Is there anything watchable on Monday night TV? Not until 10:00 PM for me, which is the slot they just moved Touching Evil to on the USA network. Anyhoo, I finish watching this week's cool episode so was flipping around and came across this show on MTV2 called Subterranean. Guess it's a weekly thing featuring what they call "alternative, innovative, and groundbreaking" music videos. Yeah, sure. But it caught my eye because the guests this week are the Secret Machines and they were talkng some about making the album and distribution and the video. Real lite stuff, but in-between the short banter sessions they would play some videos and one was the Dresden Dolls "Girl Anachronism". Have any of you seen/heard this? It was pretty cool, kind of a Sleater-Kinney meets Sparks type thing. The woman is spewing out lyrics at a rate similar to some of those old fast paced Sparks songs, but sounding more along the lines of PJ Harvey. Lyrics like ...

you can tell
from the scars on my arms
and cracks in my hips
and the dents in my car
and the blisters on my lips
that i'm not the carefullest of girls

Pretty entertaining video and song. Cabaret punk is how some are describing it, driven by a strong piano stomp, and with the white face makeup and circus burlesque type scenes running through it. I just checked and found that you can watch it at their site http://www.dresdendolls.com/video/ too. Also saw the playlist for the show ....


May 16, 2004
Guest: Secret Machines
Album: Now Here Is Nowhere

The Von Bondies - C'Mon C'Mon
Snow Patrol - Spitting Games
Stellastarr* - My Coco
The Dresden Dolls - Girl Anachronism
The Sleepy Jackson - Come To This
Auf Der Maur - Followed The Waves
Secret Machines - Nowhere Again
Muse - Time Is Running Out
Perry Farrell and Debbie Harry - The Patience Bossa

I missed the first three videos but caught much of the next 5 and quit watching sometime during the Muse song. But I did enjoy that Dresden Dolls song and I already knew the Secret Machines song well, but the video looked convincingly live and was kinda fun to see. I thought The Sleepy Jackson was awful so didn't watch much of that and Auf Der Maur seemed so contrived that it was only mildly interesting, although she makes a pretty attractive front woman when she's not going through all those silly rock star poses with her guitar. Muse is fun, and I've heard the song before, but they just don't grab me as being that great. I know a lot of people went cuckoo over their last album, but is that song a good representation? Or maybe that song is just a new single since they didn't list the album in the credits. Not a bad set of videos for a MTV type show, but the Dresden Dolls is probably the only video I would go out of my way to check out.