120 Reasons To Live: Smoking Popes

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.

#26: Smoking Popes “Need You Around”

Great song from a band that was never fully embraced by the alt-rock listening public. The Wikipedia details and trivia are forthcoming (now that’s what we call research!), but let’s pause a moment and consider how typically ’90s this group was: edgy band name, a “hey, loser” album title (1995’s Born To Quit, which features “Need You Around”), a sound that mixes punk with fill-in-the-blank musical style (in this case, ’50s crooning), popularity in some random European country (Finland) and inclusion on the Clueless soundtrack. Chicago’s Smoking Popes were led by the three Caterer brothers and landed opening slots on tours with Green Day and Morrissey, which seems about right given the band’s fast-and-droll delivery. In 1999, one of the Caterer brothers found Christianity and quit his band. His band called Smoking Popes.