Since I have been collecting music videos, there are a number that took me years to find and get hold of, some I've found that I didn't know existed, some I've found that I never thought I would, and some I want that I'll probably never find. Such is life.
Here's one video that took me ages to find:
Yazz 'Good Thing Going':
Although it's not my favourite Yazz track, I had to find this one, as it was the only music video of hers that I didn't have (and had never seen). At one point I even resorted to contacting Yazz directly. Since uploading videos to youtube, I've been surprised to learn that many artists don't have copies of their videos. She wasn't one of them, though; but somehow I didn't manage to get my hands on this.
After several years of fruitlessly trawling eBay in the hope that a promo copy might show up, I resorted to what most people looking for something online do... I googled. I had googled this video before, but not for quite a while. Lo and behold, there was a (now defunct) company in Europe who specialised in distributing music videos to VJ's (that's video jockeys), and they had this video listed! (along with several others I'd been trying to find for ages). There was no mention on the website as to whether they shipped internationally, but I tried placing an order anyhow. They accepted my payment, but then I heard nothing. Almost expecting to hear back from them, "Sorry, we can't ship this to you," about a week or so later I received a parcel with the DVD's I'd ordered in them. Finally I could cross this one off my list!
Although I'd been a 'casual' music follower for a few years (e.g. watching Countdown from age 5), it wasn't until
1987 that I started to follow music more intently... perhaps inspired by
listening to my sister's various artists 'hits' compilation cassettes on my
Walkman. '87 Hots Up
was the first one I bought myself, though; then Smash Hits
'87 a few months later (A$16.99 at my local K-Mart).
I didn't realise
that Smash Hits was a magazine as well until visiting a relative of my parents'
friends' in January 1988, where their daughter had a copy (the local Australian version).
Of course, I soon began buying Smash Hits myself. The first edition I
bought featured Michael Hutchence on the cover, and retailed for A$1.75 from
memory. I continued to buy Smash Hits until 1994 (even though I thought
it had gone downhill from '92 when it started to focus more on TV shows, and
ones I didn't watch such as 90210). I threw them all out though during a
house move in 1995. Initially, I was most interested in the section where
they printed a copy of the top 50 singles chart, and soon after became an avid
chart-follower. I wanted to know how well the songs I liked performed on
the charts.
I soon discovered the Take 40 Australia radio show, and began writing the
list of songs down each week. Around the same time, I also discovered the
local music video shows Video Hits, and Rage
- which played the videos for the top 50 songs each week. Eventually, I
noticed that Rage played the chart a week before it aired on Take 40 Australia,
and so switched to using Rage for my weekly chart fix.
Just after Christmas 1988, while visiting a cousin's house, we watched some
music videos she had recorded from Rage. I remember thinking 'what a
great idea!' at recording music videos to watch later on. Even though I
had been watching Rage for almost a year, somehow I'd never thought to record
the videos I liked. It probably didn't help that I didn't yet own any of
my own blank VHS tapes (which were quite expensive at the time, especially for
someone still relying on pocket money).
The first music video I recorded was Enya's 'Orinoco Flow', from the
Rage top 50 in early February 1989. I also recorded the top 5 songs from that
week. I still have that 4-hour video tape today, though converted it
to DVD in 2005. Some other videos I recorded onto it were Neneh Cherry's
'Buffalo Stance',
Tanita Tikaram's 'Twist InMy Sobriety', and Paul Kelly's 'Dumb Things' (yes, that
video is a direct upload from this VHS tape). Quite diverse tastes for a
10 year-old ;)
And so I've continued to record/keep music videos I like ever since... and
er, even a few I don't like so much. My interest in new chart music
severely waned though towards the end of the 90's, and hasn't recovered
since. But there's still lots of 'old' new music I missed the first time
around that I'm discovering now, and finding new, obscure-ish music videos on
VHS compilations from the 80's/90's I acquire helps with that. "When
you can't find the music to get down and boogie, all you can do is step back in
time" indeed. I do find some new music that I like, but it usually
requires effort to find it.
I've always tended to like the less-successful artists/songs the most.
Through youtube and this blog, I hope to give some of these tracks exposure to
a new audience. I always get a buzz from reading comments on my
youtube videos from people who've liked the song for
years but have never seen the video before; or from people discovering an 'old' song they like but didn't previously
know. I try to upload videos for songs that aren't already on youtube; or better-quality versions of videos that are already there.
Inspired by some other music-related blogs I've been reading recently (e.g. Chart Beats), I decided to start my own. I've used youtube as an outlet for sharing music videos from my collection since April 2007, when I discovered that the only Yazz music video on youtube at that time was 'The Only Way Is Up'. Unfortunately, I was still on dial-up at the time, and it took something like 4 hours to upload each video; even after compressing it beforehand.
My first youtube channel was OhNoItsNathan (no apostrophes were allowed in the username back then), inspired by the 1996 Shakespears Sister (coincidentally, no apostrophe either) b-side 'Oh No, It's Michael' (which doesn't seem to be on youtube). Yes, Nathan is my name. Unfortunately, the channel was suspended some time in January 2008, due to repeated copyright strikes. So I dusted myself off and started a new channel, this time OhNoItIsNathan (couldn't use the previous channel's username), eventually clocking up 440+ uploads and several million views... only to suffer the same fate again in October 2009 (hello copyright strikes).
Gutted at the prospect of re-uploading several hundred videos (which still take nearly an hour each to upload, thanks to Australia's 3rd-world internet speeds and my aversion to compression) - only to lose them all again if my channel gets suspended, this time I decided to create multiple channels with a limited number of videos on each. This way, if I lose a channel again, I only need to upload about 20 or so videos. Each of my current channels is a variation of ohnoitisnathan (now using the more humble lower-case), e.g. ohnoitisnathan3, except my MelAndKimVideos channel. I was toying with the idea of using some channels for uploading specific artists' videos (hence the artist-specific username of that channel), but later abandoned the idea.
The strategy of having multiple channels has worked, and I haven't yet lost another channel since. However, the trade-off is that my videos don't always get the same number of views or comments that they once did - though when I last did a tally in May 2013, my channels at that point had a combined view total of ~7.8 million ($ucce$$!). It's a pain, though, having to log into 30+ accounts (so far) once a week to check for new comments/messages etc. First world problems ;)
Anyway, that aside, I aim to use this blog to share my uploaded music videos from youtube in one location... and to occasionally add some of the 'back story' behind my decision to upload certain videos.
For anyone wondering, the title of this post is drawn from the Shakespears Sister song linked in the video above. It was also the first CD single I purchased, in December 1992. A steal at A$7.99 (from memory) in my local Brashs. After seeing the video on Video Hits on Oct 25th 1992, I searched under 'S' in the singles section of every local record store every weekend, trying to find the damn thing (the single version was different to the album version I already had on their 'Hormonally Yours' CD). I'd almost given up, until finally they had it a mere 6 weeks later.
