What can you do for me?

March 21, 2018 5:50 PM

I've reimagined 1992's Utah Saints' eponymous debut album with companion EP Something Good to form a single album. I apologize for any offenses. Mythical Side A: Something Good [video], I Want You [video], Anything Can Happen [not available], What Can You Do For Me [video], Trance Atlantic Flight, Solution, States Of Mind

Mythical Side B: New Gold Dream (81, 82, 83, 84), Trance Europe Caress [not available], Kinetic Synthetic, My Mind Must Be Free, Trance Atlantic Glide [5m mix, album mix 6m37m). Too Much To Swallow (Part 1), Something Good (051 Mmix by John Kelly), What Can You Do For Me (Salt Lake Mix) [images NXFW]

posted by hippybear (26 comments total)

Wow. I can’t remember the last time I dusted-off that debut CD and gave it a play.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:06 PM on March 21, 2018

U-U-U-U-UTAH SAINTS!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:25 PM on March 21, 2018 [9 favorites]

If I miss the bit in the beginning that says U-U-U-Utah Saints when New Gold Dream comes on, I am honestly not sure whether I'm listening to the Simple Minds track or the Utah Saints version until I wake up my mp3 player and check.

I sorta remember What Can You Do For Me in the same sort of mixes that would have James Brown Is Dead and O Fortuna, maybe Next is the E.

Something Good got the same sort of zombie reanimation act in the late 2000's as Call on Me (Eric Prydz), Star to Fall (Cabin Crew) and Somebody's Watching Me (Beatfreakz) (and others). I hoped there was a new Utah Saints album on the way, but it seems like it was just a one-off.
posted by Kyol at 6:28 PM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh goodness no, there was a second album, Two, which came out in 2000.
posted by hippybear at 6:32 PM on March 21, 2018

After this thread, I think the ultimate weird nostalgia trip for me would be if someone did a remix of "Something Good" as though it were being played in the apartment two doors over from the one you were living in with the bad radiators and the damp back room above the falafel shop on Bloor St.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:37 PM on March 21, 2018 [6 favorites]

Thank you, Kyol, for including the video for the remix of "Something Good." I've always wondered about the true origins of The Running Man...
posted by stannate at 6:40 PM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh, yeah- and if that mix could also somehow convey that it's January, and it's snowing, and there are Christmas lights blinking off and on in the window of the damp back room which overlooks the alleyway where you found that cool mid-century side table which you put next to the weird David Lynch crushed-velvet sofa, and it's 2am, and you've never felt more calm and secure in your life...

Yeah, that'd be perfect.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:56 PM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh shit, I played the hell out of this in my college dorm room. I apologize to anyone who lived two doors down.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:12 PM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I never did bother hunting down Two - I'd burnt out on pretty much everything but Orbital by 2000-ish. Is it, uh. Is it any good, hippybear?
posted by Kyol at 7:17 PM on March 21, 2018

I never owned Two on CD and so I've never really heard it. I just know it exists. The album is in my iTunes library but only 4 of the tracks have been played, and all of them just once, and they aren't in sequence, so that means they are in some playlist that I've clicked "random" on.
posted by hippybear at 7:30 PM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

You wanted the best and you got the best
posted by boo_radley at 7:34 PM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

"Utah Saints use samples to FREE us from the confines of popular instruments. THE sample may be a vocal phrase, 100 guitars, or everyday MACHINES and animals. These are all just instruments to us. No tape was used in the making of this album. TAKE CONTROL of the machine NOW!" -From the liner notes
posted by glonous keming at 7:51 PM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

I sorta remember What Can You Do For Me in the same sort of mixes that would have James Brown Is Dead and O Fortuna, maybe Next is the E.

Ha ha yep! One of my regularly listened to work playlists goes, 'Something Good, What Can You Do for Me, Temple of Dreams, O Fortuna and James Brown is Dead'. It's a recreated mix of songs that were regularly played in clubs we went to and one that I spent hours tree planting too. Circa early to mid 90s.
posted by Jalliah at 7:56 PM on March 21, 2018

I'm merely trying to point out good music, but apparently I'm a total Nostalgia Drug.
posted by hippybear at 8:57 PM on March 21, 2018

Some of my posts get 3 likes and zero comments. *shrug*
posted by hippybear at 8:58 PM on March 21, 2018

Yeah that Something Good video Kyol linked to...

"It was the freshest move I'd ever seen. It was like he was floatin' on air". Always cracks me up.
posted by Zedcaster at 10:23 PM on March 21, 2018 [2 favorites]

I never owned Two on CD and so I've never really heard it. I just know it exists.

I've owned it since it was current, and listened to it a bunch. Of course it's way different from the self-titled one, because can you imagine releasing something that sounded like their 1992 album in 2000, but I still like it a lot. Well, I haven't listened to it for like 6 months or a year, but I still liked it then! Worth listening, IMO!
posted by aubilenon at 11:23 PM on March 21, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is very strange nostalgia for me... "Something Good" is my only point of familiarity with these guys, but the one time I heard it around its release date is seared indelibly into the long term storage banks... My uni gf's car, parking lot on Hastings Street across from the PNE, listening to Brave New Waves on the CBC... I have gone sniffing again every half decade or so, listened again, yes it is exactly that bizarre and excellent thing and this song is fantastic. Goo-oo-ood. Goo-ood. I just know that something good is gonna happen. Indeed!
posted by Meatbomb at 12:16 AM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Thank you so much hippybear! Just the right kind of music for the day after the snow storm.
posted by james33 at 5:15 AM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

U-U-UTAH SAINTS!!! Wore out the damn tape - thank you hippybear!

Adding to the remix list:
Utah Saints vs Drumsound & Bassline Smith - 'What Can You Do For Me' (Official Video)
Utah Saints vs Drumsound & Bassline Smith - WCYDFM (Tantrum Desire Remix)
Utah Saints - Something Good (High Contrast Remix)
posted by thirteenthletter at 5:48 AM on March 22, 2018

I lived at 65 Hartley Avenue in 1993, when allegedly 'the Saints' lived further down the road. I never met them.
posted by el_presidente at 6:05 AM on March 22, 2018

I met Jez Willis, a member of this band, in a small windowless apartment in Hamburg occupied by the main Cassandra Complex dude, Rodney Orpheus. They were recording an album. The drums were in the kitchen. Acoustics I think. But I can't say I ever heard any of the Saints music. But I wondered why they were referencing Mormons. This was in 1991.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:01 AM on March 22, 2018

No mention of the theme from Mortal Combat? That was Awe!Some! (Ok, I see one oblique reference.)
posted by victotronics at 10:13 AM on March 22, 2018

RE: Something Good, what's not to like about K. Bush and Juno 106's rippin synths. Bravo for revisiting it!

Zee Cee
posted by zippercollider at 11:16 AM on March 22, 2018

I was sharing a flat with Jez Utah's brother in 2000, so I can say that the centrepiece of Two was meant to be a single based around a sample of AC/DC's For Those About to Rock, which had a video where Jez was driving round New York* as Travis Bickle. It was pretty good.

*I guess to a pre internet undergraduate in Leeds who comes from Cumbria, Utah and New York are roughly the same thing. Don't @ me.
posted by ambrosen at 12:01 PM on March 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hah. I just re-listened to this because of the sample of There Must Be an Angel from What Can You Do For Me.
posted by aneel at 8:06 PM on March 23, 2018