Mar 252011
Excluding bands in matching suits, how many examples of bands performing (live or on video) in uniform can we cite? Also excluded are bands merely posing for a cover photo in uniform (eg, XTC on a few covers) and bands in non-functional costumes (eg, KISS and GWAR). The uniform(s – they need not be matching) must be related to a profession.
I’ll start with the following video, which I’d never seen until the other day:
Go!
Cheap Trick in their “Dream Police” outfits.
Well let’s get Devo out of the way. The FUNNIEST band ever was that early 80s band that used to dress up as sports figures!! Like a baseball player and a football player. Anyone remember them? I think they were called the All Sports Band. The dumbest looking video in the world!
I need to search these guys/
found a link:
http://recordrobot.blogspot.com/2007/01/all-sports-band.html
I saw those guys. They were from Cleveland. I’m sorry their album escaped Cuyahoga County.
A cursory look on YouTube didn’t turn up the Stones in their sailor suits doing It’s Only Rock N Roll, but I think everyone has seen it. Charlie getting up and leaving at the end when the bubbles get over his head is hilarious.
The judges are well aware of that video. Good one!
Check out the cover of the Persuasions’ We Came to Play album, with the guys wearing matching basketball warm-ups emblazoned with a big P. Back cover credit: Uniforms: Levy’s of Jersey City.
Funny credit, Frank, but I need “moving” pictures: live or filmed performances, not just posed album cover shots.
There are at least two really obvious (to me, anyhow) uniformed bands that have not yet been mentioned, both of which wear their uniforms onstage, all the time.
The Village People
What instrument did the guy with the boxing gloves play?
Paul Revere and the Raiders….Kicks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtOE3Cy-FJI
in their Tri-Corn hats and everything.
The Upper Crust ans 18th century fops
http://www.theuppercrust.org/home.html
The judges will accept “fop” as a profession.
Gary Puckett and the Union Gap – variations of Civil War uniforms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F6whWSp0PM
Early Beach Boys – white slacks and candy-stripe shirts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=654H4xfDYKM
Leningrad Cowboys – Soviet-style suits and outrageous wigs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rv1CTZSIU0
That’s hilarious. No recollection of them.
The Clash – Paramilitary guys
OK, reading comprehension failure on my part. The Beach Boys don’t count and as for the Leningrad Cowboys, Politburo members generally didn’t have massive hair.
However, there was a short-lived band called Fresh Out of Borstal around 1970 who would appear in prison clothes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayussUQMgAY
The Busboys – they would dress as waiters and busboys on stage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ntyNwW0Phg
Isn’t that because that’s what they went back to doing when the headliners came on?
These guys appeared on SNL and were featured in the 48 Hrs. movie.
the monks
I can’t take it anymore. I need to claim the Last Man Standing spot with what I thought was among the most obvious bands, and one of the few “modern-age” bands I like, Clinic.
LMS!
That B.W. Stevenson Band clip you posted the other day showed them dressed as cowboys who worked on a beard farm.
The Beastie Boys played a benefit show at Cal State for Leonard Peltier at which they wore UPS uniforms.
Oh God, your talk of cowboys (unfortunately) brought to mind this gem. This band/video/track also could have found a place on the previous posting about shitty songs that stick in your head. I’m dreading the morning now since I’ll keep hearing, “I want to be a cowboy” in my head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s05jcrJw0as
Would the Moog Cookbook count? They performed in shiny space suits and space helmets.
There were any number of country-rock and country-western bands who affected the cowboy look, particularly in the ’70s. The closest some of these guys had ever been to a cow was the Elsie picture on a milk carton.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEOV5vWfSgI
los straitjackets
The Chicago Bears Shuffling Crew
playing in chicago on wednesday: danielson
http://www.last.fm/music/Danielson+Famile/+images/309191
What a caring family!