YouTube has become today’s TV, but even more of a time soak. As you realize it’s past 11pm on a weeknight and you’ve wasted another two hours watching crazy cats and unfortunate saps scraping half their skin off, when their capabilities did not match their actions. But behind the addictiveness are frequent, high quality yet random videos out of left field. And from there, you fall into a rabbit hole and enjoy a treasure trove of related videos.
So, here it was — Crash Test Dummies, “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm”. My first thought was, “yeah I remember the strange looking dude, with the long hair, distinctive deep voice and slightly off centre tunes”. Immediately I was taken back to the early 90’s. My early twenties. So right then and there, my view of them was still my twenty-something opinion. Another band that had come and gone and I had long forgotten about. I only remembered a couple of their songs, but I also remembered them being a bit different to most of the other bands of that era, so I gave the song a listen again.
There are few benefits to growing older, but one of them is you are able to look at something from the past through a different lens. I immediately did that with the Crash Test Dummies. First thing I noticed — Brad Roberts has an absolutely unique and amazing voice. I have not heard anything (in the rock scene) close to him since.
Second — the irreverence of the band’s lyrics and songs had been hiding their collective musical talent for me. After crawling further down the rabbit hole and listening to some more songs, I soon realized they had amazing orchestration and arrangements. Each and every member of the band is extremely talented. A real case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. I used to think the lead singer was another dude holding a guitar, but Brad is a really talented guitarist with great feel. His brother Dan, like most bass players, is also very underrated. Some of the bass lines in their songs are amazing. Ellen Reid is fantastic on keys and offers sumptuous vocal harmonies and is a fine singer in her own right. And all backed up by Mitch Dorge on drums. They were the core of the band. The way they put together their songs is amazing. I also enjoyed watching some more recent interviews with Brad — funny and interesting guy and also gave me a lot of insight into the band and their music. And I like that they are from Canada!
The other thing I noticed is the variety in their songs over the years. They cover an impressive array of styles. I get the sense that they played what they believed in, rather than just playing what they thought people wanted to hear. That’s true success — when you can follow your own style and heart and then luckily enough people are into it. But even with a new appreciation of all these things, the irreverence is still there and I find that very entertaining. And the videos are very funny too. I particularly like a couple of lines in God Shuffled His Feet — “And if your eye got poked out in this life; would it be waiting up in heaven with your wife” and “God, gathered up some people he had made“. The whole premise and vibe of the song is very amusing indeed. But at the same time a beautiful song.
So, here I am a couple of weeks later and I’ve been listening to them almost non-stop. I’m well hooked!
I’ve gone down this path with a lot of artists I’ve discovered on YouTube. Robert Plant, Gordon Lightfoot, Robbie Robertson, Glen Campbell et al. People I hadn’t really been into in my earlier days — it’s really cool to discover music like this and enjoy it. Go and watch some videos of Glen Campbell — if you are my age you probably had no idea just how much that fella could shred a guitar. Truly amazing player.
Growing up, I was fed a constant stream of Andy Williams, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, Neil Diamond, Glen Campbell, Carpenters and Roger Whittaker from my parents. I soon grew tired of it. I was happy when I didn’t have to listen to it. But just last night my partner Kess and I started crawling down that rabbit hole for a few hours. It was unbridled fun and enjoyment — most of those tunes are amazing. The arrangements and musicianship are incredible. We worked our way through American and British crooners, American rock balladeers, Motown, Folk — you name it. It was all real music — no electronics, no autotune. Just lots of talented people being amazing together.
Thank God for music like this and having the ability to access it so easily these days. There is certainly a real joy in rediscovering old music.
For more interesting posts and articles, be sure to check out the rest of Cheeky Cockatoo.