Michael Sporn Animation's video for "Cavern" by Liquid Liquid (1983)

In 1983, Michael Sporn Animation Studios produced this terrific video for Liquid Liquid's "Cavern," released by seminal downtown NYC music label (and shop!) 99 Records. Of course, the "Cavern" bassline became the foundation of Grandmaster Melle Mel's pioneering hip hop track "White Lines (Don't Do It)." Much more from Michael Sporn Animation at the company's Splog.

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Annie Nilsson

Is it just me or does this look a lot like The Point?
machinestate

spoiler: the thing with all them teeth bites the livin’ shit out of him
- http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch
  
  A mean blue guy is nommed by a red dragon thing. The moral of the story is, don’t push people around on the subway, or the subway dragon will get you.
noah django

this pleases me!
niktemadur

Now THIS is extraordinary, classic underground stuff that became supremely influential, feels like a big, fat, heavy, important chunk of music… nay, art history.

I first heard this around 1990 (you had me fooled for a few years there, Grandmaster Flash), and it STILL sounds fresh to my ears.
- niktemadur
  
  For those who don’t know, “Cavern” was released in 1981 (the animation may be from 1983, so it says on the description by Mr Pescovitz) and sampled in 1983 by Grandmaster Melle Mel for “White Lines”. Under deliberately unclear packaging, a lot of people believed that Grandmaster Flash was the author, at least a collaborator, which he wasn’t on both counts. Anyway, here:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ChjLMbXVrU
wpalmer

My brother was one of the founding members of Liquid Idiot (what Liquid Liquid called themselves when they were all starting out as a band and students at Rutgers New Brunswick in the late 70s). In a world of “what if” I know he always wonders where his life would have taken him if we had stayed with the band after they graduated and moved to NYC.
Chuck Benz

I was struggling to figure out why that bass line was so familiar – it wasn’t just Grandmaster Flash that used it. Finally my brain clicked and I connected it to Big Audio Dynamite – it’s used in “The Bottom Line”.
- niktemadur
  
  Interesting! Similar but not a direct sample.
  Keeping the eighties references flying off the shelves – not even enough to take to Judge Wapner’s People’s Court, as Huey Lewis did with Ray Parker Jr, remember that? “I Want A New Drug” vs “Ghostbusters Theme”.