Les Capitaines

Shameless Pop Week No. 15

16/4/39 – 2/3/99 RIP

Berlusconi’s Italy

Poptastic trashlicious mimetic memory

I settled down to watch the Culture Show special on Michael Palin this evening – as soon as the presenter, Lauren Laverne, appeared on screen my memory leapt back to a long forgotten pop video(I’ve written at length on memory – my memory – elsewhere, so won’t dwell on it now). When Lauren Laverne was with Kenickie, I was struck by one of their promo videos which climaxed with each female band member strutting towards the camera and planting a big, lipsticked kiss on the perspex screen between them and the camera, followed by the male member appearing, wearing Marigolds and irritably cleaning off the smears with spray cleaner and a j-cloth. A superb undermining and inversion of the sexual conventions and expectations of the pop video genre.

So I thought….”hmmmm – youtube?”. And it’s there ! I was chuffed and amazed. Not only had I found the clip in question on first attempt, but it wasn’t as funny as my memory of it. Still worth a look.

I am reminded, in a roundabout way, of another story. A few years ago I was working alongside the auntie of the bass player in Hepburn . At the time, this now forgotten but pretty good indie band were being pushed hard, loads of local radio, tv and so on. The auntie told me – and this is an allegation – that when they were interviewed and performed on Richard & Judy one morning, they were surprised to see Judy so nervous that she was visibly shaking and kept a coffee mug full of whisky behind her chair which she swigged from whenever she was out of shot.

Scurrilous, unsubstantiated gossip, of course. The bass player’s auntie will probably sue me for calling her a gossip now.