enjoy the TV version of a college radio station. One such curiosity that I discovered and grew to love was this acid trip of a song and video by a British outfit that never caught on in America by the name of Haysi Fantayzee. Here is their 1983 effort “Shiny Shiny.”
The song is a bizarre mishmash of music backing up largely nonsensical (and even gibberish) lyrics… but I find it to be catchy as hell. The video is somehow even stranger. Haysi Fantayzee was a pretty odd group… whose other song of note was the exquisitely titled “John Wayne Is Big Leggy.” The group was fronted by Jeremy Healy and Kate Garner, whose stage presence was unique even by the fucked up standards of the 80’s…
A quarter of a century before Pirates of the Caribbean, believe it or not.
The performance given by Garner in this video is almost impossible to ignore. When Jessie J was reminiscing about the days when there weren’t hos in videos, she apparently missed this lost treasure. Forget Madonna, Tawny Kitaen, Grace Jones…. Kate Garner was the pioneer when it came to the iconic art of being a video vixen. She may not have the looks of Samantha Fox, the charm of Susanna Hoffs, or the ass of George Michael… but she gives a sultry and seductive performance in this old relic that was years ahead of its time and was rarely seen outside of your local gentlemen’s club. You go, girl!
Please, do not throw dollar bills at your computer screen.
I’ll return next Monday with another shiny old toy from the past…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I was a fan of haysi fantayzee… and I tried to copy their (un)style … sadly my school was a fashion wasteland and they called my mother to pick me up…. she was super pixxed first but it also was a good learning process for her so she later saw it relaxed as she had to pick me up again as I came as a Boy George copy LOL
You could get in a lot of trouble dressing as almost any of your favorite 80’s stars. Hopefully the kids today do not try to dress like Miley Cyrus… which would be not dressing at all.
at least the poor parents would not end like church mice ;O))))… but I think that’s more a look for summer lOL
The style of Miss Garner reminds me when my daughter shaved one side of her head, couldn’t carry a tune in paper sack, yet both had striking blue eyes and weirdo friends dressed like someone from Willy Wonka’s world. Normally your old gems are enjoyable but this one definitely was somewhat of an exception. 😇
This one definitely falls into the extremely eclectic category of songs I like. I don’t even know what to say about the fashion other than….. 80’s.
I’m afraid this one leaves me cold…..or is it confused…..or is it confounded…..well whatever it is, I’m afraid it went right over my head. Tried to find some kind of redeeming quality but couldn’t. One thing I can say FOR SURE is that it’s “different” !
Pam
Very different. Usually, I fail to understand why a song I feature was not popular when it came out…. but this one was clearly too confusing and confounding for the average radio listener. I just have a really weird ear…
Wow. That was a lot of fun. It would make a great road trip song, or a work out song, or a drinking song.
LOL! Multi purpose music! The Nest does not recommend trying all three activities at once, though…
Two things:
I used your “black magic” pictures in today’s post with appropriate credit, of course because it fit and I love the graphic. Also, that is a gorgeous crystal squirrel!
I’m still stuck in the house. I swear I haven’t been outside in more than a week. I think it might stop raining today. YOU are my window to the other world. Karma??
I remember coming across that crystal squirrel a few years ago while looking for something else, and briefly coveted it. Not sure he would fit in with the rest of my gang, though, since most of them are cheap and low class and would probably beat the rich squirrel up and take its lunch money….
ody M biskit; we cracked up at thiz line
” A quarter of a century before Pirates of the Caribbean, believe it or not.”
we due knot noe thiz song ore group…will hafta give it a listen !
🙂 ♥♥
Johnny Depp stole this guy’s style!
I’ve loved this song since I discovered it on a Living In Oblivion compilation CD back in the 90s. It wasn’t until recently that I saw the video for the first time, being, like you, mostly without MTV while growing up in the 80s. This cut is so hyper-cheerful. I never get tired of it.
I probably thought it was crap the first few times I saw it played on VH1 Classic… but it grew on me in a big way. It is a happy making song, as I like to call them, though I can’t really tell from the lyrics if it’s supposed to be or not…
That is 100% the way I feel about “Combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bell” by Das Racist. I hated that song the first half dozen times I heard it, but extended exposure and its sheer ridiculousness served to turn me 180° on that song.
I only know John Wayne is Big Leggie …
I was sure that had to be a made up title when I first saw it. It’s just so Zappaesque…
WOW! Mom lasted not even a couple of seconds watching the video – snorts and rolls with piggy laughter. She can’t stand loud for just being loud and that my evil friend was “LOUD”. When did she become so old? Ssshh don’t tell her I said that. XOXO – Bacon
LOL! Try the volume control or mute button! It’s the best way to silence loud music that’s nothing but loud…
What the everloving fuck?
I know, right?
Wow. I hope this doesn’t get stuck in my head because I don’t want to spend the day trying to decipher the lyrics!
I wouldn’t bother trying. It’s like “Louie Louie”… just enjoy the song and don’t worry about whatever crap they’re actually trying to sing!
I’d forgotten about them I actually thought it was the name of a single person.
Like Jethro Tull, Pablo Cruise, Molly Hatchet….