Jane's Addiction - Mountain Song

Thanks crushable.com

The 90's were a weird time. In 1998, when I probably would have first watched this video on 120 Minutes (if, in fact, that show was even even still on), I probably sported the standard issue male haircut at the time.  A haircut social scientists refer to as the "Vanderbeek."  While my lack of a 5 o'clock shadow prevented me from having a Depp, I could grow some decent Priestleys.  My life revolved around how I'd be the first ever P&G employee who mastered that tricky balance between being a polished professional and the cool dude I totally yearned to be.  Patterned shirts I bought at Steinmart figured hugely as did fantasies of bringing  my guitar to work and blowing my co-worker's collective minds with an out of tune version of the Verve's Gravity Grave that, in real life, I couldn't actually play.

So, there I was, in my favorite apartment ever*.  I probably had just finished playing my 23rd game of that hockey game for the SNES and was probably wishing I had some weed when I turned on MTV and saw this video for Mountain Song.  At that moment, I really wished I had some weed.  Flea was still really cool and I had recently gotten back into Jane's Addiction, so seeing this was kind of like looking into the eyes of God.  I knew that by watching it, my mind would be blown, but I couldn't turn away. 

It's was the 90's when bands thought of shirts as the thing they picked up off the ground to wipe the sweat from their faces.  When a guy could actually get away having his hair resemble a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  When a young man might have leaped on his couch, carefully unbuttoned his Craft & Barrows work shirt so no buttons popped off, tried to take it off, but it got stuck on his glasses.  So, with a tangled shirt half off, he might have played righteous air bass Hooky style until he realized that his curtains were open and, oh my God, he hoped no one saw that.

Watching the video now, I can't help but feel that all-too-familiar twinge of nostalgia.  That was my time, you know, which is not to say I stopped being cool or I stopped giving a shit about pop-culture or whatever.  It just one of those slices of time moments where it makes old memories seem a lot newer than they actually are while, at the same time, looking incredibly dated.  Maybe people who saw that video in 1998 commented about how stupid Perry Ferrell looked, but I'm guessing not many did.

But, that bassline, probably close to 25 years old, still sounds clothesline fresh.  I'm not sure if I'm just too close to it or if it has a kind of timelessness to it that it makes it impossible to attach to a certain period of time.  Maybe to the reader the song screams 1989 or something the way other songs of that era do with me.  I guess that songs that connect with you have a terrific way of hiding the warts.

And it still makes me want to hop on my couch and pick up a bass (or, at least, air bass).  But, only after I double check to make sure the curtains are closed. 

*  Seriously, that apartment ruled.  Get this: off street parking, 2 bedroom, 1 1/2 baths, walk-out patio, tons of storage, pool all for $400 a month.  Sure, maybe I fell asleep counting the gunshots I could hear.  Sure, maybe I woke up for work at 2:30 listening to the guy in the apartment below me dealing dimebags from the basement apartment.  But, that apartment also had the best shower: no water pressure regulator and it had a window.  Plus, when we had hot water, it was really hot water.  I'd live in Mogadishu for a good shower.