Sweet Tooth Jukebox: Siouxsie and the Banshees

Welcome to another installment of Sweet Tooth Jukebox, a series of posts inspired by the music I memorialize in my new book Sweet Tooth, available now, just buy it already, Jesus. Sweet Tooth Jukebox is my chance to force you to watch videos of my favorite bands from back in the day and read my words about them because knowledge is power and you were probably listening to Starship in the '80s. (I secretly was too, sometimes.) Pay attention, there will be a quiz, probably.

Up next: Siouxsie and Her Banshees. This band got their start way back in 1976 when they played a hastily put together set at the 100 Club Punk Festival in London. If memory serves, Sid Vicious was on drums that night. (Can someone fact check that for me?) Their set included a decidedly sacrilegious version of "The Lord's Prayer," and they made a wonderfully god-awful racket, by all accounts. It took them two years to get a record deal, by which point punk was kind of over, so their debut album The Scream is perhaps one of the first post-punk records. Between 1978 and 1996, the Banshees released 11 studio albums that are amazingly varied in style. Their first two were angular and angry, they added some color and bounce to the mix on 1980's Kaleidoscope, and then basically invented goth on 1981's classic Juju, which featured the single "Spellbound," the video of which showed Siouxsie at her most feline and her eye-makeup at its most turbo-charged.



And let's face it, we all had huge crushes on Budgie the drummer. What was not to love? He was one of the best-ever rock drummers, he had bleached-blonde hair and alabaster skin, and he always walked around dressed like a Victorian carnie. My dream date!



The band cycled through a few more styles--whoozy psychedelia on A Kiss in the Dreamhouse and Hyaena (check out the video for "Dear Prudence" above, in which Siouxsie's rocking some hairy-ass armpits), slithery modern rock on Tinderbox--before releasing Peepshow in 1988, a collection of goth cabaret torch songs and tales of childhood panic/horror that spawned the absolutely bonkers track "Peek-A-Boo," which became their highest-charting single to date in the States. (Fun fact: if you want me to dance at your party like a drunk marionette, give me some booze and put on this song.)

Now, some Banshees fans will quibble with my giving prominence to the video for "Peek-a-Boo" up top, because at the time it was viewed by diehards as kind of a sellout to pop radio. People who think this are wrong. This song is genius, and the video is fun as hell. Siouxsie's got a Cabaret bob cut and some country/western leotard-type sleeveless body suit with long-ass gloves, the boys are dancing muppet-like in the shadows and wearing masks, there's a bunch of animated projections on faces and such, there are tassels, there are hella big feather fans. What else could you want from a video? The answer is: I don't know, maybe a shirtless Budgie?

The less said about the Banshees' last two albums, Superstition and The Rapture, the better, because damn are they awful (though Superstition did include one of their best-ever singles, "Kiss Them for Me" and The Rapture's second half tried mightily to redeem its first.). But let's just say that up through Peepshow, this band was pretty damn flawless. Even their meh songs had at least a groovy bass line you could ride, a prickly guitar refrain spidering all over the place, and/or some glass-shattering yelps from Our Lady Sioux. They were constantly reinventing themselves and never dragging their feet. And they had the best B-sides in the business, hands down. (Seriously, get their B-sides collection Downside Up and be amazed. If you don't swoon in your boots for "Tattoo" I don't even know what to say to you.)

In conclusion, Siouxsie was my fairy godmother in high school and she got me a date for the prom, the end.

New Deadbeat Bohemians Post: Morrissey and Siouxsie

The 1994 collaboration between Morrissey and Siouxsie—a cover of the love song "Interlude" by Timi Yoru—did not lead to a second Big Bang the way it should have done. The universe didn't turn inside out and collapse in on itself in a chugging and churning seizure of morbid irony. This should have happened but it didn't. Do you even remember that the two singers ever recorded together? Nope, you don't.

Morrissey contacted Siouxsie about collaborating on a song while she was living in France with her husband, drummer, and sinewy sex pixie-stud Budgie. He had always been a big fan of Siouxsie and her Banshees. In 1994 he told the UK's Q magazine, "If you study modern groups, those who gain press coverage and chart action, none of them are as good as Siouxsie and the Banshees at full pelt. That's not dusty nostalgia, that's fact."

[NOTE: Deadbeat Bohemians is no more; I've expanded this essay and posted it over at The Nervous Breakdown here. ]

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.

New Fun Thing: The FADER's Annual Icon Issue, featuring Siouxsie Sioux

Sadly, I think Siouxsie Sioux may have reached that point in her career where she's celebrated more for what she did than what she does. This has probably been obvious to everyone but me for a good ten years at least but a fan's gotta hold out hope that his fairy godmother—the one who got him through his adolescence with lullabies like "Bring Me the Head of the Preacher Man" and "Rawhead and Bloodybones"—will continue to produce endless slabs of manna for him to feed upon and force his friends to stick in their ears. And, really, she's been churning out the goods for quite a while. After the Banshees broke up in 1996 she put out two more albums with her husband, the drummer Budgie, as The Creatures, and collaborated with Basement Jaxx on a song. Then, after divorcing, she did a great solo album two years ago (her 50th year on the planet) that went virtually ignored in this dumb country. But she's been awfully quite lately. What's a gaywad to do?

I'm REALLY hoping she's planning her next project right now, but it's very possible that I'm staring down the lonely path of a Siouxsie-less future. This is terrible, obviously. This woman could release a recording of herself washing dishes and talking to her cats and I'd buy it. (Why doesn't she just do that?) Thankfully, after stumbling out of a work function the other night where they served me too much booze, I walked past a magazine shop with the latest issue of FADER in the window featuring my #1 lady, which gathers together a few great images of her that I've never seen. It also assembles a bunch of quotes from young musicians giving props to a woman who is a million and 7/8 times cooler than they are.

It also connects the musical dots, via a handy scribbled graph, between Sioux and the other icon the magazine focuses on, dancehall legend Shabba Ranks, which is interesting! Also, it's obnoxious, because Shabba Ranks is one of those Jamaican musicians that hates the gays so much he has to write lyrics about how much he hates them. (Siouxsie loves the gays and would probably have a few choice words for Mr. Ranks should she ever stop kicking him in the face with her gay-ass Catwoman boots. [This is what she does to him in my dreams.])

Come back, Siouxsie! I need at least two more solo albums before you turn 60.

Time for More Siouxsie

Y'all, it's been a while since I've posted on Siouxsie Sioux, my fairy godmother. Maybe it's the recent Halloween festivities that brought me back in touch with my love of eyeliner and lipstick, but I've been missing her. She helped me through my awkward teenage years and actually taught me how to give really good head to a vampire, so obviously I'm in her eternal debt.

Siouxsie, where's that next solo album, huh? Hurry up.

Last Dream of 2008

I know it's 2009 already and we should have already completely forgotten the past and begun steamrolling ahead into the future without any further thoughtful analysis about the year we've just finished, but I just can't do that yet. This dream was wack. I'm not sure if it's due to the pain killers I was on for my poor, poor injured arm (gym mishap! apparently!), but whatever the source, my subconscious has apparently just been brimming with awkward adult situations it needs to convey in dream form, and boy did it toss me a doozy this past Tuesday.

I was dressed all in black and standing in line at some sort of red carpet event, like I normally do on a Tuesday night. I was a contest winner or something. Yes, a winner of a contest; a contest for emotional masochists. You see, my fairy godmother, Siouxsie Sioux, was in town doing some kind of dumb promotional meet-and-greet thing that she obviously didn't want to be doing, so of course I was first in line to meet her.

It turns out that the prize I had won was to have my clothing ensemble mercilessly picked apart by Siouxsie in front of a bunch of people and cameras. Great. I only win the shitty contests.

I'm confident, though, as Siouxsie puts out her cigarette on the red carpet, exhales a plume of smoke in Bristol Palin's face (what is she doing here?!), and walks toward me with her critical panda eyes. Because I'm dressed in all black, which is slimming. Or it would have been if the black pants I was wearing hadn't been billowy, flared, and my mother's.

Siouxsie stretches out her hand and points down to my feet and up to my head and says, "How attached are you to this.... look?"

"Um," I stammer. "Not very. You know, these are my mom's pants, I wouldn't normally be caught dead in..."

"Hmm. Yeah, this is a disaster. Horrific. Absolutely ghastly." Then, to her handlers: "Are we done here?"

And with that, she disappeared into the crowd, leaving me on the red carpet by myself, my mom's pants billowing and swaying, the paparazzi clicking and flashing, Bristol Palin and her mother Sarah, among others in the crowd of gawkers, pointing and laughing.

Then the scene changes and I'm hanging out with some friends on that traffic island/sitting area near the Apple Store at 14th and 9th. I've changed out of the billowy pants thank God, but I apparently didn't have anything to change into, because from the waste down I'm stark raving naked. Still got the black shirt on, though, so at least I'm not indecent. As we sit talking about how awful those pants were, we hear shouts about the election. The shouts build and build, and the message they are carrying finally dawns on us: Obama didn't actually win the election. Because of a technicality (that thankfully remains unexplained, because this is a dream), he lost the election to Jerry Stiller. A crowd forms in the street and begins to get larger and larger, as people hop up and down, defiantly proclaiming that Jerry Stiller will not be their president.

I stand up, still naked from the waste down, and start walking up 9th Avenue looking for a place where I can buy some pants. The crowd gets larger and larger and harder to navigate through. The shouts reach a crescendo and just as I see Siouxsie and Sarah Palin talking on the sidewalk I wake up.

Such a powerful dream, full of symbolism and some such. What does it all mean? Well, I'll leave that kind of analysis to the experts, like Cindy Adams and Dr. Phil. Personally, I think the dream sums up the anxieties of an entire generation that is fed up with stupid fashion and losing elections. How great it was to wake up and realize that Obama is our president-elect and that Siouxsie doesn't know that I sometimes wear my mother's slacks.

I sat down at my computer, still half asleep, and checked my email. Then I checked my blog stats and saw that some person from Queretaro, Mexico had arrived at my blog by typing in the words "sextape with my grandma" into Google; another from Hubei, China found me by Googling "damn moms tube."

2009, you will be mine.

Picture of the Day

Siouxsie recently played the Koko Club in Camden, London, but you guys wouldn't know that because you have no book learnin'. You're proud of your ignorance, like an Ohio mob just leaving a Palin speech. You are also elitists, somehow. How do you live with yourselves?

Anyway, it's been way too long since we've seen Ms. Sioux dressed as a tarantula. Way too long. And though I was really digging the harlequin outfit she's been strutting around in all year, I do think it was time for something else. She made the right decision. This is a wardrobe change we can believe in.

Now, Siouxsie, could you please do something about Sarah Palin?

A Vice Presidential Debate Reaction in Song

Golly gosh darn it, you guys, did Sarah Palin's aggressive and relentless folksy charm in the debate last night kinda make ya wanna claw your eyes out, jab rusty nails into your ears, and projectile vomit all at once? You betcha! Jeepers, did she even answer a single question, d'ya think? Or, holy cow, did she just say whatever her notecards had written on them regardless of the question, boy howdy? Git 'er done, Sarah!

Another woman with an undeniable folksy charm is Siouxsie Sioux, doggone it, from the 52nd state of the Banshees. Here she performs the song "Eve White/Eve Black" in 1983 and pretty much sums up my emotional state after sitting through the twittering of Palin's eyelashes for two hours or whatever last night.

Why is Sarah Palin afraid to debate Siouxsie Sioux?

Today in Growing Old Gracefully, Sincerity Edition: Siouxsie Sioux

Can you kids keep it down? Aunt Siouxsie's trying to pose.

Siouxsie Sioux is my fairy godmother, and I never would have made it through high school without her. The black patent leather shoes she shined for me using her very own ice cold breath were the hit of my senior prom. I’ve had trouble understanding in recent years why she hasn’t been crowned Empress of the World yet—hell, I’d even settle for a major American magazine doing a profile of her; she has been in the music industry and leading men around by the dog collar for 30 f**king years now, after all—but, alas, she hasn’t. Because what the world really needs is another article on Amy Winehouse. Whatever, she’s 50 now and looks like Amy Winehouse’s younger sister. That is, she looks freaking awesome.


Don't you want to just put Siouxsie on a
plate and sop her up with a biscuit?

Even when she was in her 20s and 30s, Siouxsie always seemed like your crazy old aunt that practiced voodoo and was always rattling on about the Arabian Nights, ragdolls, salamander kings, bad photography, and Jayne Mansfield. (You have an aunt like that, right?) As such, 50 seems the most natural age for her. If you haven’t gotten her album Mantaray yet, put down that shitty and lyrically clunky Alanis Morissette album and get thee to a record shop immediately.

Until then, watch Siouxsie get all Sally O’Mally with the high kicks in the video for “Here Comes That Day.”