Soundgarden - Spoonman (1994)
*** (of four)
During my state-mandated government class one Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Dehart wheeled in the TV/VCR cart from the AV department and dimmed the classroom lights. I figured we were in for another kitschy 1970s "How a Bill Becomes a Law" presentation, but instead we spent the 52-minute class period watching a VHS time capsule of Dehart's appearance on a local public-access cable talk show.
On the video, the younger version of our bald teacher had long, unwieldy hair and a thick salt-and-pepper beard, and he revealed himself to be a master of spoon percussion. Mr. Dehart was a spoonman way before Chris Cornell and the boys cut this song about it. And, after turning the lights back up, he told us all the secret was to sand down the bowl end of the spoon. The duller the bottom of the spoon, the easier the process of rhythmically smacking them together. Useful info, to be sure. I never did learn how a bill becomes law.
Mr. Dehart lives on in my memory thanks to VH1 Classic's Rock Fest show, which polishes the dust off this old Soundgarden video from time to time. Director John Smithey shows the band in color-tinted photo stills, which the camera roams up and down and side to side, documentary-style.
This visual collage holds up just fine for the length of the video, but the star of the show is the Spoonman himself, a mohawked, crazy-eyed homeless man named Artis who putters around a barren loft, soloing on the spoons and apparently developing all of these still photos of Soundgarden in his darkroom, stalker-style. I have a feeling if we took a look in Mr. Dehart's darkroom, we'd see zero pictures of Soundgarden and about 300 pictures of Buffalo Springfield.
SMARTASS COMMENT FROM MY ORIGINAL REVIEW, 12/94:
"I don't know about you, but I think alternative music could definitely use more spoon solos."
During my state-mandated government class one Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Dehart wheeled in the TV/VCR cart from the AV department and dimmed the classroom lights. I figured we were in for another kitschy 1970s "How a Bill Becomes a Law" presentation, but instead we spent the 52-minute class period watching a VHS time capsule of Dehart's appearance on a local public-access cable talk show.
On the video, the younger version of our bald teacher had long, unwieldy hair and a thick salt-and-pepper beard, and he revealed himself to be a master of spoon percussion. Mr. Dehart was a spoonman way before Chris Cornell and the boys cut this song about it. And, after turning the lights back up, he told us all the secret was to sand down the bowl end of the spoon. The duller the bottom of the spoon, the easier the process of rhythmically smacking them together. Useful info, to be sure. I never did learn how a bill becomes law.
Mr. Dehart lives on in my memory thanks to VH1 Classic's Rock Fest show, which polishes the dust off this old Soundgarden video from time to time. Director John Smithey shows the band in color-tinted photo stills, which the camera roams up and down and side to side, documentary-style.
This visual collage holds up just fine for the length of the video, but the star of the show is the Spoonman himself, a mohawked, crazy-eyed homeless man named Artis who putters around a barren loft, soloing on the spoons and apparently developing all of these still photos of Soundgarden in his darkroom, stalker-style. I have a feeling if we took a look in Mr. Dehart's darkroom, we'd see zero pictures of Soundgarden and about 300 pictures of Buffalo Springfield.
SMARTASS COMMENT FROM MY ORIGINAL REVIEW, 12/94:
"I don't know about you, but I think alternative music could definitely use more spoon solos."
posted by daytime at 10:09 PM
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