Rock it to Russia

Just found one of my all-time favorite songs on YouTube — the Dave Rave Group's "Weight of the World," recorded in 1989.

The track captures the sense of unfulfilled longing that I experienced before discovering the thrill of the chaste. It's all the more poignant because its melody and arrangement are so upbeat and hopeful. Listening to it now takes me back to that place. It feels like a sort of Lenten mortification.

The video itself is delightful — shot in Russia in 1990, where the band, made up of Canadians and New Yorkers, somehow got a Melodiya record deal without having a contract in North America. It all started about two years earlier, when I took Rave and fellow band member Gary Pig Gold into a Russian-owned record store in the East Village.



It's from Valentino's Pirates, available on CD with liner notes by me.