Happy 50th Birthday, Kim & Kelly Deal! (AAAGH!)

On June 10th, Kim and Kelly Deal of The Breeders turned 50. You heard, correctly: fifty. I suppose I have to get used to it, I mean, people who I never thought of as being all that much older than me turning ::gulp:: fifty.

Kelly Deal was basist of The Pixies, and I vividly remember seeing them years and years ago in (I think) Maxwells in Hoboken. And then a few years later saw them open up for U2 at The Garden and it seemed as if me and the friend I was with were the only ones who had any idea who they were back in the dawn of the 90s, and we stood by a railing and screamed "KIM DEAL!!" drunkenly at the stage. Ah, youth.

Kim went on to form The Breeders with Tanya Donnelly. For the band's second record, she brought in her identical twin, Kelly. Their birthday cake is hilarious. See at left the two fetuses in utero rendered in frosting.

Happy Birthday Siouxsie Sioux!

May the creative and wonderful Siouxsie Sioux have a fabulous birthday!

Siouxsie Sioux (neé Susan Ballion) was born 54 (!) years ago in Southwark (that's where Shakespeare's Globe was located - it subsequently went into decline. Parts of it were known as "the Mint", where criminals would hide out in the 17th-18th centuries as it was outside of the jurisdiction of the authorities of London).

She is and was a punk rock legend, my inamorato and I just saw clips of her in the Filth and the Fury the other night. Like so many genius artists, she embodies a persona and a particular aesthetic down to her very bones. Her look was so interesting and visually striking, her imitators turned it into a goth cliché. And I loved her band, the Banshees, when I was growing up. I saw her live in the 80s at least once (possibly more - things begin to fade).

She was married for many years to her drummer, Budgie, and they lived in gothic decadence in the South of France. Of course, the Banshees first drummer was Sid Vicious. She and Budgie have since divorced, I was sorry to hear. You can see them in happier times at right.

But it's really about the music, and the performance, isn't it? See here her video for Dazzle (embedding disabled) and you can see that she might be almost single-handedly responsible for bringing back the aesthetic of movie stars of the teens or twenties - wouldn't Mr. Ziegfeld wanted to hire her? Below is The clip for Spellbound:

I love how tall and strong and elegant she is - such a huge and endless influence. May she have the happiest of days!

Supercute!

On a very cold and snowy night a few months ago, I was happy to catch Supercute!'s act when they shared the bill with Nihils (ahem!) a few months ago at Zora's Art Space (as a part of Crow's Nest). They are headed up by 17 year old Rachel Trachtenburg (of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players) and sing songs about candy and turtles and about not singing about boys. They songwriting is really good in a loopy Sid Barrett-y kind of way - they are pretty much charm personified, and Rachel is a multi-instrumental artist. Check them out if you get the chance.

(I absolutely LOVED their song about rescuing a Chinatown turtle, but can't find it anywhere. I am inconsolable.)





And here is Rachel on her own, singing about pigeons.

Mon Amie La Rose: C'est printemps

It's a grey Spring day which, for unexplainable reasons, makes me want to listen to French pop chanteuses. Below, the lovely Françoise Hardy.

Those people look kinda familiar

So, I took a look at the new New Pornographers video, and went, "Hm.". The reason for this is that The New Pornographers and various other folks in the video looked very much like cast members of The Daily Show, sundry NY comedians, and some good friends of The Cabinet. Not one, but TWO band members of The Electric Mess appear, comedian and author Julie Klausner (who was hilarious in Free to Be Friends a few years ago) plays my imaginary girlfriend, Neko Case, and other familiar faces abound.

The question I really need answered is: Is that Chip Fontaine or Esther Crowe?

Oh, and just for fun, here's Neko Case's "Maybe Sparrow"

Noir C'est Noir

I'm not entirely sure why I'm so enchanted by this.

While doing all that research on the Warhol 60s, I came across a really great little interview with Betsy Johnson in which she talks about how strong and all encompassing the aesthetic of the time (the mid-60s) were.

Above find Exhibit A.