I found this clip today and wanted to share it. I’ve never seen Radiohead have as much fun as they do recording a Smiths song about corporal punishment. I love them both.
Pete: Despite what you’ve been told, Robert Smith is *not* the lead singer of the Smiths.
Although it is a couple of years old, I think this rendering of myself and my spouse at the center of the party in the pages of a sequence of Adam White’s Opi8 is worth sharing. I am depicted as my own midgetized version, but the dancing and haircut are spot on. Spouse is the tall fellow who looks like himself. Also pictured are author Tait B. on the left-hand side of the bottom panel, New York’s Billy K on the right at top, and the gentleman on the far left is Damian Ramsay, who left us last April but would have been 29 on October 28th.
Many many years ago, an “afflicted” young man picked up a guitar and threw it on the floor while muttering something about Webster’s Emmanuel Lewis. Thus, the Dutch Treats were born. The Dutch Treats achieved legendary underground status in their twin hometowns of Denton and Dallas, Texas since first “playing out” in 1990, and later took Brooklyn, NY by storm, filling the storm drains with absurd rockin’ goodness until it flowed out into the streets. Seventeen years of songs about Chewbacca, Men at Work’s Colin Hay, underage crack whores, dwarves, elves, and wizards later, they are debuting in Portland at the revival of the Hive at Plan B on Sunday, September 2.
And here’s the world-famous video for the Dutch Treats song, Close Your Robe. It’s been banned in fifteen countries, and all of Scandinavia.
Come enjoy the music of the man who taught us that bacon+Dr. Pepper=ROCK.
Postscript: What can be said about the event of the century? If you can’t put your finger on what made it so special, go to Wikipedia and cross-reference “annoyed bike messengers who thought they had booked the room for a party” with “confused, overheated goths” and “drinking adventure!” Johnny Murder, consummate professional, played a great set for his fans.
I got to see one of my favorite people at the Crystal Ballroom last night. He made a Depeche Mode joke, got one of his fans onstage to do part of a song, and wore every jeweled brooch available in the Pacific Northwest. He claims to love Portland as much as we love him. Answers to unasked questions:
Q. Who is winning in the Rufus fanbase, gay men or poetry-writing teenaged girls?
A. Do you want that answer based on individual number or combined weight?
Q. Who is slightly more gay than Rufus Wainwright?
A. Rufus Wainwright dressed as Judy Garland.
Q. What will a line of people waiting to get into the Crystal Ballroom steadfastly refuse to chant?
A. “The Roof! The Roof! The Rufus on Fire!”
Anyway, it was wonderful and very theatrical. Another musician’s son opened, his name was Lemon or Lenin or something. He did one song that sounded like the Muppet Show hit, The Rainbow Connection. What’s he trying to do, out-gay Rufus? I don’t think so, brother.
Oh! Wikipedia claims that Rufus is a descendant of Dutch colonist Peter Stuyvestant, and according to my family, so am I. O cousin Rufus!
Postscript: A handsome gentleman let me know that after the show let out at one ayem, Rufus serenaded the late-night crowd at Silverado with karaoke until closing time. I wish I had the energy of young people!
These French Bulldogs really want to know.
Let this be seen as a lasting treaty between France and Great Britain.
DJ’s Retrograde and Retrovirus have received their DJ slots for Convergence 13. There are a lot of good things about playing the opening slots on weeknights. You get to deal with any technical difficulties with the setup yourself. You don’t have to stay up too late. You don’t have to worry about overcrowding on the dance floor. You can be sure that no-one else has played the “I’m Dead, I’m Dead” song. On the other hand, getting in a car with a face fulla clown white in the cruel, truthful sunlight is always a time for soul-searching and remorse.
I hope any spooky early birds will come visit us at the Fez, opening and closing the convention! We’ll be serving up a delicious selection of little-heard deathrock, post-punk, and new-wave songs to nostalgically transport listeners to a time before they were born.
Postscript: It was a ton of fun, by which I mean it was a most dark and magickal time nestling in the bosom of my velvet-clad mistress, and I’ll have the playlist up later.
I didn’t know until today that the Minty song by Leigh Bowery, Useless Man, is a parody of a Pepsi ad that ran in the UK in 1973. Please note that one of these videos has really dirty lyrics. Somehow, Useless Man is even funnier to me now.
