Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Schtum "Skydiver"

I was at an event last night and got to chat with Les Sampou, the real rock n roller next door to my wife's cousin.

Even with today's super-interconnected society, social media, Googling abilities and such, you sometimes never know who's right in your midst.

Tonight, for the mvyradio Album Of The Week, we're playing Christian McNeill & The Seamonsters' record, "Everything's Up For Grabs."

I had seen McNeill a bunch of years ago at Johnny D's, opening for Sarah Borges.  And last year, I was happy to hear that he had relocated to The Vineyard and was playing regular gigs around the Island.  He even joined us for our "Thank You For Saving mvyradio" Party.

Earlier this week, I was scheduling some posts on the mvyradio Bloggers page, including one about the Album Of The Week.  I was trolling Youtube for interesting McNeill items when I came across a video of Christian being interviewed while standing outside of Johnny D's.  Cool!

I took notice of the suggested videos that appear on the right side of the screen on Youtube.

Hey! Schtum!

Schtum is this band that had crossed my brain a number of times, to use as a weekend post.  On the weekends, instead of writing a full blog entry, I like to just post some great, obscure tune that I would have been playing during my 90s Alternative show when I lived in Virginia.

Schtum, an Irish, hard-rocking outfit, fit into that category really well, because they had a minor Alternative hit with "Skydiver."  But it wasn't a tune that seemed to survive beyond the era.  I can't say that I've heard the song since the 90s, but I have good memories of absolutely cranking this song in the WABN studios.

I went back to watching the McNeill interview.

Then I noticed that there were actually several Schtum videos.  And I scrolled down to see even more.

Wait a minute.  Why did so many Schtum videos come up when I had searched for Christian McNeill?

Well, it turns out that McNeill was the lead singer of Schtum.  He relocated to Boston and started a solo career, and is now part of the Vineyard music community.

How cool is that?  Another real rock n roller next door?!?




Skydiver by Schtum on Grooveshark
Hear "Skydiver" on Grooveshark.

Hear Christian McNeill on Youtube.

2 comments:

  1. I saw Schtum back in the day...er, way, way back... in Ireland. They were from the county next door and the nearest big town. And by did they rock, with a bent whose origins (perhaps)I am only now beginning to understand. Fugazi for sure...Late to the party, etc. I still hgave their three locally-released singles. And yes, everything's up for grabs is great too! Robbie

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  2. I certainly remember when this song came out the South Glens Falls NY High School boys lacrosse team adopted it as their fight song. They almost won the state championship that year.

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