Pullin’ ‘Tubes: GSW’s 4 Real

During the jamband boom of the early ’90s, bands like Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, Phish and God Street Wine found themselves being courted by major labels who saw big dollars signs attached to these acts who had already established and fervent fan bases. GSW’s time on the majors has been well documented, after being virtually shunned by Geffen Records, who provided little support or promotion for arguably their strongest studio album $1.99 Romances, they made the move over to Mercury Records who put out their final two records – Red and God Street Wine.

Their tenure at Mercury coincided with the heyday of MTV and every label found it essential to try to get their band’s music video into rotation on the network – who still had the power to break bands. While history is certainly not kind to the marriage of jambands making traditional concept videos, GSW released their one and only foray into that world with one for RU 4 Real?…

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3 Responses

  1. I still have that video on VHS! I’m also still waiting for someone to explain what the hell it all means? Who is the guy with the hat? Why can’t he get out of the bathroom? Is he the record label, with the power to make or break bands? Why are all those punk kids dancing to GSW? Is it a metaphor for Geffen’s failure to properly promote them? I’m really just confused.

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