Headpins: Don’t It Make You Feel Like Dancing

Here’s one more music video tonight, a gem from the early days of music video. It’s a lot of fun. I hadn’t heard this in decades. When I was about 14, the Headpins opened for somebody or another in my town, and a TV commercial selling tickets featured clips from this video. The song was all over radio that year, but the band faded away pretty quickly. Or so I thought. I just Googled the Headpins and discovered three facts:

• Singer Darby Mills (that’s her in the video) was the band’s second singer
• The group was a Chilliwack side project. If you don’t remember Chilliwack, you probably aren’t a Canadian over 35.
• The Headpins are still touring.

I was never a fan, and I never owned a Headpins recording, but the first few moments of this song yanked me right back to small-town Canadian summers in the early 80s, with a BMX bike, Pop Shoppe pop and a Pac-Man game at the pool hall.

Don’t it make you feel?

Best Music Video Ever

When it comes to bad music videos, I could fill your hard drive. I have a list.

But this … okay, it’s a terrible song, a piece of novelty trash metal. But when the time came to make a video, whoever made it really, really grasped the concept.

I feel the same way about this video as I feel about the bad movies and bad music I enjoy: The creators had no illusions about what they were doing, and when they showed up for work, they brought big lunchboxes full of what-the-fuckness. And then they had their fun.

It isn’t art. But it works.

Feast your eyes …