Commandos finally have a 'hit' with Target ad
BY JIM WALSH
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Twenty-three years after it was written and recorded, Minneapolis punk rock legends the Suicide Commandos' "Complicated Fun" is being heard all around the world — as a television commercial for Target stores.
"From the vantage point of a 48-year-old punk rocker, it's funny how your dreams come true," said Commandos singer/guitarist Chris Osgood. "I always hoped the Commandos would have a song that got really, really wide exposure. At the time, I was thinking a song on the radio. But now that dream is going to come true in a totally unexpected way."
The song, an anthem to Minneapolis' nascent punk rock community of the late '70s, is the soundtrack to the newest Target commercials, as filmed by Minneapolis musicians/filmmakers Phil Harder and Rick Fuller, who also filmed Target spots starring Macy Gray and the ones centered on hip-hop, pop, rock and country themes.
"Complicated Fun" first appeared on Twin/Tone Records' 1978 compilation "Big Hits of Mid-America Vol. II." For the Target spots, the song has been re-recorded by the Commandos (Osgood, bassist Steve Almaas, drummer Dave Ahl) and singer/guitarist John Freeman, whose band, the Magnolias, covered the song on its album, "Off the Hook."
The Magnolias' version, in fact, is how the song first came to the attention of Amie Valentine, associate creative director at Peterson, Milla, Hooks, the Minneapolis ad agency that produced the spots.
"I wanted to use John's voice somehow or other and came upon 'Complicated Fun,' " Valentine said. "So frequently, ad agencies go to the coasts for their music, or just to catalogs. I just thought, if you want a Green Day genre, why do (a knock-off of) Green Day when the Commandos were doing it 20 years ago?"
The three 30-second commercials consist of 15-second vignettes depicting teenage and twentysomething males running around using PlayStations and Gameboys and eating Slim Jims. The ads started airing Monday.
Hard to imagine "Complicated Fun" as a TV commercial hawking anything but the thrill of youth. But times being what they are (the Clash's "London Calling" is the soundtrack to the new Jaguar campaign), anything goes when it comes to advertising and rock.
The chorus to "Complicated Fun" ironically acknowledges the blurring lines between art, commerce and would-be puritanical punk:
"The new wave is the old wave 'cuz we know it all by heart/The future ain't tomorrow, now the changes have begun/We've gotta get a handle on some complicated fun/We gotta have fun."
"It was about growing up," said Osgood. "The metaphor was the scene, and we were just talking about the maturation of punk rock. Of course there are big parts of the song that they can't use on TV."
