The first time I heard this song, it was like that refreshing slap to the face you never knew you needed. I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard it: Right at the end of June 1999 a rock station in Denver had started playing it. I was lying on the floor of my grandfather’s basement, listening to music when it came on, half out of it, waking up to the usual fare of Limp Bizkit, Korn and the like when the bass and drum stepped in and woke me the hell up. The voice…switching between a smooth, low nearly talkative mode and a riot-inducing call to arms. It wasn’t smart music, it wasn’t technical in many ways, but I was happy to blast it out. I had never been to a concert before I heard this song, and this was the song that inspired me to score tickets to go see a band live. And that concert in December left me so exhausted from the riotous time I had in the pit that I slept the entire trip home.
It’s easy to look at Powerman 5000 and simply shrug the band off as Rob Zombie’s brother trying to make a name for himself or worse, “that band” from an episode of “Beverly Hills 90210”, but the truth is that the group has been active for decades (since 1991) and has done just about everything from rap to industrial, punk and more, but their big hit was this exact song. It struck at the right time, the halfway point of 1999, with the millennium approaching. The energy was right, the kick through the big speakers was right, and the imagery of 1950s B-rate science-fiction somehow was just spot-on. And if you’re into things like Lost in Space robots and the evil alien wizards battling it out, hey, go for it. But I dig cars. I’ve blown speakers out with this song. I’ve done some really…and I mean REALLY…stupid things in cars with this blasting out of the T-tops for the world to hear. So it’s only fitting that I bypass Spider One’s video and go to one of the best fan-created videos I’ve ever seen on YouTube. It might not have a lot of space-scene stuff in it, but tell me that Mad Max:Fury Road doesn’t lend itself to the song.
Must be an acquired thing………..
Badass tune when it came out, still badass today!!
Union Underground is another one from that era you might like if you haven’t already heard them. They got a lot of air play here and then disappeared.
“An Education in Rebellion” is in the playlist as well!
I used to call these guys “Teabag 5000” , “This is what it’s like when balls collide”. Rob Zombies brother BTW.