Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
They were one of my favorite bands:
I finally got to see them live, too, many, many, many years after I’d memorized all the lyrics to all their songs, & Marc gave me a hug after.
You can watch for about 15 minutes before you work out why I loved them: sleaze, eyeliner, & camp.
Happy 59th Birthday, Adam.
59, honestly, & he’s still the most beautiful man who ever lived.
This made me cry. Wish I’d been there.
Thursday night I’d gone to see my new favorite band Those Darlins, who did a cover of White Light/White Heat – which is one of my favorite Velvet tunes – and I actually went & thanked them for it afterwards, specifically mentioning that it always does a NYC kid’s heart good to hear Lou. Such weird amazing timing: rock & roll magic.
Lou Reed wrote a song about undergoing electroshock therapy because his parents thought he was gay. It was called “Kill Your Sons.”
He wrote “Candy Says” about Candy Darling, one of the Warhol Factory’s out trans women. (There were quite a few trans women involved in Warhol’s stuff, including – Ms. Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis & Jayne County.)
He wrote “Walk on the Wild Side” which inspired a ton of trans people to say “Wait, what? That’s possible?” when it came to gender transformation.
Then of course there’s “Venus in Furs”, too, which is a whole other thing altogether, but certainly of interest to a certain subset of y’all.
Thanks for everything.
How can you not love this? Surreal, and so 1988. I saw one of those gigs at The Ritz, too. I don’t even know how many times I saw them, but it was a lot.
The scoop from Nowness:
A young, androgynous boy explores his femininity through a hoard of trinkets hidden in the undergrowth in the accompanying video to “Annabel,” a brand new track from Goldfrapp. For their sixth album Tales Of Us, Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory have stepped back from the electronic synth pop with which they made their name. “I like electronic sounds because of the iciness, but I find them quite awkward,” says Goldfrapp. “Acoustic instruments have a warmth and sensuality about them.” Each song on Tales Of Us is named after a different person and the album sees Goldfrapp’s voice—at one moment rich, the next fragile—paired with understated guitar and strings. The intended effect is to allow the characters and narratives to breathe, which is most eloquently achieved in “Annabel,” inspired by Kathleen Winter’s 2010 novel of the same name which follows a hermaphrodite child who is forced into taking on a male identity in 1960s Canada.
Goldfrapp: Annabel on Nowness.com
There’s an interview about the song and the new music, too. It’s not my kind of song, to be honest, but I do love the clip and otherwise love Goldfrapp.
I admit that I think the unrated version of the original is kinda hot. There, I’ve said it. Not all of it – there is way too much objectification of women in it, of course – really, a mini stop sign on her butt? – but naked women + clothed men, in my opinion, isn’t necessarily sexist. The lyrics are problematic, too, although there are no actual threats or even suggestions of assault. Theoretically, the narrator could hate “blurred lines” exactly because he’s respecting what the woman is saying when she’s saying no. BUT: I find it sexy because all the women are gorgeous and all the men are handsome, dress well, and can dance. There are parts that are playful and almost sweet.
My finding it personally sexy, in parts, doesn’t mean it’s not sexist bullshit, too. Just that sometimes politics & sexuality create blurred lines all their own.
Anyway, I love this, too, & it’s equally hot, in my opinion:
Also, this.
There are only a few US dates left, and I am pleased as punch I got to see him in Milwaukee. He still has so much stage charisma it’s ridiculous, and he’s doing a ton of the old punk songs – like “Zerox Machine”! – which makes antfans like me seriously happy.
If anyone out there wants to buy my round-trip airfare to the Pacific NW, I’d love to go see the Seattle & Portland shows which happen this upcoming weekend! Really. I’m not kidding. Even a little. I nearly drove to Minneapolis the day after the Milwaukee show to see him again.
Here he is doing a cool version of “Antmusic“, and for those of you who never saw him, this is the beauty that was Adam back in the day, doing “Physical (You’re So)” (which some of you may know from when NIN’s Trent Reznor covered it).
Here he is in the late 70s, back in the punk days, in the Derek Jarman film Jubilee, with the band that would eventually become Bow Wow Wow, playing “Plastic Surgery”.
& The best part of this clip is all the aging punk rockers doing the “Prince Charming”.
I can’t even begin to explain how or why this man saved my life, but he did.
I love Franz Ferdinand, if that’s unclear, and this new one sounds as good as the rest – check it out at NPR.