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