THIS WEEK I will be commenting exclusively on this video.
IT IS CALLED "Land of Hunger" and it by the EARONS.
YOUR EYES ARE CORRECT: the members of this band are wearing matching white jumpsuits and matching white full-faced motorcycle helmets.
As if that is not enough, THEY ARE ONLY IDENTIFIED BY NUMBER.
VERDICT: THE BEST.
If the Internet was designed to remember only one thing, HOW COULD IT NOT BE THIS BAND?
AND YET: literally for years, I could find no information on them, nor even confirmation that they existed.
I HAD, YOU SEE, forgotten their name (hint: it's "The Earons.")
AND ALL GOOGLE SEARCHES for "white jumpsuits white motorcycle helmets" proved fruitless.
AFTER ALMOST A DECADE (yes: true), I had to conclude either...
a) I had hallucinated the whole thing;
or b) this band was the one bit of cultural ephemera to have escaped the internet.
FOR as anonymous singers wearing face-obscuring headgear are wont to do, THEY SEEMED TO HAVE DISAPPEARED.
Until this past weekend.
Thanks to the aid of two friends with better memories than me, THIS VIDEO CAME TO LIGHT, and I am very grateful.
YET THE VIDEO IS INCOMPLETE, and still many mysteries remain...
WHO WERE THEY?
WHY DID THEY DO THIS? WITH THE HELMETS AND THE JUMPSUITS?
WHY IS THE APOCALYPTIC FUTURE POPULATED BY PEOPLE DRESSED LIKE OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN, AND WHY DO THE EARONS NEED TO CHANGE INTO MATCHING WHITE TURBANS TO SAVE THEM?
AGAIN: WHY?
If you or anyone you know has further information on this band or this song, I URGE YOU TO PLEASE POST IT IMMEDIATELY IN THE COMMENTS.
WE WILL SOLVE THIS MYSTERY TOGETHER.
That is all.
Monday, July 16, 2007
KIND OF MAKES YOU WONDER ABOUT THIS PLACE
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17 comments:
I had a similar experience to yours before MTV made it to Canada. Late one night I saw a video I liked and lamented the fact that I'd likely never see it or hear the song again. The video in question was Cindy Lauper's "Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun," so I guess you know how that turned out. With that in mind, I can only imagine that your video ends with the members of the band and everyone they encountered in their adventure ending up back in the girl's bedroom, where her parents catch them all dancing. Also her father is a wrestler.
"Kinda makes me wonder about this" group and you too Hodgman.
What planet are these people from?
Are they on drugs?
Why do they look like white 80's Power Rangers?
And why do you like them?
According to allmusic.com:
A band whose gimmick proved more intriguing than most of their music, the Earons were a funk variation on Sun Ra's cosmic mythology approach, with a little bit of Anthony Braxton's mathematical obsession added. They claimed to come from "Earon Earth," and all the members were known only by numbers. They did have one outstanding single, the hard-hitting and musically arresting "Land of Hunger" in 1984. It deserved a better fate in R&B circles than its ultimate stalling out at number 36. Still, this was the only one of three Earons singles that even made it beyond number 50, and they soon disappeared, probably returning to "Earon Earth."
It's The Residents in one of their many giant-eyeball-mask-replacement attempts from the late 1980s.
The B-side of the track in question is a Dadaist gamelan rendition of Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue," performed entirely on amplified Wankel rotary engines.
Also, at approximately 1:35, the singing Resident delivers his now-infamous backwards-masked message to the hobo nation. (Hint: It's right after the second repeat of, "And then we'll take it HIGH-ah.")
This is the best page I could find on them. I'm sorry if I failed you John. :(
Actually, I'm surprised you don't know all there is to know about the Earons, because you have an Earon Number of only 5.
Their song "Can't Stop Giving It" was in the 1986 Jane Fonda/Jeff Bridges classic "The Morning After".
Ms. Fonda, of course, is best-known for playing tonsil hockey with Stephen Colbert, who, of course, is best-known for writing the novel "Wigfield", which was also written by Amy Sedaris, who is, of course, best-known for not being Sarah Vowell*, who is, of course, best-known for being thanked in your book.
(NOTE: My wife claims that your Earon Number is actually 3, because there is some obscure link between yourself, Colbert and an obscure basic-cable TV show, but I can not confirm that.)
* An argument could be made that Amy Sedaris is actually best-known for not being David Sedaris, but since David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell are the same person, it doesn't really matter.
I too thought that I had somehow confabulated the whole Earon experience. I distinctly remember seeing them on Entertainment Tonight - back when much attention (mine and apparently many other viewers) was focused on Mary Hart's legs.
I had for years thought that their name was The E-rons, and that perhaps they were Ronald Reagan's Boys from Brazil-type clones.
When the internet finally came my way, I exhausted all my searches along these lines, eventually giving up.
Now I know.
Thank you so much, Mr. Hodgman, for partially solving this mystery, in the hope that others will provide further illumination.
I almost more curious about the apparent uslessness of the one I can only assume is 26. Though percussive, hand clapping is not officially a musical instrument. However it is interesting to note that various varieties of squash are.
If only he (she?) had been using a fruit or vegeable shaker.
John,
Thank you for the video. My initial assumption was that the band's lead singer, .28, is John Turturro in a green beard, but I'm sad to report this is apparently not the case.
The good news is that the all-seeing eye of the Google has indeed unmasked the true identity of the Earons, although it took a bit of squinting. The band appears to have been based in New York — or anyway, three of its presumed members previously played with bands based there (Melvin Lee, Kevin Nance and Alonzo "Lonnie" Ferguson comprised 60% of the disco-funk band Machine; Nance also played with the eccentrically punctuated B.B.&Q. Band, a.k.a. the Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens Band).
The other two members of the band appear to have been Henry Pizzicarola, who has mysteriously vanished, and Percival Prince, who is a British airplane.
I wish you the best of luck in tracking them down and orchestrating a reunion. Godspeed.
Earon. Apply directly to the fore-ear.
Sorry, that's all I got.
One word: POLYSICS
http://www.japanator.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/polysics.jpg
All I could find on them is from Wikipedia..so take it with a grain of salt.
The Earons are a self-described "astro-funk" band from "Earon Earth." They were inspired by the cosmic mythology of Sun Ra with a bit of Anthony Braxton's mathematica.
Group members use the following stage names: .28 (vocals), .22 (guitar), .33 (keyboards), .69 (bass) and .18 (drums). In 1984 they topped the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart with "Land Of Hunger."
Hope that helps.
A
Worst. Power Rangers villains. Ever.
I have no managed to find any information that has not already been listed in these comments. But apparently a lot of people misspell "errands" as "earons".
that was as fantastic as fantastic gets.
You may be interested to know there's a full length video of this now on t'tube:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5RuVa3Snbgc&feature=related
Peace and Ears
The Earons universally represent everyone from Earon Earth through our music. Peace and Love, .28
www.earons.net - the recently created website with new material never heard before by the earons.
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