The Mr T Experience - "A Mind Is a Terrible Thing" (live)

Apr 4 2019 · 3:25 PM

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Just Noise and a Title Welcome friends, to Song for Odin™, except that, for reasons beyond control it had to be postponed. These things happen. Basically, I was just too hammered to organize a proper Song for Odin™ at the proper time. It is now, sorta appropriately I guess, þunresdæg, meaning dies Iovis, the Day of Thunder, Lightning, the way you love me is frightening. Properly understood, this is Thor's Day, by Jove. And that means a Song for Thor. Oak trees. Hammers. Smoldering boots where once a proud warrior stood. Ideally I'd have something at least quasi-Thor-esque to offer here. I wish I had a video of my and covering KISS's "God of Thunder": such does not exist, though as a kid I played in two semi-imaginary bands that used to do it. "Big, Strange, Beautiful Hammer" would work, and I were more of a trooper I'd summon the gumption to do a quick rendition on laptop video for the occasion, but that will not happen now. (It's not a bad idea, though... maybe one day.) Instead I will reach back into the past, as usual. And what we have here is a song called "A Mind Is a Terrible Thing", from show at Gilman, May 2, 1987. https://youtu.be/kmKQGRD5tcE This is from a video transfer recently acquired from our friend Shayne Stacy. I have posted a couple of vids of songs performed in some university dorm space from 1986 ("Just Your Way of Saying No" and the Munsters theme song), but if there is an earlier full MTX show video extant, I don't know of it. It's not the highest quality, but it does show the band as it was at that time, warts and all, and head-on rather than from the side, which is slightly unusual. Many of the songs are cut off or garbled, but this one carries on through its full two minutes three seconds. As always, we were having a good time, whether or not the audience felt the same way. This show was: NoMeansNo, Blast!, MTX, Primal Scream, and Unit Pride, and here is the flier: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/960553916361162752?referrer=frankportman I don't believe this was our first show at Gilman, but I can't find the answer on the internet at the moment. We had played with NoMeansNo at least once before, the previous year, the noted Own's Pizza show featuring the Lookouts and Victims Family that many people regard as the germ that eventually sprouted the whole Gilman Street ding dong. Here's that flier, btw: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/960554372224126976?referrer=frankportman There are several songs in this set that wound up on the Rough Trade Night Shift LP including this one, but I don't think they'd been recorded yet. We were trying them out before an audience that, mercifully I suppose, didn't care much what we played as long as we got off the stage within our 30 minute allotted set time. Which we did. Show business success. As for the song, well... I doubt anyone would choose it as a candidate for Mtx forever or put it on any "favorites" list. The sole reason for its existence is the much-advertised United Negro College Fund slogan "A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste." Shortening it to "A Mind Is a Terrible Thing" and turning it into a song about confusion, alienation, miscommunication, self-loathing, and the human condition was a stellar idea upon which, I think it has to be said, the song as executed didn't quite deliver. I would write a much better song called "A Mind Is a Terrible Thing" now that I know what I'm doing. (But I won't; you can't go back.) Nevertheless, I'm still rather inexplicably fond of this song, warts and all. I like the minimalism even though it doesn't do as much as it could within its parameters (thus negating the virtues, or at least the wonders, of minimalism properly engineered.) It's just noise and a title, really. I'm glad they're not all like that, and I regret many if not most of my misfires, but this one's okay with me. And... that'll do it for þunresdæg, I think. We'll try to get back on the Odin schedule next week, if no rock and roll happens to to derail the train. Till then: ave atque vale, my fine, feathered fiends. notes: -- MTX - "Just Your Way of Saying No" live: https://youtu.be/H6UEAw0ToMQ -- MTX - Theme from the Munsters live: https://youtu.be/qIGfv8Mbjvo -- KISS - "God of Thunder": https://youtu.be/hHMzjSqKZuw -- Sacramento Music Archive: https://sacramentomusicarchive.com #music #video #live #mtxforever #minds

The Mr T Experience - "A Mind Is a Terrible Thing" (live)

MTX live at Gilman, Berkeley, May 2, 1987, a very early video courtesy of veteran videographer Shane Stacy (of the Sacramento Music Archives.) Here's the flier for the show: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/960553916361162752?referrer=frankportman "Minor secrets" will be here. Sacramento Music A...

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