Sweet Tooth Jukebox: The Sundays

Folks, it's time once again to ignore everything else on the Internet and reminisce about the good old days of 80's new wave-post-punk-gothicy-indie pop, aka the bands who hang out in the darkened corners of my recent book Sweet Tooth's new wavy mise-en-scene. Or something. In any case, let's take a quick buggy ride back to the year 1989, shall we?

The Smiths had broken up, and Morrissey had embarked on his legendary/notorious solo career with the high-watermark 1988 album Viva Hate. Meanwhile, Scottish dreampop weirdos The Cocteau Twins, who had been making some of the decade's most gorgeous and stultifying music since 1982, finally had a taste of American success with 1988's Blue Bell Knoll, their fifth album overall and their first to be available stateside. Enter a scrappy band from Reading who became the answer to the question all us sweaty Anglophiles didn't realize we should have been asking ourselves: What would happen if The Smiths and The Cocteau Twins rented a room, got nekkid, and made a baby?

The answer to that question, of course, was The Sundays.




Led by chipmunk-faced cutie-pie singer Harriet Wheeler, who apparently liked to dress in her mother's clothes, and her adorable boyfriend, guitarist and Johnny Marr lookalike David Gavurin, The Sundays nailed the exact sweet spot between wispy Smithsian guitar pop and ethereal, operatic flourishes straight from Planet Cocteau. But, though Harriet's warbly soprano did recall The Cocteau's Elizabeth Fraser, she tended, like Morrissey, to sing about much more mundane things, such as kicking boys ("When the weather's fine/when it's sunny outside/I think about the time/I kicked a boy 'til he cried"), visiting terrible places ("Hideous towns/Make me throw/Up"), and hating poetry ("Poetry is not for me"). And the mournful bassline from their song "Joy" (video above) also suggested a third post-punk antecedent: Joy Division. But The Sundays somehow transcended these influences and created something all their own, leading the British music press to start proclaiming them the Next Great Pasty-Faced Hope.

The band barely had enough songs to fill an album when they released their debut, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, in 1989. It contained their very first single "Can't Be Sure," as well as the infectious, breezily insistent "Here's Where the Story Ends," the song they are still probably most famous for. The video ended up as a staple on MTV's 120 Minutes and even found its way onto the network's regular daytime rotation.



I saw the band in Raleigh in 1990 and they were lovely and immaculate. They were so well received that they were coaxed back onto the stage for a second encore, something they were wholly unprepared for. "We have no more songs, actually," Harriet said sheepishly, smiling. So they launched back into "Can't Be Sure," which they'd of course already played. We were all fine with it.

It was hard to be a Sundays fan, though, because they worked incredibly slow, especially compared to their British compatriots, who were trotting out singles and EPs and albums and special compilation tracks endlessly like a bunch of jittery manic depressives. The British music press, as was their wont, quickly moved on to the next big thing, which was probably the Soup Dragons or some shit. We'd have to wait until 1992 for the band to reemerge with their second album Blind, and the single "Goodbye." It was a solid follow-up, with the guitars even more lush and spangled and Harriet's voice in fine form. It wasn't too much of a departure from Reading, though in interviews Harriet wryly insisted the band had evolved, and as proof pointed to the fact that the first album had 10 songs and the second had 12. Hard to argue with that.

Blind also contained a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses," which some slagged them off for, but which I think is just lovely, so suck it, haters.

The band's rate of output, sadly, actually diminished after Blind. They toured the world and made a great go of it, then returned to England, where Harriet and David started a family. It would be another five years before their third album, Static and Silence, emerged in 1997. It's this album where the band kind of lost me. It's not that it was bad. It had some great moments, like single "Summertime." But overall it was just dull and uninspired (I STILL LOVE YOU HARRIET AND DAVID.), leaving one with the impression that perhaps here was where the story should end. (Ba-dum-bum.) (Sorry.)

As it turned out, that album was where the story ended. After touring the world again with Static and Silence, The Sundays completely disappeared into the English ether, and there's been no sign of the band in the last 17 years. At least there hadn't been until, bizarrely, they reemerged earlier this year in an issue of American Airlines' in-flight magazine American Way after that mag's editor, a Sundays obsessive, tracked them down like a boss. Of course, even though they'd been found, they were still as elusive as ever, though they did confirm they've been working on new material (OH MY GOD) and have kind of sort thought about maybe touring again or something.

So, maybe the story continues, who can say, can't be sure, HURRY UP HARRIET AND DAVID.

Sweet Tooth Jukebox: Depeche Mode

 

You guys, it's been forever since we took a trip down memory lane and visited the glory days of pasty white folk emoting into the ether while sporting hairstyles that defied the laws of physics and good taste, aka my book Sweet Tooth's Greek chorus of new wave awesomeness. Let's get back to it, shall we?

Up next is Depeche Mode, a band that at first blush comes off as a gaggle of gay dudes who wouldn't know what to say to/do with a female if she showed up with cue cards and a map to her ladygarden. I mean, admit it, when you were dancing to "I Just Can't Get Enough" back in 1981 in your bedroom while fantasizing about lead singer David Gahan feeding you Fruit Rollups like a boss, you didn't even think for a minute that the fey fingertips hitting those synths behind him belonged to anyone but a first-tier nancyboy, amiright? Well you were wrong! That sissy's name was Martin Gore, the mastermind behind the band, and he's actually just a straight dude who liked to dress like a weird new wave lesbian, so there.

Now, there's not one person among us who has watched this band's legendary live show documentary Depeche Mode 101 and not come away thinking that David Gahan's butt has seen some serious man-action. Look how happy it is, wiggling all around like that. It was just bound to happen at some point, at least a few times, backstage, after the show, in a hot tub, while the other band members did each other's hair. But by all accounts, the men of Depeche Mode are all straight, which is one reason I've always had such shitty gaydar, because come on.

Anyway, enough about David Gahan and his tight white jeans. Let's talk about the music, which, for the purposes of this blog post, will concentrate on the era up through the band's high watermark, 1990's Violator.


There's much to love about Depeche Mode's '80s output. They were your secret boyfriends (and by "they" I pretty much mean David Gahan), the romantic loners you met underneath the bleachers to smoke weed and discuss hair products with before trying to get into their pants. Did you want something fun, dumb, and gay to dance to at the discotheque? Try "Just Can't Get Enough," "What's Your Name?" or "Boys Say Go!" Were you in need of some vaguely menacing yet melodic electro-industrial nonsense? Put on "More Than a Party," "Something To Do," or "Behind the Wheel." Or did you simply want something dark and sexy to listen to while lying on your bed with the black light on wondering if David in gym class was actually gay or just homoerotic? Try all of Violator, but particularly "World in My Eyes," "Personal Jesus," and "Blue Dress." If you were a youth growing up in the last decade of the Cold War, when we all thought it was possible we were going to bite it in some sort of idiotic nuclear fury, Depeche Mode's naked emotionalism and high, hilarious drama just kind of made sense, what can I say?

Depeche Mode was always a heart-on-their sleeve kind of band. And in their songs they asked all the important questions that all teenagers in the eighties had: "Why can't we all just get along?" ("People Are People") "Aren't rich businessmen the worst?" ("Everything Counts") "Wanna do some S&M?" ("Master and Servant") And, of course, "Would you please just shut the fuck up?" ("Enjoy the Silence")

And they did cheeky, idiotic things like rhyme "career" with "Korea" and got away with it! If I'd done that in my high school creative writing class I'd have gotten laughed out of the room, but then again, I wasn't David Gahan in tight white jeans. I was Tim, with the stupid curly hair in my face and the tight polyester pants. Amazing the difference that made.

Anyway, over the course of the decade, Depeche Mode quietly amassed a huge fan base in the U.S. by the time of 1987's Music for the Masses, without much by way of hit singles or blockbuster albums, and somehow ended up playing to sold-out crowds in stadiums across the country like they were U2 or something. I remember reading an item in Rolling Stone about the inexplicable popularity of Depeche Mode among squeaky clean college kids. It was kind of weird. Had they not heard "Blasphemous Rumors"? Maybe they had and they agreed that God had a sick sense of humor? Sure.

By the time the highly anticipated Violator rolled out in 1990, Depeche Mode were one of the biggest bands on the planet. "Personal Jesus" preceded the album and its video featured the band members hilariously visiting a brothel-type place in the wild west. And why not, I say? Might as well step that blasphemy up a notch.

I kind of lost track of the band after this album. Their next one, Songs of Faith and Devotion, dropped during grunge mania and the video for "I Feel You" featured my precious David Gahan writhing around with long hair and a Beetlejuice suit, but it came off like he was trying a little to hard to keep up with Alice in Chains or Soundgarden or some other early-'90s terrorism, and I just had to say "no." Really should give that album another try, now that it's twenty-one years later and we've all grown up a little bit.

In conclusion,



Read all Sweet Tooth Jukebox posts here.

Sweet Tooth Jukebox: Sinead O'Connor

Folks, it's time for another dispatch from the '80s vortex, brought to you by my new book Sweet Tooth. Buy it now, monkeys--the NSA already knows you want it.

Anyway, onward to the rock 'n roll: was there ever a more ferocious and foxy dame to appear on our teevee screens in the eighties than Sinead O'Connor circa 1987's The Lion and the Cobra? Of course there wasn't. Two years later, Sinead would become extremely and exhaustingly famous for covering Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U," for her rapturously received album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got (which I've always been kind of lukewarm on), for tearing up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live, and for getting yelled at by Frank Sinatra. But oh, in the glorious year of 1987, the world was all "wtf?" when a tiny lightbulb-headed woman with pipes for days and limitless spleen to vent burst onto the scene and was everything any angry and sexually frustrated teenager could want in a pop star.

Nearly a teenager herself, Sinead was raw and bald and gorgeous and angry and Irish and pale and terrifying and flawless and maybe a little nuts. She could move from a dulcet coo to a siren's wail in the span of one line, and you never knew which Sinead to expect from moment to moment. The first song on The Lion and the Cobra, "Jackie," a spooky lament for a (literally) lost lover, perfectly encapsulated the spitfire anger, sadness, and aching melodrama at the heart of the album. "Jackie left on a cold dark night, telling me he'd be home," she begins, donning the persona of the ghost of a dead sailor's wife who spent the last twenty years of her life

Washing the sand with my salty tears
Searching the shores these long years
And I walk the seas forevermore
'Til I find my Jackie, oh. 

Heavy! Here, have a listen:



Now, who among us hasn't found ourselves haunting the seven seas because we's lost our one true love in a shipwreck or a mutiny or a Scylla and Charybdis attack? It's the human condition!

The single "Mandinka" was a more upbeat rocker about "dancing the seven veils" and not knowing no shame, not feeling no pain and also, somehow, the Mankinka tribe in Africa. Sure, why not? It's also a song about a singer who can visit all the octaves, any time, whenever she wants. Don't believe me? Here:



Up next is Sinead's sex anthem, "I Want Your Hands on Me," which has the most air-drum-worthy beats in all the land. Truly one of the shwingiest songs of the decade, maybe even in human history, who can say? Did I listen to this song over and over while fantasizing about blowing the entire varsity soccer team behind the bleachers? You're awfully nosy!



But the song that really set Sinead O'Connor apart was the six-minute-plus epic "Troy," in which she had the audacity to compare a love affair she was suffering through to the sacking and burning of Troy during the Trojan War. (It's kind of like when in my diary I compared my teenage diabetic disappointment with Diet Shasta to the crucifixion of Christ, but this blog post isn't about me.) Thing is, she totally pulls it off, you guys. It all makes perfect sense. She was sacked and burned like Troy. She rose like a phoenix from the flames. And she gave hope to the rest of us, since we were all Trojans in the late eighties. Or something. The point is, the Internet is making it impossible for me to embed the video here because of "restrictions" or some shit. What is this, North Korea? So here's the lame youtube, audio only.



(Side fun fact: Did you know that Enya did the spoken word part on the song "Never Get Old"? I KNOW!)

Sinead went on to great fame and fortune with her next record, which catapulted her into the stratosphere on the heels of the gripping, dramatic video for "Nothing Compares 2 U," in which she gets so caught up in the emotion of it all that she sheds real tears. I, however, found this album pretty disappointing after the brittle majesty of The Lion and the Cobra. It didn't have the anger, the searing drama, the glistening, gorgeous mythos of her first. Though "Three Babies" and "Jump in the River" both nodded toward the lush and schizophrenic romanticism of her debut, the album as a whole was too tame, too prematurely adult.

Then, of course, Sinead became a pariah in the US overnight when she pulled the SNL stunt. She was knocked cleanly off her perch on top of the world and never regained it. Because when you've lost MC Hammer, you've lost... um, what exactly?



After her spectacular fall from grace, Sinead released a decent album of American standards called Am I Not Your Girl, which failed to do much for her in the marketplace. Her next album, 1994's Universal Mother, had some awesome tracks on it, but it was a little ponderous for the masses--Sinead had officially become a niche artist. She's put out an album every few years since then, none of them electrifying, some of them quite good, like her last one How About I Be Me and You Be You? 

But any thoughts I have about Sinead O'Connor and her music always come back to the place where I found her: walking the seas, a despondent ghost, sing-howling about her dearly departed Jackie over an epic swirl of beautiful noise. It never got better than The Lion and the Cobra. And I've been waiting for a reissue of it ever since it was first released, so hurry up, record company, wtf are you waiting for? We need B-sides, alternate takes, remixes, previously unreleased tracks, liner notes, high-minded analyses, and praise heaped upon her by other artists. Sinead has earned it.

Come on, Rhino Entertainment (or whatever record company-type entity handles reissues of Ensign/Chrysalis albums), don't make me sic ghost-Sinead on you, cause she's scary when she's pissed.

Sweet Tooth Jukebox: Cocteau Twins

Time for another Sweet Tooth Jukebox dispatch, you guys. Up next: Cocteau Twins, the trio from the Whitest Ever Planet, whose ethereal, otherworldly, transcendent, and [INSERT HIFALUTIN ADJECTIVE HERE] music made grown men cry, grown women wonder where all the heroes went, and grown children wet the bed.

The Cocteaus emerged out of the post-punk UK scene, taking their cues from the Banshees, Joy Division, and the other usual suspects, but they quickly developed into their own inimitable beast, putting out countless dark, blissful, gossamer singles and a steady stream of increasingly jaw-dropping albums. Their first full-length Garlands came out in 1982 and their last (Milk and Kisses) dropped in 1996. While they were with us, there was no more dependable band in the universe--fans always knew there would be new material if not every year then at least every other year. Then, as the nineties began drawing to a close, and after fourteen years together and, apparently, quite a bit of psychodrama, they broke up and, with the exception of one appearance at Coachella that almost happened in 2004 before singer Elizabeth Fraser backed out, they've never looked back.

The Cocteaus are without a doubt one of the most influential bands in the modern era--they basically invented shoegazing, and they've informed the sound of countless artists, everyone from Grimes, Animal Collective, and Beach House to Portishead, Bon Iver, My Bloody Valentine, Chvrches, and even the Internet's favorite punching back Lana Del Rey. (That's right, I said it.) Prince was a fan, and so was Madonna. Who else can say that? Not me.

I could wax on and on about Scotland's pastiest-ever exports, but I'm going to make it easier on myself and you by just stone cold reprinting an essay I wrote for The Nervous Breakdown a few years ago on Elizabeth Fraser, chanteuse extraordinaire and beautiful oddball. I can't really say it any better now than I did then. Enjoy:

ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE: A SALUTE TO COCTEAU TWINS' ELIZABETH FRASER


The late eighties were a great time to be a fanboy of weirdo new wave ladysingers from outer space (mainly Britain). It seemed like every time you turned on your new favorite show, 120 Minutes, some wackadoodle dame dripping with otherworldly moxie was popping up sporting a leotard or a tutu or a completely bald head, leaving your mouth gaping in wonder at the sheer brilliance of it all. You had your helium-voiced ethereal fantasist (Kate Bush), your ferocious and feline Weimar Republic throwback/riding crop enthusiast (Siouxsie Sioux), your tiny elfin powder keg (Bjork of the Sugarcubes), your scary trannie android (Annie Lennox of Eurythmics), and your testy and tempestuous ingénue (Sinead O’Connor). All of these ladies had allure to burn and the musical chops to back it all up.

But there was one lady, from a very distant star (Grangemouth, Scotland), who truly stood head and shoulders above the rest in what she brought to the table. Not only was Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins an alabaster-skinned ice princess with a mystifying hairstyle--she also had one of the most gorgeous voices to which pop music had ever born witness. With a staggering range that took it from the gutter to the stars in effortless swoops, and an easy way with melody and multi-tracked harmonies, Fraser’s voice was downright operatic in the sense that, unlike all of her peers, she sounded as if she could actually acquit herself quite nicely in an actual opera. (Of course, it would be one performed by an orchestra of hologram robots and staged on the distant planet of Mongo, but it would still be an opera.)

The first glimpse I got of Elizabeth Fraser was in 1988, when the video for “Carolyn’s Fingers,” a single from Blue Bell Knoll, the Cocteau Twins’ fifth album—and the first to get major label distribution in the U.S.—was in regular rotation on MTV’s “alternative” shows, such as the aforementioned 120 Minutes and its daytime counterpart PostModern MTV. She was exquisitely weird-looking--her short mess of kinky hair was tamed with Dep (or whatever) and styled (sort of) atop her head like a lopsided valentine, and she stood against a spectral blue background dressed in an all-white ensemble so un-rock-‘n-roll that Ms. Fraser wouldn’t have looked out of place if she’d worn it to an after-service luncheon down at the Presbyterian church. Her bandmates, guitarist Robin Guthrie and bassist Simon Raymonde, were also alluringly pale and otherworldly, but this was Elizabeth’s show.

Her voice stopped me in my tracks, as did her ice blue eyes and her soft, smiling face. And the song itself was a gorgeous wash of glacial guitar and epic, angelic vocals beamed in from the celestial moons of Tatooine or some shit. But what were these mysterious words this woman was uttering that sounded so unlike any language I’d ever heard? Was she singing in Klingon? Elvish? Scottish?

After hearing this celestial chorale, I of course spent the next few months feverishly tracking down and buying up any and all Cocteau Twins imports I could get my sweaty little teenage hands on. And as I immersed myself in her band’s spacey, cold-to-the-touch back catalog, I learned one simple truth--there was no way Liz Fraser was singing any human language. She was just forming her mouth into sounds that sounded good and letting those sounds be the lyrics. Album after album, song after song, there was no telling what on earth was happening in her world. Was she singing about gumdrops and unicorns? Egg drop soup? Gang warfare? Yes. All of these things. Or none of them, maybe? Who knew? I had to travel far back in time, to the dark, primordial year of 1982, in order to hear Ms. Fraser utter any word you would find in a dictionary. A few songs on first album Garlands, amid all the twittery yelping and staccato-hiccup vocals Liz was once wont to engage in, included a handful of real phrases of English: “stars in my eyes, stars at my feet” – “I could die in a rosary” – “winged water, feathered river”. Your typical early Goth pap-- nothing that wouldn’t be out of place on a Bauhaus song. But after flirting with human language early on, Elizabeth Fraser dove headfirst down the rabbit hole and spent the rest of the eighties throwing the world’s linguists for a loop.

This was a revelation: that someone could dispense with language altogether and just use their voice as an instrument. It was also a singular self-effacement in the context of a decade that gave us such strong "Look at me!" attention hogs as Morrissey, Robert Smith of the Cure, and, yes, the ladies mentioned in the first paragraph above, not to mention the mainstream Queen Bees of the Me-decade like Madonna, Boy George, and Bono. We may not have been able to always figure out what all these singers were going on and on about (what’s a Lovecat, for example?), but they were most definitely singing real words used to convey any number of real meanings. “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” – “Let’s Go to Bed” – “Love and Anger” – the singers behind all of these songs, delightfully weird as they may have been, were, when it came down to it, relatable as humans.

But Elizabeth Fraser? She was a blurry blotch of brilliant ambiguity, an otherworldly seraph floating on a cloud of compelling, vertiginous vagueness and hiding behind a veil of hyper-imaginative deflection. Liz gave away nothing about herself in her lyrics. Even her song titles, though written in Roman letters, were bizarre transmissions from an outer-galactic polar volcano, though they were mercifully transcribed into English on the record sleeves: “A Kissed-out Red Floatboat”? “Cherry-Coloured Funk”? “The Itchy Glowbo Blow”? “Ella Megalast Burls Forever”? Whatever are we to make of these phrases, Elizabeth? Sure, sometimes she came down to earth and threw us a bone with a “Love’s Easy Tears” or a “Sigh’s Smell of Farewell,” or, you know, perhaps a “Blood Bitch,” just to prove that she’s human like the rest of us (and, at heart, an adorable little Goth). But then she’d go all sphinx-like once again with ditties like “Fotzepolitic” or “Aikea-Guinea.”

In contrast to her contemporaries, Elizabeth Fraser was a completely blank slate. The only entry-point into Liz’s world was her voice. No one could possibly know what that voice was saying, but it sure was beautiful. Therefore, the songs—these gorgeous, majestic, spine-tingling cathedrals of sound—could mean whatever you wanted them to mean. Did you just get dumped? Liz understands. Grandma died? Liz’ll take care of it. Failed your driver’s test? Liz has you covered. Coming to terms with your terrible homosexuality? Let Liz handle it. Just woke up with blood on your hands in a strange hotel room? Liz knows and she’ll make it better. (You should probably call your lawyer, though.)

Interestingly, it was when Liz started peppering her songs with more recognizable English on the Cocteau’s 1993 album Four Calendar Café that the internal dynamics within the band started fraying. On several tracks on the album, Elizabeth, who was romantically involved and had a child with guitarist Robin Guthrie, sang of domestic strife and romantic ambivalence. “Are you the right man for me/Or are you toxic for me?” she sang on single “Bluebeard.” "Is this what my body says? Use me, drain me, fall around me," she sighed on "Theft, and Wandering Around Lost." Though she employed a bit of English on the band’s final album, 1996’s Milk and Kisses, she largely reentered the Cloud of Lyrical Impenetrability on most of the songs such as “Eperdu,” “Tishbite,” and “Violaine.” After this last triumphant album, Fraser and Guthrie’s relationship, as well as the band they had made together, imploded and receded into legend.

The Cocteau Twins released eight albums, eighteen singles and EPs, and a number of collaborative recordings during their fourteen-year run from 1982 to 1996. (The most memorable of the latter, by the way, is Liz and Guthrie’s cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren,” which you should watch immediately. Do it now.) That’s a lot of songs, very few of which giving us even the slightest clue as to the Mystery of Liz. To this day Elizabeth Fraser remains an enigma wrapped in a riddle folded into a puzzle and then combined with a larger riddle and magically reduced to a smaller but still quite complicated puzzle that morphs into a conundrum that then disappears into a black hole. This is obvious.

Criminally, Ms. Fraser hasn’t released a solo album in the sixteen years since she was a Cocteau Twin, with her most high profile musical outing being the three tracks she sang on Massive Attack’s 1998 album Mezzanine. For years it has been rumored that she was working on a solo album for Blanco y Negro records, but nothing has ever materialized. She released one song called “Underwater” in 2000, but nobody heard it because it was a limited edition of only 200 copies.

Some exciting news came in 2005 when it was announced that the reformed Cocteau Twins would be headlining the Coachella Festival in California. But it was not to be--Elizabeth pulled out of the appearance after realizing she simply couldn’t face working with her ex-bandmates anymore. In November of 2009 she released a lovely song called “Moses” as a tribute to a friend who had recently died, and chatter about a solo album began anew. But now here we are in 2012 2014, and it’s still radio silence from Our Lady Fraser.

In a 2009 interview with the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Liz, was as hard to reach as ever, though for once, she laid out in plain English what was behind all her otherworldly warblings:

She has always struggled to write lyrics, she says, but suddenly something will click and she “goes with the sound and the joy” – that’s why she sings sounds and words that have no meaning, of which she can only make sense later. As she puts it, “I can’t act. I can’t lie.”

So when you were singing along with Liz Fraser as she chirruped some flibberty lyrical nonsense in whatever song—was that a Cherry Coke mention in “Iceblink Luck”? A reference to Sudan in “I Wear Your Ring”? Something about lettuce leaves and Lois Lane in “Summerhead”?—she didn’t know what she was saying any more than you did. Perfect.

Elizabeth Fraser may not have known what her subconscious was conveying in the vast majority of the songs she sang, but she still sang like she meant every word.

Come back, Liz. It's been way too long, and right now the world needs more of your sublime cherry-coloured funk. Or, you know, whatever you want to call it.

Sweet Tooth Jukebox: The Smiths

Welcome to the inaugural Sweet Tooth Jukebox post, in which I'll be posting videos and typing out a bunch of nonsense about the bands featured in my new book about my gay, diabetic adolescence in the eighties, Sweet Tooth, which is available now so go buy it, I'll wait here.

Of course, we have to start with The Smiths, as they are all over Sweet Tooth and they even gave a few chapters their titles. But where to start with The Smiths? They are a wonderland of somber and sick hyper-melodrama, a fantasia of feral self-hate and brilliant self-assurance, simultaneously depressing and freaking hilarious. And oh, the one-liners. Why do we love The Smiths? Probably for some of the same reasons that others hate them, chief of these being their swishy lead singer Morrissey, who was always emoting about some boy or girl who left him at the train station or the iron bridge or Wally Range or the Holy Name Church or Buckingham Palace, all while barely wearing his sheer button-up shirt as he swung and swayed like a teenage girl dancing in front of her bedroom mirror and singing into her hairbrush. He irritated the crap out of some folks, but I couldn't help but admire the man--after all, it takes balls to be that aggressively fey.

But as magnetic as Moz was, he wasn't the sum total of The Smiths. There was also, of course, his writing partner Johnny Marr, the king of the breezy guitar earworm, whose busy and infectious fretwork was a sturdy counterpoint to Morrissey's flights of lyrical fancy; and the other two guys, Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, who made up a solid rhythm section and, even more importantly, brought some reserved, boyish sex appeal that Morrissey couldn't manage because he was too busy swishing and swaying, beating himself langorously with a flower bouquet, and making out with his microphone.



The Smiths were only together for five years, but in that time they released an epic number of amazing tunes. Number one on my list is in the YouTube up top: "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" from their album The Queen is Dead. Your number one might be different, but you'd be wrong. Sure, "How Soon Is Now?", "Cemetery Gates," "This Charming Man," and "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" make great cases for themselves as the King of Smiths Mountain, but none of them has this perfect a mixture of mopey-eyed romanticism, soaring gayrotica, lush strings, a tight 'n jangly pop bounce, and a melody to die/kill for. Plus, the song contains one of Morrissey's most poignant lines in "When you want to live/how do you start?/Where do you go?/Who do you need to know?" (I've never gotten a satisfying answer to any of those questions, btw.)

In short, for this ex-new wave boy, The Smiths are the best band the world has ever produced. They're the Fancy Feast of pop, as my cat Stella once remarked to me, and Stella, even though she's a Republican, knows her pop history.

Jukebox: "Teenage" by Veronica Falls

Every springtime, one special song bursts from the fluffy white April skies, squiggles into your earholes, and burrows squarely inside your head to give you a much-needed lift after a long, dreary winter. It colors everything you do and makes even tedious actions like doing dishes, folding laundry, cleaning your cat Stella's crapper, or alphabetizing your boxes of incense seem like the happiest chores you've ever half completed because they present the opportunity to blast this song again and yelp along to it in ecstatic, blissful ignorance of how annoying this might be to your neighbors.

This song is usually brought to you by some collection of young mopey skinny British twenty-somethings with terrible/awesome haircuts and a penchant for sad 'n sparkling melodic hooks that just don't quit. (If they aren't British, they are Japanese or American, but they all probably wish they were British, if only for the socialized health care and the easy access to Cadbury Starbars.) The song captures the lush romance of youth, the jittery magic of first love, and/or the one point in time when everything's shining bright--that exquisite point in time just before it all turns to shit and hope dies. It's a wonderful point in time!

In my case, past songs of this particular distinction have included this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one. (That's one whole half of a side of a mix tape, so you're welcome.)

Well, I'm happy to report that I've just found the song that will be digging me out of the wreckage of winter, and it's a marvel. It's by a foursome of fraggles from Britain called Veronica Falls, and it's got everything: passionless vocals, heady harmonies, guitar jangle, and an ear worm of a melody that just won't quit. Aren't you jealous that you didn't find it first? It's okay! These songs were meant to be shared and adored, if not by mix tape, then by the Internet. So here you go, you're welcome (again).

Jukebox: Primitives!

Okay, I'm ridiculously excited about the Primitives' new album Echoes and Rhymes, which comes out at the end of the month. It's a covers album of obscure pop songs from the 60s and 70s, and above is the first single. You might remember the Primitives from their 1988 hit "Crash," but they're so much more than that! Their first album Lovely contained a ton of bliss pop nuggets that were equal parts Blondie, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Shangri Las. Yes. Go get it.

Their last release was last year's fab EP Never Kill a Secret, which I wrote about here. Go get it. And this new album is their first full-length in 22 years. (Good GOD, 1991 is that long ago?)

Full Primitives coverage here.

Today in Growing Old Gracefully: Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons

I was reading that new book about MTV recently (the same one I referenced a few weeks back), and it was pretty a pretty fun read, with lots of dirt and a few stomach-turning moments. Everyone was such a drunk slut in the '80s. So gross and unfair. Anyway, one part in particular jumped out at me, because I'd been wondering whatever happened to Dale Bozzio, the lead singer of Missing Persons. Beth McCarthy, an MTV producer, explains on page 134:

Mark Goodman asked me to go to his dressing room to get some notes for him--I was the assistant to the line producer, so I would do errands for the VJs. I ran to his dressing room, opened the door, and, um, Les was getting a blow job from Dale Bozzio. I saw this out of the corner of my eye and closed the door very quickly.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Dale Bozzio? Giving a blow job to the executive vice president for programming for MTV? That doesn't sound like her. Why would she do that? To get her videos played, sure, but why else? Anyway, Dale doesn't seem like the type of trollop that would suck on a dick to get ahead. I mean, look at her, does she look like the type a gal who would compromise her integrity just for the sake of some modest airplay on an upcoming cable network?



Okay, yeah she does. But how about we give Dale an opportunity defend herself on page 135 against this scurrilous rumor, shall we? Go ahead, Dale:

I don't have any comment. I appreciate your time, but I'm not interested in being interviewed, okay? I'd rather have nothing to say.

Okay, yeah, she did it. But who among us didn't give a blow job in the 80s for a little bit of airplay? We all did this. Poor Dale. I feel for her, this being the only thing she's remembered for in a 600-page book about MTV. But at least this passage led me to the Google machine to look her up. I hoped she was doing something life affirming and worthwhile, like growing medical marijuana or appearing in dinner theater productions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I was in for a bit of a letdown.

Oh how the mighty have gotten arrested. Yes, Dale was arrested for animal cruelty in 2008, an event that led to the above mugshot being taken of our dear Dale. She was convicted in 2009. So basically, Dale Bozzio has become a crazy cat lady. Except worse: she's a crazy cat lady who neglects her cats. WTF? This is a like an 80s pop singer who doesn't give blow jobs.

Anyway, this seems like as good a time as any to remember Dale Bozzio in better days, so watch this video, won't you?

Jukebox: Pizzicato Five

Time for more Japan love. Pizzicato Five were a hyper-prolific Japanese pop band of the "Shibuya-kei" style (an eclectic mix of jazz, pop, and electro-pop that originated in the Shibuya district of Tokyo) who released bunches of albums in the late 80s and 90s and were introduced to the U.S. in 1994 via the bouncy single "Twiggy Twiggy vs. James Bond" (video above) and a compilation album called Made in USA. P5 are the quintessential Japanese creation in that they took quintessentially American/western influences and filtered them through their Kitschy Nippon Weird-o-Nater to create something wholly and sublimely Japanese. And hella awesome, or, as the Japanese say, "へラ　アーソム".

Bonus clip below of the single "Baby Love Child" in which lead singer Maki Nomiya sings in English.

Jukebox: New Primitives Single!

Everybody knows I'm gay for the Primitives. I'm gay for many things! (I'm gay.) But I'm a full-blown tranny for the underrated fuzz-pop band that time forgot. The Prims got back together for a tour back in 2009 and found themselves in Brooklyn last May playing at the Bell House and IT WAS AWESOME.

So, what's happened now? The band has put out a new digital EP (because that's what the kids are doing these days) and shot a video for the single "Rattle My Cage." And it's good stupendous! Sure, it's no "Thru the Flowers" or "Stop Killing Me," but for a band who's been gone for 20 years it's not a bad little slice of pop heaven.

This will be my springtime jam whenever springtime decides to come. I'll be waiting...

In conclusion, Tracy Tracy is wearing some hella cute shoes in this video.

Halloween Jukebox: Zola Jesus

Zola Jesus is one of the most exciting singers around these days, and her song "Sea Talk" is awesome for many reasons. One of these reasons is the video, which combines three of my favorite things: the movie Poltergeist, sleepwalking, and static electricity.

So on this Friday before Hallowe'en, in order to celebrate the birth of Christine O'Donnell, Delaware's most electable witch, I offer the gift of this video unto you, my readers, all of whom live at Riker's Island serving time for illegally downloading terrorist porn and then selling it to Todd Palin.

Jukebox: Dum Dum Girls b/w Best Coast

I liked the Dum Dum Girls before I'd even heard them because I always support any band named after a Talk Talk song. But then I heard that they weren't named after a Talk Talk song, but rather after an Iggy Pop song. So I don't know what's real anymore. Thankfully, it doesn't matter because once you hear the Dum Dum Girls you forget the question. They're awesome! All tired ennui and lazy, hazy sexfulness, like in the above clip "Jail La La."

I bought their album at Other Music on Saturday along with that Best Coast album you've been hearing so much about. I brought both CDs to the register and the check-out girl got really excited that I was buying them both at once. "Great combination!" she said and I heartily agreed. If the Dum Dums are Blondie with a hangover, then Best Coast, which is essentially a one-woman show brought to you by Bethany Cosentino, delivers the lo-fi power pop album Connie Francis always wanted to make but couldn't because in the 50s it was illegal for women to play guitars.

The point is, summer is almost over, so hurry up and enjoy these jams.

The Tragedy of Forgotten Drag Icons

Ok, so i just finished watching season 2 of Ru Paul's Drag Race, the greatest program ever bequeathed to planet earth by Jesus and his sister Sheila. See above for the absolute best five seconds of television since Dynasty II: The Colbys went off the air. (A close second: when Ru Paul calls Rush Limbaugh a fat fuck. A close third: when Ru says to one of the contestants, Jujube, "Girl to girl, when did you lose control of this wig?")

I have one criticism, though. In two seasons I've yet to see one homage to Siouxsie Sioux, a drag icon if there ever was one.Yeah, I know, she's not American, and for some reason all drag icons in this funny country have to be American, because we're so wacky. What other country is going to give the world Liza Minnelli, Cher, AND Madonna, and then pass the Defense of Marriage Act? Huh?

Anyway, as much as I LOVE this show, its sense of gay/drag history, and its many wild and random non sequiturs, I was a little disappointed at its contestants for not acknowledging Siouxsie's many gifts to the drag community, three decades of deadly serious eyeliner, preposterous headdresses, and f*ck-you fright wigs (that were actually her real hair!) to name only three. I had high hopes when a whole episode was dedicated to "rock chicks." All the usual suspects were honored: Lita Ford, Beyonce, Joan Jett, Teri Nunn from Berlin. But no Siouxsie. This is wrong. Siouxsie is the closest a woman who isn't Joan Crawford or Bette Davis has ever come to being an actual drag queen. Don't believe me? Watch the videos below. All the way through, bitchez.

In conclusion, Siouxsie's eye shadow in the "Spellbound" video deserves its own reality show on the Logo channel.

Jukebox: Cazwell

There are many reasons to love Ru Paul's Drag Race. It is basically the Platonic ideal of a reality show: perfectly paced, endlessly quotable, addictive as hell, and guest judges like Cloris Leachman and smokin' Henry Rollins. There is no more that you need from a reality show than a bunch of drag queens stampeding and fighting over a cart of wigs. There just isn't.

But one of the biggest reasons I love the show is because it introduced me to this awesome song, "I Seen Beyonce at Burger King" and to the gay Eminem brainchild behind it, Cazwell. Most of his songs are pretty filthy ("All Over Your Face," for example), but this one is fun for the whole family. Have your children sing it at the playground!

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Trashcan Sinatras at Sound Fix, Brooklyn

I've really been hitting the jackpot lately with bands I loved in high school coming to Brooklyn to say hello. First the Primitives last month, now the great Trashcan Sinatras from Scotland, whose lead singer, Frank Reader, I was hopelessly devoted to until just a few years ago, when I heard that he'd gone bankrupt and probably couldn't afford me. (My insulin is expensive.)

You remember them, from 120 Minutes! They had that one song, real jingly jangly and awesome? "Only Tongue Can Tell"? Not ringing a bell? Perhaps you were busy jerking off to Mudhoney. (Who will come to Brooklyn next? The Mighty Lemon Drops? The Sundays? Close Lobsters?)



Well, dummies, the Trashcan Sinatras had MANY AWESOME SONGS and you've been missing out for nearly two decades now. I was absolutely over the moon when I realized they would be visiting my neighborhood record store Sound Fix in Williamsburg last Saturday. It was just freaking wonderful and I STILL TOTALLY LOVE YOU, FRANK READER, SING ME A SONG!!

Jukebox: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

At long last, TPOBPAH have made a video for their glistening, soaring, and outrageously bubbly song "Higher Than the Sun." It stars a defiantly fey lead singer, a lonely blonde chicklet trolling around Williamsburg looking for tail, and a bunch of furries. Also: keyboardist Peggy Wang is all glammed up, which, hmm. I know a girl likes to dress up all sophisticatedly sometimes, and I would never presume to tell Peggy Wang what to wear. And she looks great! But I prefer her in her hobo clothes.

And because TPOBPAH are pretty much the best pop band around right now, they really should get some more face time here. So enjoy some "Young Adult Friction."

Jukebox: Glee

Jimmy and I haven't started watching Glee yet (our Netflix discs are on their way), but the above snippet almost lives up to the hype. This video is hilarious, what with it's repurposing of a Madonna classic to sex up a few cheap love scenes. But the thing that makes it REALLY funny is the suggestion that dudes that sing Madonna so enthusiastically, harmonically, and with vibrato, want to have sex with a lady. THIS DOESN'T EVER HAPPEN! (Ladies, you know it's true, come ON.)

Next up: Ricky Martin guest stars and bones Jane Lynch to the strains of "I Will Survive."

Shootin' It, in Which Tim and Jimmy Discuss the Issues of Our Times. Today's Topic: The White Stripes' Jack White's Wife's New Music Video

Tim: Oh Lord, get ready for a pose-a-thon. This one's a model.
Jimmy: (silent judging)
Tim: (loud clearing of throat)
Jimmy: Hmm.
Tim: (barely audible removal of eye junk)

[ONE MINUTE LATER]

Jimmy: I kind of like this song.
Tim: Me too.
Jimmy: Too bad about the hair.
Tim: Right?
Jimmy: She shouldn't do that.
Tim: You're just jealous because she HAS hair.
Jimmy: If I had hair I would never do that.
Tim: Even if Jack White made you? For rock 'n roll?
Jimmy: I'd shave my head again.
Tim: Bangs are dangerous.

Jukebox: Monae

This video makes me want to be a sharp-dressed black man with a bow tie SO BAD. Also, it makes me want to be a black woman in saddle shoes and a pompadour for the ages. SO BAD. This video, basically, makes me want to be the opposite of what I am.

SO BAD.

I'll work on becoming these things over the weekend.

Jukebox: Santigold

Lights Out


Good God, I had to go all the way to MySpace to get this dang video. My Space, people. Who goes there?!

Anyway, the spring warmth has infected me with a thrilling and probably ill-advised optimism about my newly repaired bike, my cat, and the health care bill. This starry-eyed euphoria will come crashing down this weekend, surely, but in the mean time, let's just enjoy this infectious pop tune by the nice Santigold lady.