Great 20th Century Embarassments: The Mid-90's Swing Revival (A confessional thread)

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Actually, though, weren't roy wood's wizzard sort of a sha na na type outfit, sonically at least? They're on Virgin's glam rock videotape, but they really don't sound glam at all to me. (And ELO covered "Roll Over Beethoven," right?) (And who the hell were Showaddydaddy??)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 23 March 2005 18:03 (nineteen years ago) link

showaddywaddy = most self-consciously revivalist (ie they dressed as teds and did covers or quasi-covers)

when eg mclaren was running his shop as a shrine to teds (eg b4 it became SEX) no one much thought to note the idea crossed into glam, but part of the reason may be that in the UK at that time it wz hard to actually FIND and HEAR stuff from the 50s

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 18:07 (nineteen years ago) link

The band I was in in the mid-'90s got extra work out of the swing revival by playing about 10% of our material (and bashed-together new stuff that sounded like that 10%) over four hours. And yeah, lots of it was really jump rather than swing. So I guess we profited from it, but we knew it was going to pass.

― Rick Massimo (Rick Massimo), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 18:48 (nineteen years ago) link

I remember in the heat of nu-swing's moment, some guy at the National Review wrote that if the movement stuck around, it might ACTUALLY reverse the decades of cultural and moral decline wrought by rock and hippie and such. Though how one might achieve Morning in America via a bunch of ex-punks dressing up as Tex Avery's Big Bad Wolf escapes my unmuscular imagination.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 19:29 (nineteen years ago) link

I took swing dancing lessons in 1998...and I danced at a Squirrel Nut Zippers show. I was alright at the dancing, and enjoyed it, even though I have the problem of being too tall for a partner to flip around. I was always more into rockabilly...

― sgs (sgs), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 19:32 (nineteen years ago) link

it might ACTUALLY reverse the decades of cultural and moral decline wrought by rock and hippie and such.

I vividly remember an episode of Talk of the Nation with Ray Suarez devoted to the swing/lounge revival, and the guy who wrote "Buckle Down Winsocki" back in the early 40s called in with instructions on how to make a good martini. He then said it was great how kids were getting into this music again, because for a while there, it seemed like popular music was all about shock tactics. He speculated on the process of forming a rock band: "How can we get ourselves attention, oh, I know, let's look in the dictionary and name ourselves after some sort of tropical disease..." Suarez tried to cut him off, but he wasn't having any of it.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 19:37 (nineteen years ago) link

I always had this completely ridiculous theory that nineties rock was always about regression backwards in a way. Grunge = already looking back to an indie existence [Black Flag/SST/etc/], then Green Day/Offspring takes everyone back to 1977, then No Doubt/etc. does the same thing while further hearkening back to the 'golden age' of ska., then lounge and swing takes it *further* back etc. etc. The end point of the process was the fetishization of bluegrass via O Brother Where Art Thou?.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 19:52 (nineteen years ago) link

The swing revival was an embarrassment, but the lounge revival - come on! How could you not love this man:

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/e/esquivel~~~_exploring_101b.jpg

― yossarian, Wednesday, 23 March 2005 21:00 (nineteen years ago) link

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