Vancouver, September 1997. We’re there on honeymoon, living in a downtown hotel with a revolving restaurant at the top, our midpoint between 5 days in Toronto and 3 nights at a log cabin/hotel combo in the up and coming resort of Whistler. Not quite yet the destination for rich spring breakers or the Winter Olympics committee, our cabin is right on the side of Blackcomb Mountain, exactly where the Olympic downhill skiing will be a few years later. Everything is untouched, pristine and brand new. Everything is shrinkwrapped – the sheets, the board games, the kettle, even the ‘Bears Roam In This Area‘ sign. The only things not clinging in film are the chipmunks who dart around looking for crumbs as soon as the doors are open (briefly – the bears!) to air the place. I’d like to go back again someday.
Anyway, back to Vancouver. We frequent this small deli every morning for bagels and coffee. Vancouver FM or whatever plays continually in the background, and each day when we’re there I hear a familiar song, a current and local ‘hot hit’. I’d heard it plenty of times that year, but something about the balmy late summer/early autumn weather and the fresh coffee and the cool, rounded Vancouverite accent of the hip waitress shines new light on a track that I always thought was good…good, but not great. Or maybe kinda great, but not grrrreat.
By the time we’re home from Canada, though, I think Bran Van 3000‘s Drinking In L.A. is just about the grrreatest track that year. 1997, remember, was the year of Bittersweet Symphony and Never Ever, of Lovefool and Mmm Bop, so it’s not to be taken lightly. You’re all scholars of pop, so you don’t need me to point out that Drinking In L.A. – like at least one of those tracks mentioned above – is one of the greatest little one hit wonders around.
Bran Van 3000 – Drinking In L.A.
Give us a ring-a-ding-ding, it’s a beautiful day…
It’s four minutes of jam-packed freshness with an awful lot going on, a magpied gathering of multiple mid ’90s genres, fed into the machine and recreated as quirky and hummable pop music. The crackling backbeat and distorted mic of the male vocal is pure slacker hip hop, Beck’s Loser replayed in the blazing sunshine of Venice Beach. The Snoop Dogg-borrowing lines – “Laaaid back! With ma mind on ma money and ma money on maaa mind! Blarin’ out the G-Funk, sippin’ on gin and juice!” – serve only to enhance this. But there’s also fuzz guitar. And fake radio phone ins. And gorgeously woozy woo-ah-ooh vocals. A lot, repeat, A LOT! going on.
Behind the female vocal – a vocal that might’ve fallen straight offa non more a ’90s signifier than Jagged Little Pill – there are subtle exotica tinges and catcall and response lines. We did nuthin’, absolutely buttkiss that day, “Get your ass out of bed!” he said I’ll explain it on the way, You could catch ’em all bitchin’ at the bar, I got the fever for the nectar know the payback will be later…
There’s a proper tale of looming existential angst unfolding somewhere between the punny lyrics – Hell-A, Hell-Hell-A and the the on-trend beats and on-the-one bass. Then there’s the song’s hooky chorus? Bridge? Resolution? What the hell am I doin’ drinkin’ in L.A. at 26? Who knows what you call it, but I bet you’re singing it right now.
Plain Or Pan 