Vamps on TV: Eddie Money Music Video from 1982

The great Eddie Money sounds as love-struck as Spike in this atmospheric video from 1982 for "I Think I'm in Love.

Vamps on TV: Ice Skaters Spin Darkness at Sochi Olympics

Lots of interesting dark music in this year's Sochi Winter Olympics! Buffy and Spike would have felt right at home.

Note: the videos below are not the actual Olympics but earlier performances at various competitions.


Russia's pairs-skaters Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov captured the Silver medal at Sochi with The Addams Family. Ironically another Russian couple won the Gold skating to "Jesus Christ Superstar."



Denis Ten of Kazakhstan won the Men's Bronze dancing to Danse Macabre (see this previous post about the Buffy episode "The Gentlemen")



Javier Fernandez of Spain performed to "Satan Takes a Holiday"



Italy's Stefania Berton & Ondrej Hotarek skated to "Dracula" by Philipp Glass

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Nerf Herder

Nerf Herder wrote and performed the Buffy Theme song heard at the beginning of the show. For the first two seasons, a cover of the song by The Breeders was used. It's included on both the American and UK versions of Radio Sunnydale. Click the pictures to buy either album.



Nerf Herder themselves played the theme in seasons 3-7, and that version is included on Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Album (1999 Television Series)




The name of the band comes, of course, from Star Wars: in "The Empire Strikes Back" Han Solo tells Luke that Princess Leia has expressed her "true feelings" for him. An embarrassed Princess Leia argues back that he's a "Stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-lookin' Nerf Herder," to which Han replies, "Who's scruffy-lookin'?"

From Wikipedia:

In an interview they explain how they came to produce the theme:
"They [the Buffy production staff] had hired some famous theme song composer to come up with a theme and they didn’t like the one he came up with so they were kind of on a low budget, and asked local bands to come up with theme song ideas." [1]

In the DVD commentary for "Welcome to the Hellmouth", Whedon explained that part of his decision to go with Nerf Herder's theme was that Alyson Hannigan had made him listen to the band's music.

Nerf Herder also played in the last season, "Empty Places," playing "Rock City News" at the Bronze.

In April 2003, Nerf Herder appeared as the musical guest in the final-season Buffy episode "Empty Places" – the very last band to play at The Bronze. Their special connection to the series was further acknowledged by a bit of dialogue, as "Rock City News" played in the background:

Kennedy: What kind of band plays during an apocalypse?
Dawn: I think this band might actually be one of the signs.

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Aimee Mann

Today we have two from Aimee Mann, a singer-songwriter who is the only performer at the Bronze to ever have a line of dialogue in the Buffy episode "Sleeper" in Season 7.

And it's really a good line:

Man, I hate playing vampire towns.

She utters her line while coming offstage at the Bronze after watching Spike dust a vampire in front of everyone.

Spike meanwhile has become a "Sleeper" agent for the First Evil, who triggers his vampire rage with a song his mother used to sing to him called "Early One Morning" - an ironic title referring to "as the sun was rising," which is deadly to vampires.

The song "Pavlov's Bell" is especially appropriate for this episode because it refers to the classic psychology experiment in which a dog is conditioned to search for food when the master rings a bell. In this case, Spike obeys the First whenever he hears that song playing, and that leads him to kill and then bury his victims.

"Pavlov's Bell" and "This is how it goes" can be found on Mann's album Lost in Space. "Pavlov's Bell" is included on both versions of Radio Sunnydale.











Another interesting musical reference in this episode:

In one scene, the bouncer refers to Spike as "a Billy Idol wannabe," and Buffy starts to say that Billy Idol actually stole the look from him (implying Spike had told her this in conversation at some point). In Season Five's Fool for Love, Spike's resemblance to Billy Idol was depicted (though not acknowledged in dialogue) during his flashback fight with the Slayer Nikki Wood in 1977, at which time Spike's attire and hair mimicked Idol almost perfectly, several years before Idol's fame.

Aimee Mann started her singing career in the Big 80s band Til Tuesday and their hit Voices Carry. She even had the Spike-worthy bleach-blond hair!

Slayer Soundtrack Sunday ~ Darling Violetta

Darling Violetta first appeared in the Whedonverse in the dark episode "Faith, Hope and Trick," which introduces three characters: the second slayer, "Faith"; Scott Hope, a boy who likes Buffy; and last, but not least, the vampire "Mr. Trick," who became an evil minion to the Mayor of Sunnydale in his "Ascendancy" as a Giant Snake.

This is also the episode in which Angel returns from the demon realm.

The band played two songs in this episode. "Cure is from The Kill You EP, and "Blue Sun" is from the album Bath Water Flowers




The first is "Cure" which is playing in the Bronze when Buffy dances with a boy named Scott Hope (the "Hope" in the name of the episode). Beautiful song!




The second is "Blue Sun," and plays while Faith is telling the kids about her past adventures as a Slayer.



Darling Violetta then went on to write "Sanctuary," the moody theme song of the "Angel" TV show, which can be found on the album Angel: Live Fast, Die Never [Music from the TV Series]