Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Glitter Years

 



A song by Michael Steele - not the former Republican Party chairman turned MSNBC pundit - but the Bangle who had also once been a Runaway (until Kim Fowley made things intolerable for her). In the song, Steele recalls the Los Angeles glitter scene circa 1973 "as a lost, broken world, with only Bowie’s “Hang Onto Yourself” as a souvenir. Vicki does her best Mick Ronson for the break."

So writes famed Bowieologist Chris O'Leary in a freakily fascinating in-depth essay on the Bangles, for his new-ish venture 64 Quartets. During which he establishes convincingly that (hard as it might be to believe) The Bangles were once cool - then proceeds to demonstrate in strangely gripping detail just how totally they became uncool, buckling quick to industry pressures. I still reckon the Paisley Underground is one of the non-events of rock history, but O'Leary held my attention to the end, and this is a lengthy piece of writing.

Now to read his similarly extensive essay on a band I actually care about -  Throwing Muses (with side-bars, each essay length in their own right, on Pixies, Breeders, Belly)


Saturday, March 20, 2021

pop masquerade

postscript 5/13 addition











 











                                                                (Position Normal)
































                                                                    (via John Mullen)







No masks worn here but I suppose the vocoder is a kind of vocal mask if you think about it - 






Song later covered by Michael Jackson, who turned his natural-born face into a kind of mask, through surgery







This blog now closed because of problems with the feed - archive remains here but  posting resumes at Shock and Awe 2 https://shockandawesim...