Now that Coney Island is slated to lose its funky Boardwalk attractions, this old school vid from 1982 seems especially apropos. Thanks to ModernJim, one of our readers, for sending us the link. “The Clash’s video for ‘Overpowered by Funk’ has a lot of Coney Island in it,” he writes. Sure does. You’ll catch sight of Coney’s vanished Trabant as well as a Himi and lots of games and their operators: basketball, derby race, dunk tank, even Astroland’s shooting gallery. The video winds up at the Eldorado’s “Bump Your Ass Off” Bumper cars where Mick Jones buys a ticket to ride. Watch for the dancing girl in red and her cotton candy mom. Funkpower over and out!
In one of the first music videos from the Magnetic Fields, circa 1992, a boyish-looking girl (or girlish-looking boy?) traipses around Coney Island, riding the rides and lip-syncing a droll love song…
On the ferris wheel looking out on Coney Island
Under more stars than there are prostitutes in Thailand
Our hair in the air, our lips blue from cotton candy
When we kiss it feels like a flying saucer landing
And I can’t sleep ’cause you’ve got strange powers
Thanks to photographer and film maven Jim McDonnell for the recommendation. Watch for glimpses of Astroland, the Jumbo Jet and the freak museum in the now demolished bank building, he says.
Looking for more info about the song, we discovered there’s a new documentary, also called Strange Powers, about songwriter Stephin Merritt, who has been called “the Cole Porter of his generation,” and the Magnetic Fields. “To some they’re an iconic band. To others, they’re completely unknown,” according to the film’s trailer, which you can watch here.
After we posted the new vid shot in Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park by the UK’s #1 boy band The Wanted, a reader sent us a link to this blast from the past from another boy band filmed in Coney Island. “I came across a pop video from the ’90s that you might enjoy. The song is pure cheese, but it might be the last music video ever filmed at Astroland,” said the reader.
We did enjoy it. The 1999 tune “Summer Girls” by LFO (Lyte Funkie Ones) takes us back to happier days on the Boardwalk, when the Astroland Rocket was perched atop Gregory & Paul’s roof and provided the backdrop for LFO’s teenage exuberance. This top 10 hit of the summer sold over 1.5 million copies in the U.S.
The lyrics are nonsensical fun: “New Kids On The Block, had a bunch of hits/Chinese food makes me sick/And I think it’s fly when girls stop by for the summer,for the summer/I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch/I’d take her if I had one wish/But she’s been gone since that summer/Since that summer…”
As one commenter said on YouTube: “I heard that he was joking when he wrote these lyrics but somebody liked it and they just ran with it. As somebody who hated it when it first came out, I love it now. It’s different, it’s fresh.”
Where are they now?
In 2009, after a brief reunion, the pop/rap trio announced “LFO is Over” via YouTube. Sadly, the lead singer Rich Cronin, who wrote “Summer Girls,” died of leukemia in September 2010.
What happened to the Rocket?
After Astroland lost its lease in 2009, the Rocket was removed from G & P’s roof and donated to the City of New York by the Albert family. “The Rocket will become a permanent and iconic part of the 27 acre redeveloped amusement district in Coney Island,” according to the press release from the Coney Island Development Corporation. The Rocket is in storage at an NYCEDC facility in Staten Island.
The iconic signage of Gregory & Paul’s, which is featured in the vid, is another soon-to-vanish piece of Coney Island Americana. Now called Paul’s Daughter, the 41-year-old eatery is being evicted from the Boardwalk to make way for the new Coney Island. Its location is slated to be taken over by a concession run by corporate giant Sodexo, Luna Park’s partner for “On-Site Service Solutions.”
Enjoy the trip back in time to the real Coney Island!
Amusing the Zillion 