ARTICLE. WE'VE GOT A FUZZBOX AND WE'RE GONNA USE IT

RULES AND REGULATIONS

A TRIBUTE TO WE'VE GOT A FUZZBOX AND WE'RE GONNA USE IT

One of the best things about doing this zine is the feedback I've had from other people that it's led them to find out about new bands/artists or jogged their memory about some long forgotten treasure.  And in the same way I love reading other zines and discovering new stuff/being reminded about old stuff.  So I felt a definite frisson of nostalgia when I read the article about Fuzzbox in Get Off The Internet zine --- so much so, that it inspired me to get a copy of their Greatest Hits CD/DVD.

We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It (or Fuzzbox for short, they were named after the distortion pedal for guitars) were a quartet of Birmingham teenagers --- Tina O' Neill, Vickie Perks and sisters Jo and Maggie Dunne --- who formed a band in 1986.  They couldn't sing, they couldn't play and they didn't care.  They were quite possibly one of the most outrageous looking female bands with crazy coloured hair (Tina had a Mohican), wild make-up and mismatched charity shop clothes.  Unlike other female punk stars like Siouxsie Sioux or Debbie Harry, they weren't trying to be sexy or cool.  They were weird, wild and wonderful, always ready to take the piss out of something or somebody but never in a mean superior way.  Their songs had a shambolic energy that made up for the lack of technical expertise and their lyrics were feminist/political without ever being po-faced or pretentious.  Above all, they always looked like they were having a damn good time --- they made punk seem colourful and funny, exuberant and effortless instead of dour and depressing and poseurish like too many of the other bands around at that time.  They might have looked like a bunch of freaks to your average trendy but there was still something very down-to-earth and girl-next-door about them.  They had the kind of feral exuberance last seen in The Slits and they quickly started to gain in popularity.

FUZZBOX BEFORE:  L TO R MAGZ, JO, VIX AND TINA.

They released a few singles and an album, Bostin' Steve Austin and gained much press coverage and some TV appearances.  Then there was a lull while they worked on thier second album and toured the USA before they re-emerged in 1989 with International Rescue.  If you ever want to understand why people feel bands "sell out" and why they hate it so much, then look at the now renamed Fuzzbox as an example.  To fully appreciate the impact of their makeover, watch all the videos on the DVD back to back.  Someone at the record label they were signed to obviously thought the time was right to "do a Bananarama" and turn a bunch of scruffy vaguely socially aware punkettes into trendy sex kittens churning out bubblegum pop for cattle market nightclubs everywhere.

FUZZBOX AFTER:  L TO R TINA THEN MAGGIE ON TOP, JO AND VICKIE (GIRLS CHANGED THEIR NAMES SLIGHTLY)

Don't get me wrong, the Fuzzbox girls looked great in their matching uniforms and respectable haircuts.  And International Rescue and Pink Sunshine are undoubtedly pop classics.  But we already had one Bananarama and we certainly didn't need another one.  What Fuzzbox had had was something different to all the other female artists around at that time.  They were one of the very few bands, even on the alternative scene who wouldn't sell themselves on their sex appeal and instead parodied traditional stereotypes of attractiveness and appropiate female behaviour in their songs.  They might not have been that good but they were special.  They were telling girls it was OK to look a mess, you didn't have to look like a Page 3 girl or be nice and quiet and take unlimited crap from your "fella" --- you could go out and create your own riot.  Apparently the band themselves were unhappy over their new direction and tensions were starting to emerge as Vickie was increasingly pushed to the front and given all the attention as the vocalist/main sex symbol of the band.  They released another album and a couple more singles (including a cover version of Yoko Ono's Walking On Thin Ice) and started work on a third album which was never released before finally calling it a day in the early 90s.

Vickie is still pursuing a career in music.  Tina has trained as a teacher and had a brief stint drumming for Babes in Toyland.  Jo has been working as a DJ and also writing/recording songs with her sister, Maggie.  Despite the tacky packaging, it's still worth looking out for their Greatest Hits collection as it includes all their singles plus some B-sides/remixes and a DVD with all 9 of their promo videos on.


EDITED TO ADD: Since this article was written, Jo Dunne sadly died in 2012.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MAY 2008

ARTICLE. DEATH BY CHOCOLATE.

THE STRANGE, WHIMSICAL AND FREQUENTLY SPLENDID ... LAND OF CHOCOLATE

Back in the late nineties, long before the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a very different variety of Everlasting Gobstopper was making herself known.  Known simply as Fantastic Everlasting Gobstopper, this precocious talent blew onto the scene in 1997, with the seminal Christmas anthem - that - never- was, "Schoolgirl Psychedelia", which she recorded at the tender age of twelve, along with "I Am A Kitten" (she was evidently much too young to record "I Am A Tiger") for the Trattoria Menu compilation, "Songs For The Jet Set," which became a college radio hit in America.  In 1998, she appeared on the labels "Bend It! Japan '98" compilation, covering "Back Home" before vanishing from trace and re-emerging a couple of years later as Angela Faye Tillett, teenage chambermaid from Clacton-On-Sea, and singer in psychedelic pop ensemble, Death By Chocolate.

Like the "Songs From The Jet Set" compilation, Death by Chocolate are inspired by sixties soundtrack pop, and as such make psychedelic soundscapes in which Tillet's spoken word musings on colours, chocolate, and word association sit happily alongside a particularly innocent sounding "My Friend Jack", sharp modish pop such as "Ice Cold Lemonade" and "Salvador Murder Mystery" and film songs such "Who Needs Wings To Fly?" (from The Flying Nun) and best of all, "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out" (from Harold and Maude).  The later album "Zap the World", includes the track "While I'm Still Young" from "Smashing Time", which could be seen as representing Tillett's approach to her musical career very well.  "It's a band," she told Alexander Laurence of the Free Williamsburg site in 2001, "It's me and two other guys.  There's also a producer who decides what we will record.  They do the music and I do most of the lyrics."   Mike Alway, who runs the label el Records, had worked with Angela before, and it was he who put the band together.  The idea being that, "We wanted it to be like you were watching the film Willy Wonka."

At the time of Laurence's interview, Angela was working in a pub at Colchester, "I grew up in a pub, so I like it.  That's what they did.  I like to drive around in my car.  I like cider.  I drink Guinness, too."  When she was at school, she had a job in London, working for the government.  "I worked in the publicity office.  It's a job that you do when you're at school.  It was at Whitehall right by Big Ben."

Keen to stress that Death by Chocolate weren't jumping on any kind of sixties revival bandwagon, Angela told Brenda Khan of Womanrock, "People sometimes think, especially in America, that (Death By Chocolate) kind of jumps onto this kind of sixties Brit bandwagon, but it's been going on a lot longer than that.  People have been passionate about it for a lot longer than it seems."   Of course, reviving the sixties in any way, shape or form, can often lead to misunderstandings, as Angela recognised:  "But there's other ways that's it's been done that I think are really crude.  Like Austin Powers or something like that.  It makes people forget what it was really like and really about.  Now all of a sudden there's young people thinking that kind of sixties thing in London was about walking around Carnaby Street looking like a twat."  Good things she takes from the sixties include Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and The Monkees, "I used to watch them (the TV shows on video) with my brothers and that, and I never really liked sort of the eighties, so it had to be the Monkees.  When I was little I liked Davy, but now I'm older, I like Peter."

As to her musical career, Angela, in 2002, was remarkably down to earth and matter of fact, telling Brenda Khan, "Well I think I might be pushed to get a career in it.  But I don't know, I see it as a hobby really.  You know I have do insurance and such to get by, and then everything else is a bonus.  If it wasn't fun, I wouldn't bother."  These comments echoed her general approach to music, as explained to Alexander Laurence a year before, "You have to want to do it because you believe in personal expression.  Don't bend over backwards to please other people.  Just do something silly and relevant to yourself.  You are not going to change the world and be anything better than you are.  Do it for the right reason."

Whilst Death by Chocolate haven't released anything since 2002's "Zap the World", both it and its self-titled predecessor are well worth hunting down if, as Brenda Khan put it, "you never got a chance to learn first hand about the sixties, bands like Love, Jefferson Airplane, Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd) and Strawberry Alarm Clock then Death by Chocolate just might be your ticket in."

Notes:  The quotes in this piece were taken from interviews available on the following websites www.freewilliamsburg.com/still_fresh/february_2001/death_by_chocolate.html and Womanrock (site no longer up).

ARTICLE BY CAZZ BLASE.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MAY 2008.

ARTICLE. THE AISLER'S SET

I WON'T DRIVE FAR...

Despite hailing from San Francisco, there has always been a strangely British quality to the records made by The Aisler's Set.  Maybe it's their influences, which appear to include Sarah records and Girls At Our Best, or maybe it's simply that they sound as though they come from Glasgow, and that they wouldn't be wildly out of step with bands such as Camera Obscura or Adventures in Stereo.

Singer/guitarist/producer Amy Linton, formerly of Henry's Dress and (briefly) Go Sailor, began recording songs under the name The Aisler's Set in 1997, in her garage, before being joined by Wyatt Cusick (guitar/vocals), Alicia VandenHevvel (bass), Jen Cohen (organ) and Yoshi Nakamoto (drums), all of whom play in other Bay Area bands.  "The way I used to do things was that everything would be worked out before anyone else heard it, and that would be easier for me, as I had an idea of how I wanted it to sound.  But as it turned out, they're four completely competent musicians and capable of making everything better", Linton told Louisa Thomson of "Purr".

Linton's relaxed, low key approach to making music can be seen as stemming from the fact that she has been in and out of bands since she was eleven.  "Tellingly, she cites The Smiths and The Dead Kennedys as the bands that were most important to her, growing up in the middle of nowhere," reported Louisa Thomson, "Now, San Francisco provides most of the inspiration for her songs."   If Linton's early life provided her with a sense of isolation that is eloquently conveyed on songs such as "Emotional Levy", it is fair to suggest that her life in San Francisco has provided the warmth that makes such isolation and melancholy sweet and moving, musically.

"Mary's Song", from the debut album, "Terrible Things Happen", with its blurred and echoing vocals and subtle, understated chords conveys this sweet, aching melancholy to great effect, revealing that less is so often more.  It's a wistful song of heartbreak and sadness, with a warmth that is provided by the bar room camaraderie, and a charm that is almost part Velvet Underground, part Jesus and Mary Chain, but most of all, totally itself.

Much like Belle and Sebastian's "Tigermilk", "Terrible Things Happen" was a well-accomplished debut that displayed quality songwriting set against minimal-yet-perfect production.  Punky indie pop anthems, like "Friend Of The Heroes" sit happily alongside the cheerful thrashy garage pop of "Holiday Gone Well" and "Falling Buildings", whilst "London Madrid" and "Why Baby" show a fondness for understated simplicity and sixties folk tinged pop coupled with Sarah records that would lead them to support Belle and Sebastian on their debut U.S. tour two years later.

By 2000's "The Last Match", the band were gaining a small yet significant, not to mention loyal following internationally.  The album made it into Spin.com's top twenty albums of the year, led to radio airplay and a session fro John Peel, as well as enthusiastic reviews in NME, Mojo, The Times and The Guardian, and it's easy to see why.  Opening track, "The Way To Market Station" comes across like The Darling Buds with sixties girl group harmonies, whereas tracks such as "Hit The Snow", "Chicago New York" and "Lonely Side of Town" (the latter showcasing Wyatt Cusick's almost Stuart Murdoch-esque vocals) could all have been singles, had the band not plumped instead for "The Red Door", a thrashy but catchy, feedback drenched slice of punk pop.  Whilst The Aisler's Set's use to harmonies is pure Sixties California, it's on "The Last Match" that the band display most clearly what is an admittedly small debt to Phil Spector, in this case, probably the Phil Spector Christmas album, as evidenced on "Hit The Snow".  Many reviewers have compared The Aisler's Set favourably to Phil Spector's wall of sound, but the comparison meets terse reaction from Linton, who acknowledges the influence, but who admitted to Louisa Thomson that she "doesn't seem to hear it as much as other people do."

Certainly by 2003's "How I Learnt to Write Backwards", the Spector influence is negligible at best.  Opening track "Catherine Says" mixes sixties style harmonies with handclaps, glockenspiel and light fuzz guitar to make for glistening upbeat catchy pop that contrasts strongly with the sparse, brooding "Emotional Levy", a soundtrack of tension to the beat of a ticking clock, which, with it's minimal guitar and drums, displays Linton's quietly sweet voice to great effect.  The song ascends, in its climax, into an almost gospel infused call and response of glorious despair and heightened emotion that is strangely moving.

Whilst the thrashy, fast punk pop of "Languor in the Balcony" is reminiscent of "The Last March", "Mission Bells" hints towards almost Marine Research or Stereolab territory, whilst "Sara's Song" has a brooding 4AD/Twin Peaks feel to it, and "Attraction Action Reaction" mixes angular post punk riffs with sixties harmonies and the jangle of tambourines, allowing the vocals to soar.  "Unfinished Paintings" recalls the gorgeous wistful melancholy of "Mary's Song", and displays the band at its most pared down:  just Linton and her guitar, singing a lullaby to a lost love, of sadness, of things left unfinished, with a cool quiet dignity that is her preserve alone.  By contrast, "Melody Not Malaise" shares a peculiarly jazz like spiralling with "The Train #1" as well as some gorgeously soaring vocals and an eerie restlessness, suggesting the shape of things to come perhaps.

Whilst "How I Learned To Write Backwards" is, at face value, the least accessible, or least pop, of The Aisler's Set's three albums, it builds on the quiet subtleties of the earlier works, and displays a flair for experimentation with a number of different styles that usually comes off, and which should be admired.

As to what the future holds for the band, they are currently gigging around San Francisco and the U.S. and it is assumed that a new album will appear at a later, as yet unspecified date.  The won't-be-hurried-won't-be-rushed approach that Linton and her bandmates have taken so far has served them well, so playing the waiting game for a while longer should be all worthwhile in the end.

http://www.slumberlandrecords.com/

http://www.aislersset.com/

Yahoo! Music Canada.

THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY CAZZ BLASE.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MAY 2008.

ARTICLE. REVIEW. SHAMPOO --- WE ARE SHAMPOO (REISSUE)

VIVA LA MEGABABES

Shampoo were once described as the Barbie doll equivalent of the Sleaze Sisters from New York punk movie, Times Square --- a description which goes some way in summing up their appeal as a mixture of glamour and mundanity, spite and sweetness, clever manipulation and dumb naivety, and most of all, the collision between pop and punk.  In a sense, Shampoo were in a tradition of bleached-blonde pop-punks like Debbie Harry or Wendy James.

Jacqui Blake and Carrie Askew were two teenage schoolfriends from the South London suburb of Plumstead.  They bonded over a love of music and retreated into fandom and glamour as an escape from their mundane surroundings.   They became known on the London scene for their peroxide punk babydoll kitsch look (which was later to spawn an army of imitators) and they wrote a fanzine for Manic Street Preachers called Last Exit which blended Sylvia Plath quotes with collaged images of Kylie or Bardot.  They had a cameo appearance in the video for Little Baby Nothing and began to get several mentions in the press.  Deadline magazine described them as a performance act looking for an outlet and made it clear that they'd designed themselves as a pop group.  The girls were always quite clear that they couldn't play instruments or write music but they knew what they wanted and how to get it.  In the same Deadline interview, Jacqui was quoted as saying, "If anyone's manufacturing us, it's ourselves.  We knew what we wanted and set out to meet the people who could help us create it --- a raw punky glamorous band."

Bob Stanley from St. Etienne signed them to his record label, Icerink, after they sent him a mixtape featuring some of their favourite songs such as The Waitresses' I Know What Boys Like (which they went on to cover themselves).   They released 2 singles --- Blisters and Bruises (co-written by Lawrence from Denim) and Bouffant Headbutt (co-written by Con Fitzpatrick who wrote all the music for their songs from then on).  The singles got good reviews and Bouffant Headbutt, in particular, had more a punk sound.  People forget but when Shampoo first started they were seen as more of an indie band than a mainstream pop act.  In their interviews, they raved about 60s pop like Brigitte Bardot and 80s strangeness like Grace Jones or Adam Ant alongside indie bands of the time like Cornershop or the Manics.  But like Blondie and Transvision Vamp before them, the music press didn't know how to treat blonde pop babes who loved short skirts as much as the Sex Pistols.

Shampoo signed to Food (a subsidary of EMI) and released 2 albums for them, this one and Shampoo or Nothing (which popularised the phrase Girl Power before the Spice Girls).  They released a 3rd album via the internet before splitting up.  Although they'd had only moderate success in the UK, they were one of the biggest selling acts in Japan and made more than enough money to retire on.  Their later albums concentrated more of the childish pop element of their sound and increasingly their interviews seemed to appeal to a more mainstream audience as they obsessed about their love of East 17 and Take That, Barbie dolls and sweeties.

This reissue of their 1st album represents that moment where they balanced their pop and punk sides (although it is still more pop that it could have been/should have been).  The girls squawk and shriek, snarl and pout over catchy pop numbers echoing both the boring mundanity and rampant egotism of teenage life.  The songs are as sweet and light as candyfloss but dig a little deeper and you'll detect a sharper edge.  There are no love songs on the Shampoo album --- only songs mocking those that buy into the myth of romance, laughing at the too-cool-for-school indie boy scenesters around them and singing the praises of "running wild in the city late at night" and not caring what anyone thinks.  Surely lines like --- Everyone hates us/We don't care/Who needs friends anyway? --- wouldn't sound out of place being sneered by Johnny Rotten.  And wasn't Dirty Old Love Song merely a simpler version of the ethos behind the Manics' Motown Junk --- "songs of love echo underclass betrayal".  And is it just me or does Game Boy have a subversive double meaning?!

While it's true some of the album tracks are fillers, the reissue has added 6 bonus tracks (the B sides to the singles off this album, a couple of which were only available on CD releases) which have the petulant brattiness and kitsch sweetness that made Shampoo such a great band.  Although it is a pity they didn't include their 1st two singles and the B sides from them, this album is still a great introduction to a duo described as part Lolita/part Children of the Damned.  Shampoo --- a band that so perfectly embodied teenage glamour and pop culture that they could have been an Andy Warhol creation (if their essential Britishness didn't evoke more St. Trinians than Manhattan Factory).



ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MAY 2008.

SHAMPOO PHOTO FROM ID MAGAZINE

ARTICLE. SINCE YESTERDAY --- A TRIBUTE TO STRAWBERRY SWITCHBLADE

The 1980s were the pinnacle for perfect pop music.  And one of the main reasons for that was the fact that genuinely creative and weird people made brilliant pop music.  These days pop music seems to have turned into a conveyor belt of boy band wannabes and porn influenced fembots churning out soulless pop.  Which is not to say there wasn't some crap back then but there were also bands like Soft Cell and Adam and the Ants who weren't afraid to step out of their art school ghettoes and make popular music for the masses.  IT WAS FABULOUS.

A perfect example of this was Strawberry Switchblade, a duo of Glaswegian girls, Jill and Rose, who'd met up on their home town's burgeoning punk scene and bonded as much over their outrageous appearance as their love of music.  They were best known for their love of polka dots and their look seemed like a home-made forerunner to the Gothic Lolita style now popular in Japan.  They had back-combed hair adorned with long ribbons, thick black eyeliner, loads of cheap jewellery and polka dot dresses which only seemed even more strangely asexual when combined with the skyscraper stilettos and fishnets which the girls favoured.  They resembled cute Kabuki witches.  Nobody else could have invented that look and only they could have perfected it.

Their music was every bit as striking --- bittersweet pop music that produced a strangely unsettling effect while never distracting from some beautiful melodies and harmonies.  Although they released several singles and one album, their only big hit was Since Yesterday.  However, it was a UK Top 5 hit and bizarrely enough, this was all it took for the girls to keep Band Aid (the charity single that went on to be one of the biggest selling singles of all time) off the cover of Smash Hits (then the biggest selling pop magazine in the UK).  But sometimes that one moment of pop perfection is all you need.  Some bands will go their whole career without ever reaching that pinnacle. I don't care if Strawberry Switchblade never had a string of number ones or won awards, I think they're an amazing band.

Fast forward nearly 20 years and Strawberry Switchblade are a sparkly sequin in my memory of the 1980s.  All I'd ever heard was Since Yesterday but that was enough to convince me of their genius.  I managed to track down a Japanese CD reissue of their album and I wasn't disappointed.  Who could forget their plaintive ode to agoraphobia, Trees and Flowers or jaunty pop numbers with an underlying threat of menace like Let Her Go or Jolene.  I think the internet has been the saving grace for bands like Strawberry Switchblade.  Before it existed obscure bands would be easily forgotten and there was no way for fans to easily share what resources they did have.  Ebay and Amazon have made it easier for people all around the world to obtain rare and out of print items and programmes like Napster meant people could trade music files.   And people were able to set up fan sites that people could access and interact with from anywhere in the world.

I think Strawberry Switchblade have one of the best fan sites I've seen on the Internet.  It's easy to navigate and has a pretty design that reflects the band's image.  Merrick (who set it up) has done an amazing job in finding loads of press cuttings and rare music downloads as well as loads of photos, lyrics and more.  But the most amazing thing on the site is an in depth interview with both girls and some other people associated with the band like Bill Drummond (later of The KLF) who was their manager.  And when I say in depth I really mean it.  But God, what a story!  I don't want to spoil the surprise but it makes fantastic reading from Rose discussing her childhood growing up in violent slums and the death of her brother to Jill talking about how agoraphobia affected her life covering their rise to fame complete with violent stalkers leading to their eventual breakup amidst accusations of Nazi sympathies and occult obsessions.  I wish more people could read it as it's such an interesting story and Merrick has done a good job in getting everybody to talk about the various issues so openly.

http://www.strawberryswitchblade.net/

ALL IMAGES FROM THE STRAWBERRY SWITCHBLADE WEBSITE.

ORGINALLY PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER 2005.

QUOTES FROM THE MOVIE TIMES SQUARE

NO SENSE MAKES SENSE

Johnny La Guardia --- We have a story --- "Dear Mr. La Guardia, Do you think it's OK if I pretend I'm a zombie?  My mother died a long time ago but my father is rich and famous and perfect but I can't be like him.  He expects me to be happy but I'm clumsy and ugly.  I don't want anyone looking at me.  I can't do anything.  I can't do sports.  I can't dance.  I can't make friends.  I wrote to you before but only in my journal."  The letter is signed A Real Zombie.  You have something very special inside you, young lady.  The seed that contains your unique self.  Maybe you're all alone, that's a pretty scary place to be.  I know about it.  You may have to jump off into the darkness.  How desperate they feel, those moments before you jump.  But sometimes you just got to do it.  You gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you gotta jump.

POEM FOR NICKY MORATTA.

Tiny fossil bones

Translucent skin

Million year old eyes

Dinosaur, you don't belong here

They'll kill your for tiny tusks

But your ribs are my ladder, Nicky

I'm so amazed, I'm so amazed.

(Pamela's poem about Nicky).

Johnny La Guardia --- Time to shut off the TV set, David.  Come see Times Square in the flesh, not from the windows of your limo.   It's hot down here --- It's Rio at carnival time.  It's ripe, baby --- get in touch with that place inside of you that craves slime more than plastic, David.  And vitality more than manners, David.  And life more than television.

Nicky --- Hey, you really sick or what?

Pamela --- Well, I don't know really.  See, the doctors, they won't tell me what's wrong with me.

Nicky --- They ain't never gonna tell you what's wrong with you.   I get my revenge.  I'm not gonna tell them what's wrong with them either.

Pamela --- The evening lies spread out against the sky.  Like a patient etherised upon a table.  I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.

Nicky --- It still sounds like bullshit to me.

Pamela --- Nicky, what about songs?  What about the roses in the hospital?  What about take a piss, you asshole?  That's poetry.

Nicky --- It doesn't rhyme.

Pamela --- Well, it doesn't have to.  It doesn't have to fit in a book.  Nicky, everything you do or you say is poetry.  At least I think so.

Dear Daddy, I am not kidnapped.  I am me-napped.  I am soul-napped.  I am Nicky-napped.  I am happy-napped.  Doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs --- we are looking after ourselves and having our own Renaissance.  We don't need anti-depressants, we need your understanding.  (Pamela's letter to her father that's read out on the radio).

Yes father dear, you want to make Times Square as cold as your icy eyes

Why do you want to punish people who aren't like you?

You know at home, I've heard you use these following words

Spic, nigger, faggot and psycho

Well, I just want you to know your daughter is one.

Spic, nigger, faggot, bum

Your daughter is one.

(Song by The Sleez Sisters that they perform on radio).

Pamela --- You only care about yourself, you faker.

Johnny La Guardia --- I feel like I give myself away everyday for a living.

Pamela --- You give other people away for a living.

Nicky --- They tell me I'm crazy but the truth is, I just know bullshit when I see it.

Nicky --- Please, I just got one more thing to say, one more thing.  I knew a girl named Pammy.  She taught me a lot of things about life.  She was real smart.  She knew a lot of things.  But she knew one thing long before I ever knew it.  That she was the best friend I ever had.

STILLS FROM THE DVD OF TIMES SQUARE.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN DECEMBER 2004.

http://www.robinjohnson.net/timessquare.html Robin Johnson fan site with an excellent page devoted to this movie.

FILM REVIEW. TIMES SQUARE

YOUR DAUGHTER IS ONE

ARTICLE. IMITATING ANGELS --- A TRIBUTE TO INGER LORRE

Inger Lorre was lead singer of an alt-rock band The Nymphs, who were contemporaries of Jane's Addiction and Hole in early 90s Los Angeles.  (It's Inger who appears on Sassy on Hole's Pretty on the Inside --- she and Courtney had a long-standing feud).  They split up after one album and the infamous pissing on the desk incident.  Inger had a brief stint with Motel Shootout and worked with the late Jeff Buckley.  She released a solo album, Transcendental Medication in 1999.

Inger is one of my heroines and inspirations.  I first discovered Inger when I read about The Nymphs in the British music press around 1991.  I was so intrigued by this woman who looked so cool in her photos, beautiful and glamorous without ever being clichéd or bland.  And I was inspired by the intelligence and integrity she displayed in her interviews and her incredible honesty that helped me feel less ashamed about certain aspects of my own life.  I loved her music --- she is one of my favourite artists.  Funnily enough, I was a fan of hers before I ever got into Jane's Addiction or Hole (2 bands she has been compared to and knew).

Her music is so darkly beautiful, with a strength to its vulnerability.  I could compare her to The Stooges, Patti Smith or Siouxsie and the Banshees but of course, Inger is her own marvellous creation.  I love the way she took the clichés of rock and reworked them from a female perspective.  That Rimbaud quote on her album really sums up her work.
(When the endless servitude of woman will be overthrown, when she will live for herself by herself, man, hitherto adominable having given her her release, she will be a poet, she also!  Women will discover some of the unknown!   Will her worlds differ from ours?  She will discover strange, unfathomable, repellent, delicious things, we shall taken them, we shall comprehend them.)

I never got to see The Nymphs play live.  About a week before I left London for good they were playing The Marquee and I was simply too fucked up to attend.  Ah, there will be other opportunities I thought but there never were.   I was heartbroken.   Over the years I kept the faith, so to speak, writing about Inger in my fanzines and telling anyone who would listen about this unsung genius of rock.  I was delighted when she released Transcendental Medication and I hope her musical career is along and fruitful one.  She seems to be such an amazing woman and if nothing else, I want to thank her for inspiring me in my own life and work and for the gift of her amazing music.

To all our fans, follow your dreams and let them make you, your own reality --- The Nymphs.

Originally published in December 2004.

NYMPHS EP COVER BY DEREK RIDGERS.
PHOTO OF INGER LORRE FROM KERRANG 369 PHOTO SUPPLEMENT (UNCREDITED).