CUT COPY

Studio B

Saturday night. Fuckin’ go yo!

And yes, sadly, I think Goth week is over. I have nothing Goth left to give you!

Here’s what I am listening to get ready for another jaunt to Studio B:

Editions of You-Roxy Music

1983-Miss Kitten

So Cinematic-Pora Pora!**because nobody tears shit up like Nanna

Amparanoia: Proganado: War is Not the Solution (remix)

Ghosts: NIN pulls a Radiohead and takes a serious dose of Ambient

 Dear Brian Eno,

I’m through with all that angry “Head like a Hole” stuff. I’m really into Macs and yoga now and I even considered painting with light the other day but got angry because I couldn’t figure it out and decided to listen to the sound of glass crashing on the floor instead. Oh and I even considered recording in a castle, but after that last controversy over the Tate house I thought against it. My new producer (Atticus Ross) is a genius, really. Not as much as you, but he’s quite good. Perhaps this tribute album, which I have lovingly released to my fans for free (free Eno, like the wind!) will make up for that pig’s head with the feather (which I took from a glittery boa you wore on the first Roxy Music tour that I bought on ebay) that I left at your door. That was on the Pretty Hate Machine tour and I was really into Ketamine at that time. I’m sorry! I heard it really freaked Byrne out. 

But I’m so healthy now, really I am. All cleaned up. Check out my muscles… and my clean and tidy hair! Oh wait, you don’t have any hair… oh, I really didn’t mean that as a jab! Ok, enough about ME. I will quit while I’m ahead. But really, you might reconsider working with me on the next one, yes?  I mean if Bowie did it, it can’t be that bad, right? Better than working with those fuckheads in Coldplay! 

Please reconsider,

Trent  

 Vacuum cleaner nonsense? You decide. That’s the beauty of it: it’s free! 

Today I found out that Goth legends the Bauhaus are putting out their first album in 25 years: Go Away White. And how did I find out about this? National Public Radio.

I never thought I’d hear about the Bauhaus on NPR. Then again I never thought I’d go to a BEA book party dj’d by the Misshapes either. Such is life.

This interview/review/report is inadvertently hilarious; it’s worth listening to if you like to (lovingly) poke fun at NPR or Goth, both of which I do frequently. Aired on LA’s Day to Day, British journalist/musician Christian Boudeaux reports that despite some poppy tunes, “me thinks the goth cap fits pretty well” on the new album.

New album, not so great. The original stuff, though, made from 1979-1983 is not just classic goth rock, it’s pretty fucking great post punk. Not in line with their Vampire tongue-in-cheek posing, a great deal of the Bauhaus’ music was actually very indicative of the name they took from the design movement: stark, cold, and angular. And despite being arbiteurs of horror kitsch, their sound was  quite an original take on glam (Ziggy as silent film monster crossed with Artaud?). They were heavily indebted to Eno, Bowie, and T-Rex, artists the band acknowledge with several covers.

Daniel Ash’s sharp guitars and David J’s seductive bass are what always do it for me. While Peter Murphy was writhing on stage, Ash, David J, and Kevin Haskins infused heavy doses of dub-reggae and Kraut-style prog rock. What came out of only four albums (none palpably great full albums, but the compilations of singles and b-sides do them justice) is extremely idiosyncratic for such a short-lived project. 

 Leigh Lezark and Christian (Project Runway winner) both indebted to Bauhaus’ style?

Lead singer Peter Murphy went on to do folk-y pop albums and also converted to Muslim (making him a kind of post punk Cat Stevens); Daniel Ash made some astonishingly good music with Tones on Tail and a whole lotta hits with fellow ex-Bauhaus Kevin Haskins and David J in Love and Rockets.  

Here’s to the Bauhaus and their many offshoots.

 (all songs are Bauhaus unless indicated)

Kick in the Eye (Nice downtown NYC No Wave-era saxophone )

No New Tale to Tell—Love and Rockets

Dark Enteries

Third Uncle (Bauhaus covering Eno, very well, I might add)

Go!–Tones on Tail (A major club hit…later to become Starburst commercial background music….and a GREAT song. Very happy)

Slice of Life 

Killer Couple Kill Colonel (Ash took the lyrics straight from a newspaper…one of my favorites. Sort of like a musical version of Hanake’s Funny Games)