Robert Herrick:
Clothes Do But Cheat and Cozen Us
Away with silks, away with lawn,
I’ll have no scenes, or curtains drawn:
Give me my mistress, as she is,
Dressed in her nak’d simplicities:
For as my heart, e’er so mine eye
Is won with flesh, not drapery.
McLaren / Westwood, via 17th Century writer Thomas Fuller
McLaren then fed this Rousseau-ish notion into Bow Wow Wow
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)
I didn't know the music journalist and author Mark Spitz - who has died tragically young - very well, but I always enjoyed chatting...
