Pop culture treasure, high culture trash.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Don't you ever/ don't you ever/ stop being dandy

A recent viewing of the excellent new romantics/Blitz kids documentary A Fine Romance inspired me to go back and check to see if all those Adam Ant videos were as tremendous as I remember them to be. They are all that and a deep fried Mars bar. Even I somehow didn't initially register the flagrant, conspicuous queerness of, to name but one example, the "Prince Charming" video. Reinventing the Cinderella story so that a man fills the heroine's glass slippers is one thing, but 1:13 - 1:23? Sakes alive, fellows, those are some rippling torsos! Ridicule is nothing to be scared of, indeed. Also, I could swear that's one of the Mo-dettes popping in for a cameo at 1:49, but it's probably just the hat. It seems to have been quite the fashion accessory among the postpunk lady/new romo drag set circa 1981.

Speaking of the Mo-dettes, the blog Filthy Sick has posted streaming mp3s from their 1980 single "Dark Park Creeping" b/w "Two Can Play." "Dark Park Creeping" is on The Story So Far but "Two Can Play" isn't. I got the 1977-1980 Rough Trade singles compilation "Wanna Buy a Bridge?" off that blog a while ago and it is still leaving me speechless daily. Delta 5, the Slits, Essential Logic, Kleenex, the Raincoats and YMG all on the same label at the same time like it was no big deal. The early Kill Rock Stars comps are all the same way. These were some extremely musically prescient moments in time, and some equally prescient people, in front of and behind the scenes.

No comments: