Music trivia no one but me cares about, aka "Who the fuck is Network?"

"Back In America" by Network, aka the end credits song for the film National Lampoon's European Vacation

I've liked this song ever since I saw the movie back in the mid-'80s. But when I went to look up an album by this Network band way back when, I couldn't find one. In fact, I could never find any info about Network, no matter how hard I looked. It was almost like they didn't exist, like they recorded this one song then vanished.

Today, I finally found a clue to solving this mystery that's perplexed me for over twenty years. I stumbled on an old message board post during a Google search (so old I had to recover it from a Google cache) for the European Vacation soundtrack that mentioned a band called Le Roux that recorded a version of the song on the Millenium Edition of their album So Fired Up.

Having never heard of Le Roux before, I decided to do a search for them on Google in relation to the song "Back In America." What I found answered my question at last.

http://www.glorydazemusic.com/articles.php?article_id=2115

No further mention of Network is made in the article. Therefore I'm inclined to believe that they did just record one song as Network, then disbanded. Kind of reminds me of such one-off bands like Class of '99 (featuring Layne Staley of Alice in Chains as vocalist, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine (and later Audioslave) on guitar, Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction on drums and bassist Martyn LeNoble of Porno for Pyros), who came together just to record a cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (part 2)" for the soundtrack for the film The Faculty and disbanded just as quickly, having recorded nothing other than that one song (and an instrumental version) for that one soundtrack.

And there it is, music trivia that no one but me cares about. :lol

The thread title is accurate. 18 views and I'm the first post, only to say that, no, I don't care.

:lol

I strive for accuracy in my thread titles, damn it! :lol

If nothing else, be happy for me because I managed to finally answer a question that's been bugging me for so damn long.

:)

You know, all this has me thinking: has anyone else had to do any detective work to try to find out what happened to a band or album? For instance, how about the mystery of the '90s alternative band Smile? They released the album Maquee with "Staring at the Sun" on it back in '95, which got some decent radio coverage (in Central Florida, at least) and a music video. Didn't hear anything about them after that until I got online and found their website, but it vanished shortly thereafter. From that point, it was like there was no info on Smile to be found.

Fast forward about ten years to today. A random search on YouTube leads to Smile's MySpace page, and all my questions are answered:

I remember that song!

Blue Meridian comes to mind. I saw them on 12/31/99 and they did a flawless cover of "It's the End of the World as We Know It" replete with Little Nicky from their radio single "Sideways Silverjet" working the flash cards ala the R.E.M. video. I loved "Sideways Silverjet". They disappeared.

IDK wth happened to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum either since there haven't been any updates on their site for months or a year or whatever. One of the BEST live shows EVER.

Kind of the opposite happened this Summer w/ Down. I never thought, "Wth ever happened to them?". But after seeing them live in a small, mosh-worthy, crowd-surfing-crazy venue I thought to myself, "Self, wth DIDN'T you ask that?!?!?! And wth didn't you put in for the ticket raffle?!?!? You got effing LUCKY that some big band fan who wasn't into the rock n' roll won them and gave them to you!"

Blue Meridian I've never heard of, but they sound like something I'd like to hear. I still have a copy of the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum CD that either you or zatharus sent me, although I only listened to it once and wasn't very impressed.

Down, on the other hand... I knew they were a side project that Phil Anselmo had going with a couple of the guys from Corrosion of Conformity when he was still with Pantera, but now that Pantera's gone, I guess he's doing it full time.

Here's another one for you: ever heard of Crawlspace? I'll bet you have, but you may not realize it. I first heard them when they contributed a song called "My Ruin" to the Mortal Kombat: More Kombat CD (which also has a great God Lives Underwater B-side on it, "Weight" - the only place you can get it) in '96. Good song, and I wanted to find out more about them. So did cosmo, as he'd heard Crawlspace somewhere else and wanted to track them down. But neither of us could turn anything up by them.

A couple years later, this new band was being played heavily on the radio. I liked what I heard, and heard good things about their first CD from friends who'd picked it up. So I grabbed it. As I'm looking through the tracklisting, I see a song called "My Ruin." "Interesting," I said. "There's another song called 'My Ruin'."

So I put the CD on... I think you can see where I'm going with this. Yes, it was the same song as the Crawlspace song from More Kombat. A quick check of the liner notes revealed a note from the band saying something along the lines of "To all Crawlspace fans, thanks for your support."

The band? Sevendust. And now you know the rest of the story.

Interesting @ Sevendust. I love their earlier stuff too. Great live show as well.

I think Superjoint Ritual became Phil's full-time gig for a while but he's Down now and that's fine by me. In fact 2 other members are in both bands as well.

SGM's recorded music is not the best. I can pick out a few songs like "1997", "Sleep is Wrong", "Powerless" and the first couple of tracks on their second release that I can get into but it's all about the live show for them.

So SGM is kind of like Gwar in that sense? They have a phenomenal live show but "meh" music, as far as I'm concerned.

Yes. I remember my first time. The "night I lost my virginity to a Gorilla", if you will. Zat, the typeowife and I were at Will's Pub for a Gargashow, drinking appropriately and playing Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. I got up to wizz while the opening band was on and had to walk past a stage vantage point to get to the restroom. Everyone there was just staring, mezmerized. Then I was, nearly peeing my pants because I had forgotten to hit the head. Once they took a break between songs I completed my personal business and went back to the bar to retrieve my companions. It was soooo worth it. She's not really even into metal or industrial music but she couldn't look away either. It's amazing and only seems to get better...or at least did until they disappeared.

Last 2 I saw they had a contortionist in a cage hanging from the ceiling as "The Last Human" kind of on exhibit for all of us to view. Then he freakin' escaped into the crowd and played some kind of portable kegdrum thing! You can really see the instrumental genius live as well. They make some of their own instruments and John Kane plays an electric 12-string on many songs. The show we saw after the JW tasting started with a funeral procession, replete with standards and incense.

SleepytimeGorillaMuseum.com

It appears they are still around. According to their MySpace page, they have shows scheduled up through the 20th of this month. Problem is, they're all out on the West Coast.