Cabin Fever

Cabin fever (also known as House Syndrome) is an idiomatic term for a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shut in, in a small space, with nothing to do, for an extended period (as in a simple country vacation cottage during a long rain or snow). 

Symptoms include restlessness, irritability, irrational frustration with everyday objects, forgetfulness, laughter, excessive sleeping, distrust of anyone they are with, and an urge to go outside even in the rain, snow or dark.

The phrase is also used humorously to indicate simple boredom from being home alone. The term was first recorded in 1918. Other references have the term in use at least to 1906. 

An 1820 reference is to an actual fever, common in Ireland, resulting from eating watery potatoes during wet years.

Die Westpendomina - Die Dominas

Domina - The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight

We can't fly

I was one of the lucky ones who got out of the feral holding pen that is Gatwick's departure lounge. For many there is little hope of escape before Christmas. 

BAA staff were desperately trying to dampen down the growing mood of violence, distributing refreshment vouchers when they should have been handing out barbiturates. If Pret a Manger don't restock their shelves soon I fear angry and hunger could tip over into cannibalism. 

Aeroplane - We Can't Fly

Makin' Happy

ah ooh-wee ooh ooh-wee ooh ooh-wee ooh-wee ooh-wee

Crystal Waters - Makin' Happy

Oh no! We're not merry No!

Poly Styrene of X Ray Spex fame has unexpectedly surfaced with a rather fantastic downbeat Christmas song about a killer Santa. And not being a very good capitalist she's giving it away as a free download on her sexy website - all you have to do is sign up to her mailing list.



By way of context here's some background on Bruce Pardo - the Santa Claus killer, courtesy of Newsvine.

"California's 'Santa Claus Killer' Murders Eight at Party, Burns Down House, Bombs Own Car Before Committing Suicide"

A California man who had gone through a bad divorce dressed up like Santa, went to his ex in-law's Christmas party, and murdered at least eight people before killing himself.

Bruce Pardo, 45, has been identified by police as the 'Santa Claus Killer.' It is believed he murdered both his ex-wife and his in-laws during the killing spree.

Pardo walked up to the door of the house where the party was going on, carrying a large box wrapped as a present. When a young girl answered the door, he shot her and forced his way inside the home, randoming shooting other people and spraying a flammable liquid from a device he carried inside the box.

Pardo's car later exploded during the initial investigation by police, leading police to believe Pardo may have placed some type of bomb in the car.

Happy Christmas everybody!

Icy Spicy Leoncie

Feel the thaw!

Icy sentiment

I've been enjoying the cold snap, voluntarily housebound with jumper tucked into trousers, listening to records that I love but haven't thought of since last winter. 

Leonard Cohen - The Avalanche
Au Revoir Simone - Fallen Snow (Teenagers remix)

It's a cold world out there

Friendly Fires (feat Azari & III) - Stay Here

Another man x2 = Double the pleasure

You know when you think everything is in place and what you think you have is not what you really have at all, because in my case what I thought I had was NOT an entire whole man but a facsimile thereof (ummm, ummm).

Another Man, Barbara Mason's song about the Downlow phenomenon, came out on homo Mel Cherens West-End Records in 1983, the year of my birth. Barbara's got a problem, her boyfriend's calling out the wrong name when they make love, stealing her sexy clothes (ooh child!) and swishing more than she does. She sings her troubles to a greek chorus of her girlfriends who provide back-up vocals and expressions of concern/disgust as appropriate.

Another version of the song was put out the same year by a group called Tout Sweet, but with the lyrics adapted to tell the story from the boyfriends perspective. 

I can't find anything out about Tout Sweet but I suspect this version was an attempt to cash in on the songs gay appeal by toning down the homophobia and  doubling the pleasure. They make it much better(in my opinion).

Barbara Mason - Another Man
Tout Sweet - Another Man 

The briefs go marching gaily

Ambrose and his Orchestra - Whistling in the Dark

The Altarboy

Rickie Lee Jones - The Altarboy

Pervert Cleric

 I just came across this article about Emyr Owen, a Welsh clergyman who chopped the genitals off dead parishioners. The journalist clearly revels in Owen's depravity, his article's full of salicious detail, homophobic asides and an almost pornographic list of the 'sinister collection of tools' used by the vicar to castrate his victims. I was fully erect by the end and I didn't even have to use my syringe.

Owen claimed to have been driven to commit these acts as a result of a crisis of faith, which I find entirely credible. There is a long tradition of gay men being drawn towards, or forced into, the church at a young age. Having been indoctrinated in self hatred at the seminary and then forced to repress his desire for decades its hardly surprising that Owen's sexuality expressed itself in peculiar ways. It's not the cleric who is perverse, it's the situation in which he preaches. And anyway, what use is a cock to a cadaver?

St Stephen by Doctor Millar and the Beet Club is a song about a priest having a crisis of faith, but it doesn't involve the castration of corpses and has a happier ending. Millar is a fantastic songwriter and lyricist - and you check out and purchase more of his work here.


Doctor Millar and the Beet Club - St Stephen

Papal Breakdance

I've spent the last few days looking for Jesus related music for my friends biblical birthday party. I was shocked to discover how much I already had, but then I am an Irish Catholic who's received five of the seven sacraments, and a homosexual to boot - a borderline Christianity fixation was almost inevitable.

So be warned, this blog is likely to take a spiritual turn for the next few weeks, as I unload some of my favourites.

Top of the Catholic Pops this week is Genesis P-Orridge and Psychic TV with Papal Breakdance.



This gorgeous video for the song is by Marie Losier. There's a strange tension between the comedy slapstick of the boxers and the figure of Genesis hovering over them. The video was recorded a little over a year after the death of Genesis's partner Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, with whom he had been conducting an experiment in pandrogyny - each undergoing surgeries to look more like the other and become gender neutral beings. There's a brilliant interview with Genesis here where he refers to the body as a "cheap suitcase" and says this about his relationship with Lady Jaye:

"We started out, because we were so crazy in love, just wanting to eat each other up, to become each other and become one. And as we did that, we started to see that it was affecting us in ways that we didn't expect. Really, we were just two parts of one whole; the pandrogyne was the whole and we were each other's other half."

Psychic TV - Papal Breakdance

ZOMBIE ZOMBIE

Words were spoken at the setting of time. Words which put together told a terrifying tale, a prophecy of doom. Man had crossed into the black land and returned diseased. Evil had found a door into another Kingdom. Somehow it had to be kept shut. Prehistoric man kept vigil until it was forgotten why. Of course they thought you were crazy, but you insisted on returning to that ancient place, just to make sure. You had a feeling about these relics, a feeling of death. Unwittingly you had sprung an invisible lock of an invisible door. A prophecy is about to be fulfilled. The Dead will rise again to eat the flesh of the living.

Zombie Zombie - "Parisian undead analogue disco that goes bleep in the night"

Zombie Zombie - What's happening in the city?

Zombie Zombie - Nightclubbing 

ZOMBIE!

Everything is rotting and disintegrating, darkness is closing in and Vauxhall's teaming with shambling maggot riddled zombies. It's altogether safer not to leave the house. I've been holed up in my bedroom with some Lucio Fulci films.



The spooky electro prog soundtracks for Fulci's horror films were made by Fabio Frizzi. If you must go outside for some reason I suggest you pop this in your walkman, it also works wonderfully as a soundtrack for a stroll to the shops, or the job centre. Enjoy!

Fabio Frizzi - Zombie

Especial request

 

Norma Lewis - Maybe This Time

A little lost

Arthur Russell - A little lost

My heart went BANG BANG

On Saturday I saw Pete Burns perform LIVE at Carpet Burns 2nd birthday party. I don't know how to put my excitement into words. He made my tummy rumble, my sphincter tighten and my heart go BANG BANG

Since seeing him in the flesh I've become an avid fan. I spent most of Sunday evening watching clips of him on youtube, my favourite being the documentary Pete Burns Unspun, made straight after he came out of prison in 2006, and for legal reasons had to go and live with the obsessive fan who fronted his bail money. He's got a new single out which you can purchase here.

Dead Or Alive - My Heart Goes BANG

Bobby knows what Dick likes

Bobby Knows what Dick likes by gibletsounds
 
This mix is inspired by the work of creationist homophobe disco svengali Bobby Orlando, and by a magazine called G.E.M(Gay East Midlands). It was published in Nottingham between 1982 and 1983, when AIDs was 'gay cancer', homophobic attacks on the street were commonplace and gays huddled together in dingy basements and listened to disco music driven by an energy so anxious it verged on hysteria. Listening to this mix in one go may induce a mild feeling of nausea. 

Most of the songs were taken from the playlists and reviews in G.E.M's monthly music column, written by the Dj 'Queenie' from Nottinghams gay disco 'Part II'. You can read all nine issues of G.E.M on their archive website here and get a feeling for how claustrophic and terrifying the gay scene in a provincial English town was 30 years ago.

Eastbound Expressway - Primitive Desire

Like a lot of Hi-NRG 'groups' Eastbound Expressway didn't really exist, the name was just a front for English producer,and Heaven dj, Ian Levine's songwriting and production. The vocals were provided by three session singers, Norma, Shirley & Dee Lewis. Queenie says "Rough, raunchy jungle beat - ideal for popper sniffers!"


Waterfront Home - Take a Chance on Me

Another fictional band, Waterfront Home were one of the many names used, and discarded, by Bobby Orlando to release records in the early 80s. Queenie says "Drooling undertones of synthetic sound seem to be his speciality, but anything that has his label on it seems to be a sure- fire hit."

Karen Finley - Lick It

Karen Finley is a performance artist, writer and musician from New York. Her music became an extension of her performance monologues in the 80s, setting her maniacal ranting to a tinny disco beat.

Jessica Williams - Queen of Fools

Now I'm not here to judge you
You know wrong from right
What you do in the nighttime
Will come out in the light
Jessica Williams has been singing since she could talk! Queen of Fools is a more conventional disco song with the bpm and the tension racheted up a few notches. Love inevitably leads to dissapointment, there are hardly any happy fags.


Norma Lewis - Maybe This Time 

 One of Ian Levine's session singers, Norma Lewis scored a few hits under her own name, including this gorgeous disco version of Maybe This Time.


The Flirtations - Earthquake

 "We'd reach up to 10 on the richter scale
If love could be measured that way" 
The Flirtations are a real group. They started out in the 60's singing RnB, before dabbling in torch songs and Northern Soul. In the 70's they went through their disco period and then in the early 80's they jumped on the Hi-NRG bandwagon and released Earthquake. Unbelievably they're still together and looking eerily young for women who've been at it for more than 40 years. Ones of the members is called Pearly Gates.


Corruption - Show Me Yours

A very coy song by a mysterious group called Corruption, I can't find anything out about them, but sadly this seems to be the only record they released. 

Sylvester & Patrick Cowley - Menergy

Patrick Cowley's one of my favourite producers on all time. This song, released in 1981, celebrates all the 'boys in the backroom, loving it up'. Perhaps it is possible to be happy as a gay man, so long as you don't form any emotional attachments.




Bizzy & Co. - Take a Chance

Slightly demented Hi-NRG/Italo crossover, with one of the most beautifuly surreal Italian TV videos I've ever seen. I wish my reality could be this glamourous.




Patrick Cowley - Megatron Man

Classic San Francisco high energy from Megatone Records. Cowley died of 'gay cancer' 8 months after the song was released.


Tapps - My Forbidden Lover

Tapps were Canada's contribution to the gay Hi-NRG scene - it went global.


Rofo - Flashlight on a Disco Night

Released in January 1983 I like to imagine this as the soundtrack to my birth. It's a little bit ravey, in a Belgian way.


Divine - Shake it Up (instr)

Bob Orlando's collaboration with Divine was a marraige made in gay heaven. Rumour has it that they stopped making records together because Bobby tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Divine to renounce homosexuality.


Karen Finley - I'm an Ass Man

Finley celebrates the joy of bum sex.

Bitch Tracks

It seems like back in early 90s New York all the trannies got mic'd up and started spewing filth over a bunch of house records, creating a sub-genre in the process - bitch tracks. It's really hard to find out much about these songs,. And I'm guessing that's because most of the trannies that performed them have long since dissapeared, the only evidence of their existance being a few crumpled dresses and mouldy wigs gathering dust in old men's attics, or Crusaid Charity Shops.

Anyhow here are two of the best. 'Get huh' by The Ride Committee feat. Roxy is the sound of a vicious drag queen bitch fight playing out to the bitter bitter end.

And 'Hateful Head Helen' by Sweet Pussy Pauline is a song about cock. There's a nice interview with Sweet Pussy Pauline(aka Candy J) here, and she sounds like a surprisingly lovely lady.

Get Huh - The Ride Committee feat. Roxy

Hateful Head Helen - Sweet Pussy Pauline

Miss Honey Miss Honnaaay

Don't you hear me calling you Miss Honey??? I'm beyond excited - I've just received 12inches of Miss Honey, via Discogs. I rescued her from Bradford, a most unlikely setting for this glamourous creation.



Miss Honey was a New York tranny house track put out on Project X records in 1992. Vocals are courtesy of Moi Renee, who died in mysterious circumstances a few years later. I'm so glad she left this with us.

Hell on Wheels

Cliff Richard - Wired For Sound



In addition to being a talented singer and actress Cher is also really good at roller skating. She's a roller mama!

Cher - Hell on Wheels

Love is a beautiful thing

My friend Orlando Flavel has made this mix - Beautiful Thing - and I can't get enough of it. Check it out and feel the waves of pleasure wash over you.

Beautiful Thing by orlandof

Cream bun I weigh a ton

In IKEA Croydon I saw a giant woman wheeling her obese son around in a shopping trolley. He had rolls of fat on his neck. Paula Deen is giving America a heart attack. Angletrax are feeling anorexic.

Angletrax - Anorexia nervosa

Nuns Fucking Radical Lesbian Nuns

This clip from Adam Curtis' documentary Century of the Self tells the story of a group of psychotherapists who began working with nuns from the Los Angeles Immaculate Heart convent in the early 1960s. The liberating effect of this therapy caused the nuns to question the rigid strictures of convent life and unleashed powerful sexual forces within them, turning them into radical lesbian nuns.

At around the same time a Dominican nun in Belgium called Sister Luc Gabriel recorded an album of her songs which was released under the pseudonym Souer Sourire (Sister Smile). Her song Dominique went on to become a global hit and Sister Luc became the first nun to reach No. 1 in the American pop charts. Liberated by her fame Sister Luc left the convent in 1967 to continue her musical career under her own name, Jean Dekkers. She embraced lesbianism and wrote released a single in praise of  contraception - "Glory Be to God for the Golden Pill" - but it was a commercial failure. Beset by financial problems Jean tried to  relaunch her career in 1982, recording a synthpop version of Dominique. The rather spectacular results can be seen below. Note the transformation from Dominican novitiate to radical lesbian.



Ironically the success of Dominique proved fatal. In 1985 Jean and her girlfriend Anne Peche committed suicide with barbiturates, citing their money trouble in their suicide note. The cause of Jeans financial woe was a backdated $62,000 tax bill served on her by the Belgian government for her share of the 'Dominique' royalties, which she was unable to pay as all of her royalties had been given over to the convent.

Souer Sourire - Dominique(1963)
Jean Dekkers - Dominique (1982 disco version)

boys on bikes

Melancholy electro pop from continental types.

The Shoes - People Movin (LeAm rmx)

Two ways boys are

This song is the musical equivalent of watching a woman get her face smashed in.  Until recently I had no idea that the Y Pants rendition was a cover version, or that the original was sung by 1960's teen pop icon Lesley Gore. The two versions of the song couldn't be more different. In Lesley Gore's original the negative sentiment is smothered by the sweetness of the pop arrangement. Y Pants bring all the negativity in the lyrics to the fore, singing them acappella, while in the background a woman's muffled scream gradually builds in intensity. I can never decide if it's terrifying or hilarious.

Conventional wisdom says that Y Pants took a 60s pop hit and subverted it, but I'm not so sure. Lesley Gore came out as a lesbian a few years ago, and in retrospect this song is clearly sapphic propaganda masquerading as girl group pop for impressionable teenagers. You know they can't have children of their own, so they have to...oh...ok


Lesley Gore - That's the way boys are
Y Pants - That's the way boys are

The sweet sound of abuse

If they'd arrested Phil Spector after he produced this record back in 1962 they'd have saved everybody a lot of trouble. He hit me(and it felt like a kiss) doesn't justify domestic violence, it celebrates it. The message is essentially that women probably deserve a slap every so often and should be grateful to have a man that cares enough to administer one.

The vocals, by my favourite of Spector's many girl groups  the Crystals, are delivered without a trace of irony and Spector's arrangement conveys a sort of savage romance which I have to say I find rather appealing. The song was not a commercial success, despite the undoubted widespread popularity of intimate partner abuse both in America and internationally.

The Crystals - He hit me(and it felt like a kiss)

POP TRIVIA - Amy Winehouse is on record as saying this is her favourite song of all time!

This blog is getting a little Dusty...

...Dusty Springfield! Here's a disco gem from her wilderness years.

Dusty Springfield - Thats the kind of love I got for you (disco 3000 edit) 

Film Socialism

I dislike trailers that show try and show you an entire film in two minutes. The trailer for Jean-Luc Goddards forthcoming 'Film  Socialisme' does in fact show you the entire film in two minutes, and I like it.

maximum minimalism please

Marc Houle - Bay of Figs

hot for crime

"women are attracted to the evil genius

 probing for his inner being they find his penis"

I like this new song by Momus, his subject, the seductive appeal of the evil genius. As always Momus explains the relevance of the penis to the subject.

Meanwhile my Boney M obsession shows no sign of abating. One of their first big hits, Ma Baker, tells the story of one of American's original public enemies - the meanest cat in old Chicago town - and the inspiration for Ma Fratelli in the Goonies. Like Rasputin, the song ends in a disco bloodbath.

And here's a nice re-edit.

Boney M - Ma Baker re-edit

Oh those Russians!

Today was terribly uneventful, the only highlight being this picture I came across of Rasputin's pickled penis.

Up until now everything I knew about Rasputin I'd learned from Boney M, so while I was aware that he was Russias greatest love machine I'd never realised he had an 13inch penis. Suddenly it all makes much more sense. The said organ is currently on display at the St Petersburg Museum of Erotica.

Blurt at the Bull and Gate

Jazz pogo noir trio Blurt play tonight at the Bull and Gate. Their sound is abrasive, almost brutal - minimal repetitive guitar riffs with bursts of hysterical saxophone and lyrics half chanted half screamed. I came across them on an old Factory Records compilation, and they stood out a mile from everything else on the record, their music sounded so raw and alive that everything else seemed a bit bloodless in comparision.

I had no idea they were still together (but then I read a interview with Ted Milton the lead singer, and the journalist said the same thing to him back in 1985) and I can't believe my luck that I going to see them. Tickets are only £6 from here.

Blurt - Puppeteer

Blurt - Kenny Roger's Greatest Hit

Death of a rubbish rapper

 And if you think peace is a common goal that goes to show how little you know. 

Malcolm McLaren loved to stir up trouble. Annabella Lwin was 13 years old when he plucked her from her Saturday job in a laundrette and made her lead singer of BowWowWow. He teamed her up with a bunch of musicians he robbed off Adam Ant. Their first single was a song about the joys of music piracy and the cover of their first album prompted a police inquiry due to the naked image of adolescent sex kitten Lwin on the cover.

News of McLarens death saddens me. I saw an interview with Nile Rogers a while ago where he talked about working with McLaren on his Duck Rock album back in the early 80's and said what an awful rapper McLaren was. Apparently he had no natural rhythm. I found this strangely endearing. 



Malcolm McLaren - Double Dutch

In my element

Last week our oven broke down. The oven repair man came to fix it and left behind the broken parts he replaced. I'd no idea the innards of an electric oven were so glamorous - the element looks like a kind of retro futuristic space tiara - doesn't it?

Crash Course in Science are a band who made retro futuristic music about domestic breakdowns. Here they are on the Uncle Floyd show singing 'Cakes in the Home' and 'Kitchen Motors', the only song I know that samples an electric whisk.



Crash Course in Science - Mechanical Breakdown

Crash Course in Science - Kitchen Motors

Welsh rarebits

Here are some tracks by two of my favourite Welsh bands. Young Marble Giants are one of those infuriating groups who release one amazing album then disapear. That album, Collosal Youth, is one of the few records I can keep listening to but never tire of. Their sound was minimal, fragile/powerful, deceptively simple, intimate - it sounds like they're in your bedroom with you. They made music designed to be listened to in bedrooms. Their name was mentioned in almost every review of the XX last year. Kurt Cobain liked them too.

Datblygu are a much more obviously Welsh band. For a start almost all their songs are sung in Welsh. Seemingly arbitrary sequences of consonants run riot, although you get the feeling that if the lyrics were in English they would be equally crytic. Casserole Efeilliaid is a song I first heard on the lovely 'Under the Influence' album compiled by the Super Furry Animals. It might be about casserole. 

Young Marble Giants - Searching for Mr Right

Datblgu - Casserole Efellliaid

Thunder in her gowl

                   (www.sharpshock.com)

I was over in Dublin last weekend at the annual heel-clickin' snake-banishin' roller-coaster donkey-ride of glamorous despair, also known as the Alternative Miss Ireland. Far and away my favourite contestant was Deca de Rosmary (pictured above) whose act was based around the annunciation and its aftermath - culminating in a projectile birth to a Leo Sayer soundtrack, I love this song.



Walking home that same night I remembered that Leo Sayer has a doppelganger in the form of Gilbert O'Sullivan - who was Sayers principal Irish competitor for the lucrative frizzy perm/soft rock market back in the '70s. Here he is dueting with Lulu on her TV variety show - bad dog baby!

I picked up one of O'Sullivan's albums in the Notting Hill Exchange shop for 10p a while back and meant to post some tracks off it for Mothers day (Mammys love Gilbert, well mine does). So here goes - better late then never.


Leo Sayer - Thunder in My Heart


Gilbert O'Sullivan - Alone Again (naturally)