120 Reasons To Live: Shudder To Think

Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.

#8: Shudder To Think “X-French Tee Shirt”

We make no apologies for centering this 120 Minutes-athon in the 1988-1991 era; it was the show’s heyday. Even as the alt-rock market got saturated in the mid-’90s, however, there were still some surprises in store. Shudder To Think was one of the oddest major-label signings of the decade, partnering with Epic for 1994’s Pony Express Record. The band led by singer Craig Wedren and guitarist Nathan Larson got its start in the D.C. hardcore scene and issued three albums on Dischord, but Shudder To Think was unlike anything else coming out of 3819 Beecher St.: a mix of avant-garde punk, glam and Queen-y arena rock. Since MAGNET has already covered the video for Pony Express single “Hit Liquor” (which was banned in Canada for “unnecessary cannibalism and necrophilia”), the clip for “X-French Tee Shirt”—which is a better song than “Hit Liquor” anyway—is presented here. Two cursory comments: Wedren’s look is already creepy; did he really need to wear all those rings? And Larson’s erratic right-hand guitar stroke was one of the coolest things about seeing Shudder live.

Shudder To Think split up after 1997’s 50,000 B.C. but Larson and Wedren have each found success scoring music for films and doing other projects. Wedren recently made MAGNET a mix tape and Larson guest edited our site with wife/Cardigans frontwoman Nina Persson, with whom he records as A Camp. Shudder reunited in 2008 for a brief tour.