So, what was the deal with bands in the 90's having male cheerleaders/dancers

So, I've been thinking about music in the 90's lately (I blame VH1). I firmly stand by my judgment made during that decade that about 75% of all music produced between 1992-2000 pretty well sucked. However, there were some interesting micro-tends. For instance, what was the deal with bands that had a member who did nothing but dance around on stage? I present the following case studies:

1) Ben Carr of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones:

What you're seeing is pretty much all Ben does. Skank-a-dank. Wikipedia describes him as "an ubiquitous, but non-musician onstage presence, later credited as 'Bosstone.'" Now, this isn't such a big deal when your seven-piece band is playing monster venues on the Vans/Warped Tour. But, AC and my second date was seeing this guys in the 7th Street Entry back in early '92. There was no room on stage, no room on the floor - but somehow they pulled it off. AC got a contact knocked out when she got kicked in the face by a stage-diver. Miraculously, she actually found the contact on the floor. Later, I interviewed Joe Gittleman for my awesome 'zine, Blaaarg! and AC got kissed by several band members.

Special Bonus Video: Devil's Night Out


vainglorious tangent: the barkeep at Tin Cups keeps telling me that I remind him of Dicky Barrett. Apparently, Dicky is now Jimmy Kimmel's announcer. Who knew?

2) Beau Beau of Avail


I will submit that Avail might end up being one of the best Punk Rawk bands of the 90's. They broke the mold of a genre that was getting stale and formulaic in a lot of ways (their covers of "Pink Houses," "Suspicious Minds," and "You May be Right" while blow your free-gone mind, man). So why not have live show that includes a guy with a beard that'd do Odin proud and an incisor deficiency as your all-purpose cheerleader? Tip o' the eyepatch to you, Beau Beau.


3) Bez of Happy Mondays


I'm going to admit that I was a pretty serious hater of Acid House back inna day. Granted, I put my 40 of Haterade down long enough to head over to Sunday Night Dance Party in the Mainroom after the all-ages hardcore matinee was over in the Entry. That was where the girls were. Duh.
At any rate, no band exemplified Acid like Happy Mondays. Check out the film '24 Hour Party People' for a very entertaining glimpse into this particular chapter in music/drug/youth culture history. One of the Mondays' trademarks was having this geezer named Bez (who was X'd out of his gourd) dance like a jackrabbit with a thyroid condition in all their shows. Later, the maracas came out. For those of you who were rocking out to Richard Marx back then, Bez was basically the Flavor Flav of Acid House.

Here's a video of these freaks at the height of their evil powers:



Still not my cup of tea. You're twistin' my melon, man.