Griff says: Keep watching the skies!

I've got a brilliant track to tell you about tonight from Scottish indiepop supergroup, The Moth and The Mirror. The band have just released a free digital single ahead of their forthcoming album, reportedly to be called 'This World, Honestly', and set to be released later this year on Scottish-based Olive Grove Records.
Recorded by Dave McAuley at Chem 19 Studios and mixed by Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Super Furry Animals, Belle and Sebastian), ‘Lights in the Sky’ is the perfect introduction, or re-introduction to the band. In particular, The Streetlamp suggests you should head to their bandcamp page to grab your free download just for the mesmerising quality of Stacey Sievwright's vocal. The music itself is best described as dark-edged chamber-pop.



The full The Moth and the Mirror line-up is:
Stacey Sievwright (The Reindeer Section, Arab Strap), – Vocals; Guitar;
Gordon Skene (Frightened Rabbit, ex-Make Model) – Guitar, Vocals;
Louis Abbott (Admiral Fallow, Song of Return,Brother Louis Collective ) – Guitar/Vocals;
Kevin McCarvel (Smoke Jaguar) – Bass;
Iain Sandilands (who has performed and recorded extensively with a huge array of major orchestras and ensembles in a variety of genres in Scotland) – Percussion;
and Peter Murch – Drums

Here's the track:




Enjoy.

Griff
xx

~Kitten Wine~#29: Golden Days At The Icerink

When we first started this Blog, over a year ago, the blurb at the side saying what we all contributed used to be a little different, especially my section. It used to say, amongst other things, that I would be writing about record labels like Sarah, Sha-La-La, Subway and Icerink. I later removed this because I thought it was a bit esoteric, especially as virtually nobody I know seemed to have any knowledge about Icerink Records. And, as I never seemed to get round to writing about Icerink, it seemed totally redundant.
But let's change that now.
Let's look back at a special, and tragically ignored record label that put out some very high quality releases.
Icerink Records were the brainchild of Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs who were, along with vocalist Sarah Cracknell, St Etienne; one of the finest British bands of modern times and who I hope to cover in a full Blog at a later date.
Pete and Bob not only ran Icerink, but wrote, produced and arranged some of the tracks that appeared on their label. The label ran from 1992 to 1994, with most of it's more interesting releases emerging in that first year.
As always, let's do a bit of contextualising first and look back at the era the records were released in, and why some of them came to mean so much to me.....

1992 was an odd year for me.
It was the first full year I had to suffer with the tattoo of the black dog's bite upon me. The first crash of depression had struck me in October of 1991, and like all first bouts of depression it had completely floored me. It had also destroyed the relationship I was in at the time, and had taken a fair chunk of 'the old me' with it. There's a rather splendid book called 'Sunbathing In The Rain' by Gwyneth Lewis which tells of an everyday 'normal' person's battle with depression, and I swear that it is so unnervingly accurate that at times I felt I could have written it myself. It seems that everyone who is ever stricken by depression finds that first time the worse, and almost everyone experiences the same traumas and self-questioning in uniform.
1992 was also a time that music was changing. My friends who had been so 'rockist' through the 1980s were now attending raves and pretending to like Dance Music. It was more down to their newly acquired taste for MDMA rather than any populist move.
Dance records were odd things in the early 1990s. There were some really blissed out attempts at Dance/Rap (which begat the later Trip Hop) like Digable Planets and PM Dawn that had a pleasant feel to them, but I was still too stuck in my Indie cul-de-sac to claim to like them. But there was always St Etienne who, even as an Indie Saddo, I couldn't fail to love. And it was while browsing for one of their records in Sleeves Record Shop in Falkirk that I stumbled upon one of the most important records I would ever own. I handed the 12" record over to the scruffy, laconic figure behind the desk (Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap, fact fans!) who, as usual, sneered at the purchase and then handed it back in the once iconic 'Sleeves' bag.
The record was 'Anglo-American/Don't Destroy Me' by Golden.
And it literally saved my life.
Getting through 1992 unscathed was a difficult process. The strain of depression that I suffered (and indeed still suffer from) was linked to both OCD and Intrusive Thought Obsession, so a great deal of time was spent trying to clear my mind of any negative shit, and to try move my line of vision and focus away from any troubling thoughts.
I had taken to playing 'Super Mario Brothers 3' on the Nintendo. I am not much of a Games fan, and this is really the only time I ever took to playing any kind of computer game with any kind of enthusiasm. I would often get in from work and, for the next five or six hours solid, I would play this ridiculous and increasingly difficult computer game. By the end I must have had reflexes like an over exuberant kestrel, and thumbs blistered into whole new shapes. I also soundtracked the whole playing procedure with laid back, purely electronic music including Momus's career changing album 'Voyager', and the aforementioned single by Golden.
'Anglo-American' and it's accompanying remix(which I preferred and have included below) filled the air with gentle, soulful beats and the childlike femininity of the three voices of Lucy, Canny and Celina. But it was the B-side, 'Don't Destroy Me' that cut deeper into me, filling me with an inner contentedness and harder resolve, ironic for a song so light and fresh. The song seemed to surround me like a protective shroud, a gossamer thin vapour reminding me of the beauty of life. There was something about the refrain "Don't destroy me...don't destroy me" that connected, and I realised later that this was becoming like a prayer or a mantra that I was sending out into the dying of the light. It was like I was accepting that I was merely ill and not forever changed, and that if I conquered this illness I'd get 'the old me' back again.
And that is why I an forever indebted to Golden, to Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, and to this beautiful record....


Over the next couple of years Icerink would release some other fabulous recordings, almost uniformly of a very high standard, but almost all ignored by the public, and even many of the Indie kids.
A further release by Golden, a superb cover of Pulp's 'Wishful Thinking', backed up my belief that Golden were about to become the next St Etienne and 'my new favourite band', but sadly that was really about it for them....very little followed...a great pity!


There were releases from bands like Oval, Supermarket and Sensurround, who all got coverage in the inky music papers but just couldn't make the breakthrough.
The wondrous Melody Dog (again who I hope to follow with a full Blog in the near future) released a cover of Brian Wilson's magnificent 'Don't Worry Baby', but again Icerink seemed to prove to be the kiss of death for this band, for they released precious little after this too.


And then there was Shampoo!
Like my beloved Huggy Bear, I just LOVE it when I admit full on devotion to a band that my friends absolutely LOATHE! I should point out that when I say 'friends' I don't mean Griff and Ray, I mean people who maybe weren't even really friends, just drinking partners. Guys who bought in totally to the 'boys-own' world of piss poor guitar rock, and even more disparate nose-bleed banging techno! They HATED Shampoo both on a musical and sexist level....but, of course I cherished them dearly.
Unfortunately, these days Shampoo are remembered for their rather lacklustre One Hit Wonder 'Trouble', but early releases like 'Blisters And Bruises' and 'Bouffant Headbutt' saw them adopt the whole Riot Grrrl schtick before Riot Grrrl even happened. Perhaps had that rather diverting Hit Single never occurred, Shampoo might have been awarded a bit more cool kudos; but Carrie and Jaqui....we, the ~Streetlamp~, salute you!



One of the best songs ever released on Icerink, and indeed one of the best songs ever released....period! was 'Year Of the V-Neck' by Elizabeth City State. This song is absolutely FANTASTIC and yet, bizarrely and annoyingly, it was the one and only song they ever released.
The video which accompanies the song below is also very interesting, for it features scenes from the extraordinary 1970 Czechoslovakian movie 'Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders', which stars the unspeakably beautiful Jaroslava Schallerová.
The film is shot like a hazy, dreamy fairytale but deals with the sexual awakening of the titular goddess, and if you've never seen the film before then for pity's sake seek it out pronto! Hopefully the scenes included in the video below will give you some idea of the film and all accompanied by what will hopefully be your new favourite song.



When Icerink wrapped it up in 1994 they left us with a catch all compilation called 'We Are Icerink' which also featured the heavenly Jaroslava Schallerová on the cover. I cannot recommend this fine compilation enough and you can download the whole shebang here.




So that was it!
Icerink may not be spoken of as reverentially as Sarah Records, and it may never have had the sales figures of Creation or Rough Trade, but for a couple of years in the early 1990s, they really made life worth living. And maybe now Griff and Ray will get off my case and stop berating me for saying that everything released in the 1990s was shite.
Of course it wasn't....you just had to get your skates on to find the good stuff!

~Gordon~

You can download Golden's 'Wishful Thinking' EP here

~Musical Prozac~: Toasting

If there appears to be an air of trepidation hanging over tonight's Blog it's because I'm wading into uncharted musical territories and writing about music that I'm not 100% au fait with. I can easily write about Indiepop or Crass or The Monkees without any fear of the Pop Pedantry Police coming knocking at the door, but tonight I am writing about Reggae and in particular that form of Reggae that evolved in the early 1980s known as 'Toasting'.
Thanks to John Peel and the coalition with Punk, I'm not entirely ignorant of Reggae and do like a fair amount of it, but in no way could I ever claim to be a connoisseur of the subject, and therefore if my Blog tonight is riddled with inaccuracies and blatant naivete then I apologise up front about any discrepancies or signs of ignorance. I hope that you will understand that I compose this Blog, like all my previous Blogs, purely through pashernate love of the music covered.
As this is a 'Musical Prozac' Blog, all the songs featured are songs that bring a big Cheshire cat grin to my rather dour chops, thus being my main reason for covering them tonight.

We begin with the rather superb 'Here I Come' by Barrington Levy.
Now, rather oddly, I was introduced to this track by Tony 'Dead Eyes' Blackburn way back in the Autumn of 1984. I had just started my first job and was working Saturday mornings, the first time I had seen Saturday mornings probably since Primary School. In those days Tony Blackburn used to do a show between 8 and 10a.m and I would always catch the last hour or so. One Saturday he played 'Here I Come' by Barrington Levy and completely out of the blue I was hooked. From it's bizarre (to my young inexperienced ears) "skiddlydiddlydiddlydiddlydiddly way-oh-oh" intro, right through it's hypnotic pounding main section, through the "broader than broadway, sizer than sizeway" throwaways, the whole song sounded like nothing I had ever heard before, but something I knew I had to own. As soon as I finished work at around 12:30 I headed up to local Vinyl Emporium 'Groundbeat' rather pessimistically assuming there would be no way on Earth they would have it.....BUT, there it was on the wall, a 12" picture sleeve with 'Greensleeves Records' emblazoned all over it. I bought it immediately, took it home and played it to death. When we all discussed which records we had bought or loved that week when we gathered together in our local under-age drinking hostelry, rather shamefacedly I failed to mentioned the purchase of this fine disc in fear of ridicule or of being thrown out of the Indiepop Club!
All these years later I still get a jolt of deep joy whenever I hear the track begin, and it still remains my favourite Reggae song of all time. Or rather favourite Reggae song of all time not recorded by Althea & Donna....if you get my drift!


As I'm sure must be obvious to everyone, I was one of those typical teens who hid under his duvet with a tiny radio and a singular mono earpiece, listening to John Peel when I was supposed to be asleep. In those days I was mainly listening to John for Punk, Post Punk and New Wave records but, as anyone who listened to John will verify, he played masses of Reggae in those days, especially that homegrown British Dub music that seemed to be every where then (except on mainstream radio!).
One particular artist that John championed in those days, and who to my under-the-duvet-inexperienced-naive ears, sounded beamed in from another planet entirely, was Eek-A-Mouse.
Over the most laid-back, sweet sounding dubbiest Reggae, Eek-A-Mouse would deliver all kinds of odd sounding "biddlydebiddlydeboing" skanking that, to me, sounded SO alien it didn't sound possible that any human could be making these weird noises.
When I was on Thatcher's exploitation racket the Youth Training Scheme, there were several older boys who all seemed purveyors of "Jazz Cigarettes" and who seemed to know the entire recorded output of Eek-A-Mouse down to a tee. Though never a fan or user of herbal fags myself, I would often spend time with the guys learning more about Dub Reggae and the likes of Eek-A-Mouse.
I can't claim that the examples of his music below are typical or not, but they are perfect snapshots of the overall sound of his that attracted me in the first place.



In the Summer of 1985 there hadn't been much to laugh or smile about; football had suffered the double whammy of the Bradford fire and the Heysel Stadium disaster, both of which played out on live TV and both of which I had the misfortune to witness unfold in front of me. Music also suffered with the Live Aid concert which saw not only the death of everything Punk had sought to eradicate from the bloated pomposity of music, but also the birth of the careerist Rock Star. Throw into the mix the fact that it was one of the coldest, greyest, wettest Summers on record and you'll agree it was a pretty bleak time all round.
One shining example of upbeat, unconventional, dazzlingly provocative music was Smiley Culture. Again, championed by John Peel, Smiley (real name David Emmanuel) brought a mix of satirical stories mixed up with almost incomprehensible toasting wordplay, years ahead of Dizzy Rascal (in every sense).
Smiley has scored a huge cult hit with 'Cockney Transaltion', a song so diverse and bewildering to the masses that it failed to get any mainstream airtime or chart action, yet was still massively popular amongst left field music fans.
Follow up 'Police Officer' however couldn't fail and, thanks to the video receiving several plays on The Tube, as well as Smiley himself appearing regularly on the show, the song sailed all the way up to Number 12 in the charts, quite a big deal for an unknown Reggae artist back in those days. 'Cockney Translation' also entered the charts on the back of this success.
Smiley would bother the charts one more time with the song 'Schooltime Chronicle', another Reggae record I bought and which received a huge boost being featured on a series of videos sold to Pubs in the days before they were allowed to show MTV!
After that, Smiley still recorded but remained a cult artist, although he kept his profile high by turning in acting performances and appearing on TV shows.
Earlier this year we were saddened to hear of the tragic death of Smiley Culture, killed in a police drugs raid. The irony of his biggest hit lost on nobody! Smiley's death remains a bit of a mystery, killed by a single stab wound in a house filled with police officers. Very little official information has been released and his family and friends are campaigning for justice. You can find out more about the campaign here , and below you can enjoy his three biggest hits....




Finally, as a bit of an addendum; it was 9 years ago this very week that myself and my then girlfriend/now wife moved into our own house together. We moved in on the Friday and then on the Saturday we set about putting the new house into order. All that day we had the music center playing and one song that seemed to keep coming around again and again, virtually soundtracking the whole day was 'Ali Baba' by John Holt, which was on a CD given away with Mojo magazine that month.
Once again I have to proclaim this as one of my favourite Reggae songs and the one song that evokes the Proustian rush of that first day in our new house.


Like I said at the start of the Blog, I realise that this Blog may be full of errors that will have Reggae fans going apoplectic over, but I write this only through my love of these songs. I hope that that, above all, shines through.

~Gordon~

Sexploitation Music - Part 2

Welcome to Chapter 2 in my grim series exploring the murky, sexist world of pop. Our exploration of how this malady extended even into the comparatively enlightened realm of the punk and post-punk cultures continues with the story of Annabella Lwin (pictured).



Annabella was born to a Burmese father and an English mother in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar) in 1966; the family came to England from Burma when Annabella was 5 years old. Annabella, of course, went on to become famous as the lead singer of Bow Wow Wow, nowadays most famous for their one US hit, the execrable, MTV friendly, 80s cover version of The Strangeloves 'I Want Candy'. Bow Wow Wow's version of this tune peaked in the US Billboard chart in May of 1982. One year later the band was defunct. So what happened?

Here's how our story begins...It's 1979 and Adam and the Ants, at that time still a punk band, have just released their debut album 'Dirk Wears White Sox'. Looking for inspiration for a new band image, they approach ex Sex Pistol's manager Malcolm McLaren and hire him as an image consultant for a fee of £1,000 (a not inconsiderable sum in 1979). So what does Malcolm suggest? Well, after coming up with a combination of American Indian and pirate clothing as the best way forward, he then lures away the guitarist and rhythm section ( Matthew Ashman, Dave Barbarossa and Leroy Gorman) effectively breaking up the band; Malcolm, you see, has his own ideas for a new band. With his musicians in place , he set out to find a singer. Reportedly, he had something very specific in mind. He wanted a girl, preferably someone exotic, with a very clear voice to enunciate the lyric. Basically, a kind of female Frankie Lymon. Reputedly McLaren, along with a few close acquaintances, hung around local schools in an attempt to spot their girl, but all to no avail. Eventually, a friend of his came across the 13 year old Annabella Lwin, working part-time in a dry- cleaner's in Kilburn, London, and singing along to a Stevie Wonder song on the radio. Following a successful audition for the lead singer position in McLaren's new group (the yet-to-be-named band Bow Wow Wow), he had her transferred from a mixed comprehensive school in London to the Sylvia Young Theatre School.



McLaren, by this time working furiously on a (yep, you guessed it) pirate theme for the band, already has a song specifically written. With his personnel in place, McLaren was ready to launch them on an unsuspecting public. Bow Wow Wow’s first release came in the form of the world’s first-ever cassette single. In July 1980, EMI released 'C30, C60, C90, Go' only on cassette in the U.K. with 'Sun, Sea, and Piracy' to accompany it. It reached number 34 in the UK singles charts, not a smash hit by any means, but it caught this writers attention. I must admit that I still love this song despite McLaren's crap production (a musician he's not!). On this song, the band combine ferociously punky guitars with fierce Burundi-style drumming. Annabella, her voice still not properly matured, shrieks and hollers over the top to great effect. Here's the video for the song:



Does, it, even at this early stage, sexually exploit the 14 year old, Annabella? Well, the band were dressed by McLaren who was making great play, at the time, of the singer's young age. Not convinced? OK, here are the Youtube tags (below) for the video you've just watched :

* bow wow wow
* nude
* c30 c60 c90 go
* tits
* bow
* wow
* c30
* c60
* c90
* go
* big boobs
* feet
* see thru
* seethru
* annabelle
* Lwin
* teen
* teen tits
* boobs
* ass
* teen boobs

Some lovely people out there in webland, don't you think?
Anyway, the Bow Wow Wow sound was certainly interesting, a pastiche of African beats, chanting, surf instrumentals and Spaghetti Western soundtrack music. And genuinely, I did, and I still do, like it. But where did it come from? Here's the story as McLaren told it:

"What happened was, I was involved in a French independent record company called Barclay. On the side they used to make porno movies and they wanted to get me to put some music to it. They said, “Don’t fucking give us a hard time with any music that’s copyrighted. Use African music or something.
I went up to the library at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and they had a big music collection. I fancied the girl there so I would go every day and look at her and listen to ethnic music. She played me one of these records, mistakenly, at the wrong speed and it fucking blew my ear off. I thought, “What the fuck is that? It’s a hell of a beat.” So I took the idea back to London and I gave it to these kids who were called Adam and the Ants."

So, basically, the Bow Wow Wow sound, and that of other British bands of their time, was influenced by, if not occasionally outright plagiarised from, the music of native African nations and tribes such as the Royal Drummers of Burundi and the Zulus. Controversial, certainly, but forgivable to some extent as they did add a lot of other musical strands into the sound to produce something quite fresh and exciting.

But there was greater controversy to come. McLaren had decided to use Bow Wow Wow as a medium for his anti-youth and anti-music tirades, and in the vehicle of the teenage Annabella he had the perfect medium; a naive and pretty young girl who simply sang the lyrics that McLaren handed to her, and dressed as he told her to. In 1980, the band went into the studio to begin recording an album and McLaren, ever the opportunist, decided to launch a magazine, with record company EMI's backing. At the same time, the BBC was invited to shoot a documentary about the marketing of Bow Wow Wow. McLaren claims that the magazine, first called "Playkids" and later "Chicken," (from paedophile slang for a child) would be about "pleasure technology for the primitive boy and girl." Here's the story as told in Simon Reynolds' book Rip It Up and Start Again, postpunk 1978-1984:

(Fred) Vermorel (an old friend whom McLaren hired as film editor) believes McLaren's master scheme was "to create a child porn scandal implicating as many people as he could." Not just EMI, who was financing Chicken, but the BBC, too. A documentary crew headed by Alan Yentob had been following McLaren around for a program on the marketing of Bow Wow Wow. Partly impelled by his usual lust for maximum media mayhem, McLaren also wanted to make a serious polemical point, exposing pop music as porn for children...and pop as porn using children to titillate adults.

With typical ruthlessness, McLaren, in his eagerness to embarrass the music and media establishment, showed no concern whatsoever about the youngsters (Annabella and the other teenage models) or old friends (Vermorel) who would have been embroiled in the scandal. When he went to remonstrate with McLaren, says Vermorel, "Malcolm just laughed and said, 'You should be telling all this to the judge! When the shit hits the fan, I'll be in South America.' So I told EMI what was going on. And they told Yentob, and he freaked out, and those tapes have been in the BBC vault ever since."

...Chicken never hatched. According to Vermorel, the only physical evidence of Chicken's existence was the rate card for advertising in the magazine."


Creepy as fuck, right? The footage of photo sessions taken at the time apparently include McLaren asking Anabella to pose nude (she declined) and then badgering a different 13 year old girl into stripping nude, during which she is crying. Thankfully, Vermorel realized he had to put a stop to this whole mess, telling New Music Express that while at the beginning, he thought the project would be an edgy alternative to Smash Hits, it turned out to be "a magazine for adults that features kids as objects." In response, McLaren called his estranged friend a closet puritan. The project disappeared after that and the photos went largely unused, aside from a handful that ended up on later Bow Wow Wow releases.
Meanwhile, behind the furore, Bow Wow Wow's second release, 'Your Cassette Pet',an extended cassette EP featuring eight tracks, was now ready for release, in December 1980. But sadly,it continued to exploit the underage-sex angle. Here's the track listing:

A1 Louis Quatorze
A2 Gold He Said
A3 Uomo Sex Al Apache
A4 I Want My Baby On Mars
B1 Sexy Eiffel Towers
B2 Giant Sized Baby Thing
B3 Fools Rush In
B4 Radio G String


The songs, as is apparent even from the titles, are mainly about sex, and it's hard to believe that Mclaren wasn't getting some kind of kick about putting his words in the mouth of a 14 year old girl.The most controversial of the songs at the time was undoubtedly 'Sexy Eiffel Tower'. Apparently, a song about masturbation, this track is infamous for Annabella's extended and overdone heavy-breathing and orgasmic moans throughout. It has to be heard to be believed:



Hmmmm, not much I can add to that really. The other notable song on Cassette Pet is 'Louis Quatorze', in which Mclaren gets Annabella to sing about being seduced (raped?) by Louis XIV, and includes the lines;

"With his gun in my back
I start to undress
You just don't mess
With Louis Quatorze

He's my partner in this crime
of happiness, 'cos I'm just fourteen"

As, indeed, she was. McLaren did like to constantly remind us of this fact, though. Once again, Mclaren is the producer for this record and even his ham-fistedness can't quite destroy the energy and exuberance of the band, who really do create something musically interesting despite the distractions of the Mclaren hype and mayhem. And it did get worse, at one point, McLaren decided that Anabella wasn't fitting in with her older, male bandmates because she was a virgin, and convinced them that one of them needed to deflower her. Apparently, guitarist Matthew Ashman drew the short straw, but, thankfully, failed to complete the task. And, of couse, next, came the 'Le déjeuner sur l'herbe ' cover art fiasco.

During 1981, the band had been recording their first, proper, full-length LP, to be called 'See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy'. McLaren decided that, for the record cover, the band should pose for a photographic recreation of the 1863 Manet painting, “Le déjeuner sur l'herbe” (The Luncheon on the Grass). For those not familiar with this art-work, it depicts a fully naked woman, casually lunching by a riverside with two fully dressed men.The men are dressed like young dandies and seem to be engaged in conversation, ignoring the woman. In front of them, the woman's clothes, a basket of fruit, and a round loaf of bread are displayed, as in a still life. In the background a lightly-clad woman bathes in a stream.

In McLaren's version, the photo featured Annabella, completely naked, surrounded by her clothed bandmates. Since she was only 15 at the time, her mother alleged exploitation of a minor for immoral purposes, and instigated a Scotland Yard investigation. As a result the band was only allowed to leave the UK for a US tour after McLaren promised not to promote Annabella as a 'sex kitten' and included an agreement not use the nude photograph on any of the band's cover art. However, the cover was used as planned in some European countries, such as the Netherlands, though not in the UK or the US. In fact, as I remember from the time, the picture was printed fairly regularly in the UK in both the music and news press. Later, also, the picture was used as the cover of an RCA EP,'Last of the Mohicans', released in the US in 1982. Without intending to provoke or titillate, here it is (below):



As regards not being promoted as a sex kitten, suffice to say that , once she reached 16 years of age, the average Bow Wow Wow cover looked something like this:



The press in the UK made much of the controversy at the time and Annabella was almost made to quit the band such was the backlash. In the end,the UK and US versions of the album cover presented Annabella only slightly covered in a see-through white dress. The album spawned Bow Wow Wow’s first U.K. top 10 hit, the frankly not awfully good, 'Go Wild in the Country'. Thankfully too, McLaren stepped down from the producer's post for this album and instead hired in a host of other producers, which was better if still not doing the band's sound much justice.

It's this album that features my favourite Bow Wow Wow track; Chihuahua. I sometimes feel that I shouldn't really like this, as the lyric shows McLaren at his most vicious, heartless and manipulative. However, I've long been of the opinion that this song is somehow Annabella's moment of triumph. Despite the words Mclaren puts in her mouth, she seems to transcend and transform them through a combination of (by now) knowing cynicism coupled to a stubborn youthful bravado. I first saw the video for this on a Saturday morning kids' TV show back in 1981 and I remember vividly the profound effect it had on me, particularly those shots where we see a close-up of Annabella's facial expression as she sings those vile lyrics. There's something indefinable going on here, a subtlety to her demeanour that suggests that Annabella is rising above the poisonous crap that Mclaren had fashioned into a lyric for her. The song wasn't a hit, and I never saw the video again until it surfaced over 20 years later on Youtube, but the image of her, by turns serene, then defiant, but always perceptive expression as she performs her ugly, yet somehow beautiful, pop hit stayed with me all that time. Here it is below:



Surprisingly, if you search on Google for the lyrics you can't get them, except for a few crazily mangled interpretations containing numerous, often quite funny, errors. So, in a Streetlamp internet exclusive, here for the first time, is the full lyric of the song, which I'm 95% sure is accurate (get in touch if you know better):

I can't dance, and I can't sing, I can't do anything,
I can't even find my way around town,
And I'm 15 and a fool, can't you see?
So don't fall in love with me.

I'm a rock and roll puppet in a band called Bow Wow Wow,
Better off to be a rabbit, at least they have more fun with a gun,
I just go on and on, and on and on and on,
I wasn't supposed to sing that one,
Pop, pop, pop, pop gun!

And the Greeks had a word for it, it went like this,
Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Chihuahua,
Bow wow, wow, wow, wow, Chihuahua,
Everybody try it now, 'cause this fool's always wrong.

I'm unintelligent, and no one can stop it,
So don't think of this fool, this little girl too,
I'm a horrid little idiot, can't you see?
So don't fall in love with me.

My moronic gestures keep on pestering you,
I'm forced to some energy, don't drink to this fool,
Call a doctor, don't be cruel,
Don't you know nothing can stop me drooling over you?

And the Greeks had a word for it,
Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Chihuahua,
Bow wow, wow, wow wow, Chihuahua
Everybody try it now, cos this fool's always wrong, Chihuahua.

The band never bettered this moment and by 1983 it was all over. Here's how Annabella relates it:

”Yeah, tell me about it. I read it in the press! I was kicked out of the band and they never told me. I read it in the NME. We had just done a really long tour around the world and we were about to go to Australia ... and our lead guitarist fell of stage. The next thing I know we were meant to take a month off, but then the three guys went to do a demo for RCA and I was told by the guy - who was kind of managing us at the time – that RCA wanted to sign me as a solo artist. Which I didn’t understand."

And that was it. Annabella stayed in pop music and, older and wiser, never let herself be exploited by the likes of McLaren again. She still makes music now,dancey-funky-poppy stuff, and her website is 'here'. Amazingly, like Honey Bane, who I wrote about 'here', she seems to possess no rancour for those whom she might be expected to, and like Honey, comes across as a remarkably balanced person. I like to think that she took all the shit that was thrown at her, rose above it and gave it all right back when she recorded Chihuahua. Annabella Lwin, The Streetlamp salutes you!


Below is a link to a free MP3 I've made from my own vinyl copy of the song. This version matches the video and is slightly diffferent from all the CD releases now available. It also has a cleaner production than the badly re-mastered CD versions.

Chihuahua

Enjoy,

Griff

xx

Gordon's Addendum:
Furthermore to the sleazy stupidity of McLaren's gross exploitation of young girls comes this gruesomely unhealthy tale of when Bananarama asked McLaren for some career advice at the outset of there career. What did McLaren propose to the three young women stood before him? Why, a song called 'Don't You Touch Me Down There, Daddy!"....a song which manages to encapsulate both taboos of incest and paedophilia!
Here's an excerpt from an online interview in which the girls discuss it:
"There's a rumour that Malcolm McLaren once wrote you a song called Don’t You Touch Me down There Daddy. Is this true and if so, why on earth did you not record it?"
Ben Harris, Watford
"Sarah: Yes it is. We were looking for a manager at the time and we went to him and it was like going to see the headmaster. We all sat in a row like naughty school girls, giggling and not really knowing what to say.
Keren: And I drifted off at one point and he roared at me you, on the end, what did I just say?" I was petrified.
Sarah: And he was like, "Listen, do you wanna be Bucks Fizz or The Slits?" He told us he had a song called Don’t You Touch Me Down There Daddy and we were like, er, we don't really wanna sing that.
Keren: We weren't really sexual by then, we looked like little boys, still wearing little monkey boots, and we hadn't really grown up. The thought of singing something like that horrified us.
Sarah: Whereas now, it'd be like the most natural thing in the world... [laughs]"

And here is Siobhan discussing the same thing on video:


Unhealthiness abounds!!
~Gordon~