Tag Archives: 1990s

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MGMT Releases Cassingle “Alien Days” for 4-20/Zonker Harris/Record Store Day

MGMT-Alien-Days

The first single off of the hard-to-understand third LP of a band with a hard-to-pronounce name was released today— in the form of a cassette tape. We get it, guys, the ’90s were a cool time, but stop trying to make the cassingle happen. It’s not going to happen.

MGMT, that completely obscure duo by Andrew VanWyngarden ’05 and Ben Goldwasser ’05, wanted to celebrate 4/20 Zonker Harris Day Record Store Day by putting out a limited edition casette single (and also online, for those who sold their tape deck a long time ago) for “Alien Days,” which would hopefully revitalize the struggling independent record stores/the record industry as a whole. Still not as weird as that time that fellow psychedelic weirdos The Flaming Lips put out a single inside an edible gummy skull. At least they have something to aspire to.

According to VanWyngarden in an interview with Rolling Stone, “Alien Days” is “about that feeling when a parasitic alien is in your head, controlling things.” According to music blog Consequence of Sound, the tune is the band’s “latest love letter to David Bowie.” According to some anonymous sources on Foss Hill, it’s like, pretty cool, man, but I dunno if I really get it, you know?

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Election Special Argives: “Gore Criticizes Bush in Campaign Stop at Freeman”

No, not in 2000. The article’s from 1992, when Al Gore was the Democratic vice presidential candidate, and the headline refers to the elder Bush, then running for reelection. If you’re confused as to why Gore would bother campaigning in the middle of Connecticut, consider that this was 1992; the red/blue state divide as we know it today wasn’t quite in place, and Connecticut swung right for Bush in 1988 and for Reagan in both 1984 and 1980.

So, on October 30, 1992, the VP candidate made his way to the relatively new Freeman Athletic Center, where he spoke for 35 minutes, “mostly criticizing President Bush, but also highlighting the ticket’s stance on the environment, healthcare, jobs and the Head Start program.” According to the piece, Gore spent the bulk of his speech attacking Bush in light of claims that the president knew about and was involved in the 1986 Iran-Contra Scandal. (Why these charges didn’t play a greater role in the election, I can’t say.)

Not all in the audience were solidly on board, though. The Argus article notes that a few Bush/Quayle supporters were physically ambushed when they registered their dissent:

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The Internet: As Much a Part of the Future As We Are

And it’s already got more stuff in it than you can possibly imagine!

As it turns out, only fifth graders really understood the potential of the Internet in 1995. Well, fifth graders and Sergey Brin.

Featuring fifth-grade students at the Ray Bjork school in Helena, Montana, this newly viral PSA is a relic of a lost era when you had to tell people about the perks of the Internet. Interestingly, these kids are only a few years older than we are, and the video is cut from the same goofy mid-90s cloth that produced this Katie Couric segment and this Argus article, which marvels at the presence of “X-rated photos” and “Bluegrass banjo music” on the World Wide Web. 

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