With the current level of craziness reaching new heights on Capitol Hill, I thought I would take a look back and see where some of this got started. Actually, it's been milling around since 1950 - but the current shit storm has a lot to do with the compromise offered by President Clinton on January 29, 1993 and later to be referred to as "don't ask, don't tell, don't harass" (the harass part seems to have been forgotten about).

Pres. Clinton: “The issue is not whether there should be homosexuals in the military. Everyone concedes that there are. The issue is whether men and women who can and have served with real distinction, should be excluded from military service solely on the basis of their status. And I believe they should not.”

A lot happened between January and December of 1993 as far as the ban was concerned. And seventeen years later, it's still happening.

Meanwhile, the parade of flag-draped coffins always beg the question "pick the gay ones".

As you probably know by now (if you've been following Newstalgia and the Roundtable for any length of time), I am a huge fan of the Experimental/Progressive/alternative 90's band Suarez from Argentina. They have since broken up and gone separate ways with former lead singer Rosario Blefari launching a successful solo career, as well as acting career and is heavily involved in activism.

Her solo material is wonderful, and I've been featuring it over the past several months. But every so often I'm reminded of the earlier stuff, the Suarez stuff, and it takes me right back to the place I first heard them and the reason why they have been one of my favorite bands ever since - together or not.

Tonight it's Desmaya, a track that didn't wind up on any of their own albums, but rather included in a compilation album with several other bands from Argentina.

A casual reminder the world of music is vast and the discoveries are endless. Don't be shortchanged by mainstream radio - hit the browse button and see where it takes you.

I have a particular fondness for that period of the 90's which gave birth to the movement known as Madchester. I always felt it was a surge of talent and a refreshing point of view and two of my favorite bands were busy butting heads in the press in the midst of it all.

Those two bands were of course Blur and Oasis and tonight's Roundtable features the inimitable Blur in one of a series of live recordings from their 1992-1993 period. As I said in other posts before, the fan loyalty was such that you were either a Blur fan and hated Oasis or you were an Oasis fan and hated Blur. To a degree, it brought back memories of the old press generated rivalry between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones - time was, you were compelled to love one and hate the other or you were no fan.

Not one to fall for hype, I could never find myself dismissing one band over another, because I found validity in what both were all about - and the same holds true for Oasis and Blur.

So, with that - here are three tracks by Blur from different sessions:

1. Charmless Man
2. Trouble In The Message Center
3. It Could Be You

Turn it up and get ready for the weekend - I understand it's only a day or so away.

Further evidence our world has always been at least a little skewed comes in the form of this installment of ABC Radio's World News This Week, for the week ending June 27, 1993.

A rash of arrests in connection with the World Trade Center bombing in February netted the alleged ringleader, Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali and fingers pointing at Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, who broke out in bibles and a chorus of "It's A Grand Old Flag" in protest. No one bought it, but they pretended for a while.

Meanwhile, a raid was staged on a bomb-making factory whose aroma of the business end of Bessie mixed with Texas Tea brought about further culprits who were this time looking to do in, among others, the United Nations and Alphonse D'Amato, although not necessarily in that order. Seems things were planning to get a darker shade of nasty around the 4th of July.

And on the subject of bombs, an uptick this week in exploding packages being sent to Universities, compliments of someone they couldn't nail yet (Ted Kaczinski wasn't on the map yet).

Capitol Hill was full up on drama this past week. President Clinton's Budget bill HR-2264 squeaked by with the help of VP Gore, who cast the tie-breaker. The Supercollider didn't fare nearly as well, dying yet another death. NASA's Space Station was another squeaker, with a 1 vote lead in approval. The big Drama came in the form of Base Closings with announcements being made and greeted with all the enthusiasm of the Grim Reaper.

And SCOTUS got ready to close for the summer by giving workers a harder time filing discrimination suits against their employers. And if you were Haitian and on a boat, you were SOL for hitting Miami with open arms anytime soon as it was 5-4 in favor of keeping Bush's "thanks, but no thanks" policy preventing Haitians landing immigrant status in the U.S.

And legislation was introduced to make Advertising in Space a possibility by way of gigantic billboards visible in the sky just about anytime day or night from a few hundred miles away. Creative Directors went screaming and falling over like teenage boys at a Depeche Mode concert, but the halls of Congress echoed with the phrase "side of a bus" and cooler heads prevailed.

And you could have been there - now you just get to listen to it and wince.

There's always at least one band that sneaks by and you fail to notice. I confess I wasn't really aware of East Village until just recently, when I heard their 1993 posthumously released album Drop Out. Aside from having something of a cult following now, they had a cult following then, having gotten started in the early 1980's before calling it quits in 1991. But like so many of bands from that period (and other periods throughout Pop Music history), they got lost in the shuffle and were totally overlooked in the U.S.

Until a few days ago when their label Heavenly Recordings put up some of their tracks on Soundcloud and winning a new batch of fans in the process.

Tonight it's a track off Drop Out. When I Wake Tomorrow is just a great track that is so reminiscent of many of the influential 60's bands (i.e. Buffalo Springfield for openers) that it's baffling East Village didn't get the recognition they deserved.

In the interim, their albums have been going for the price of a small office building in some collectors circles. Some of their material has recently been reissued in Japan and it's gaining a whole new generation of fans who missed them the first time around. Myself included.

So if you've ever heard about East Village, but never actually heard anything from the band, now's your chance. You might also want to check out Heavenly Recordings Soundcloud page for more tracks by them. Like me, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

News of this day in 1993 also began with that region of Eastern Europe known as the former Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic was indicted by the World Court on War Crimes over the conflict in Bosnia (which was only going to get worse in the coming months). Meanwhile, the first launch of the year for Shuttle Discovery went off without a hitch. Since it was also Memorial Day weekend in 1993, Airlines decided to take advantage of all the vacant seats and offer hefty reductions in fares. An outbreak of Meningitis in an Aurora Colorado Middle School claimed its second victim and Seagulls staged a full-on invasion of a small Utah town in search of grasshoppers, bringing analogies of the last time Seagulls made such a dramatic appearance it was also supposed to have something to do with too many Grasshoppers and the Mormons went giddy over the outcome. No such revelation this time. Just a lot of squawking and visions of Alfred Hitchcock.

All for that May 27th which happened to have fallen on a Thursday in 1993. Here is the news of that day via The CBS World News Roundup.

As George Bush Sr. was preparing to leave office, the fighting in Bosnia continued, with hopes of a ceasefire and a proposal to turn Sarajevo into an Open City meeting approval of everyone but Slobodan Milosevic. Meanwhile back at home - President-Elect Bill Clinton would receive final confirmation of his winning the Presidential election the previous November, and the vetting process started up with Clinton Cabinet appointees. Another oil tanker breakup and spill, this time off the Scottish coast and Ross Perot stages a comeback. All on January 6, 1993.

Here is the World News Roundup for January 6, 1993 and all the players.

I always thought Catherine Wheel were one of the truly great Shoegaze/Indie/Modern Rock bands to come out of the UK in the early 1990's. They were probably more heavy sounding than most but they were amazing to see live and my fondest memory of them is from their 1995 US tour when they were sharing the bill with the Charlatans (UK). A truly wonderful band that has been sadly overlooked the past few years (since their breakup in 2000) and not for any good reason as far as I can tell.

In case they may have slipped your mind, or your memory of them is a bit dim, or even if you've never heard them before, here is a non-lp track off an ep they issued in 1993. These Four Walls comes from the Show Me Mary ep that came out on Fontana in the UK. It wasn't issued on a CD until 199 when it came out on Like Cats and Dogs which was a compilation of singles, outtakes and b-sides.

(One Dove - joining the massive list of "might've beens")

Over to 90's Dance/Electronica tonight. One Dove were one of those groups who had all the right elements and support, but just couldn't see eye to eye with their label. At a time when Electronica groups were coming into their own, One Dove were on the fast track to achieving some well deserved recognition. But as often is the case, their indie label was taken over by a Major and what had worked for them before was now no longer what the game plan was all about. The new parent label wanted hits and One Dove were still getting their sound nailed down. And the tension started.

Their first (and only album), Morning Dove White was held back from release for almost a year, and this track, Breakdown, was issued as a single with a number of different mixes by a number of different producers. It did moderately well, but not the much hoped-for breakthrough the new label was anticipating.

In the end, One Dove called it quits in the middle of working on their second album, leaving their growing fan base to wonder what might have been had things worked out differently. Sadly, it's all too common a story and has been for years.

But in the short time they were recording, One Dove did leave some nice material and maybe find some new fans along the way.

(Letters To Cleo, circa 1993)

I thought I would cover some familiar territory for a change tonight. Boston Alternative/quasi-grunge/power pop group Letters To Cleo and their 1993 track Here & Now off their first album Aurora Gory Alice. I understand they've staged a reunion and did a mini tour of a few cities last year. I'm still having a hard time realizing this track is almost 20 years old.

Time flies. But the song's still good.