hey Brucey you're so fine you're so fine you blow my mind hey Brucey hey Brucey

 

A little film about Bruce Conner and the making of a promo film for Toni Basil's 1966 single "Breakaway" (which is apparently a Northern Soul classic)

Toni Basil, genius choreographer, had another intersection with the avant-garde - her work with a bodybopping crew called The Electric Boogaloos influenced Byrne & Eno in the early stages of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. 

Byrne - who dated Basil for a while -  told me that initially he and Eno imagined the music as the soundtrack to a film she was making with the dance troupe. 

I tried to interview Toni when I did the big piece on Eno and his New York years but no luck.

The Electric Boogaloos appear in this Basil-directed-and-choreographed video for Talking Heads "Crosseyed and Painless", a US single off of Remain in Light - a song in which Byrne essays a stilted WASP-y form of rapping in the middle.

Basil also co-directed the "Once In A Lifetime" promo with Byrne

Here's a whole BBC special of avant-tinged dance fun she did in the 1980s

Here's her video album which starts with a fun Noo Wavey version of Bacharach + David's "My Little Red Book" as also covered by Love 

Of course mostly she is known for this

Is "Mickey" -  the intro at least -  part of the continuum of Diddleybeat? 

I suppose it's more rightly considered a post-"My Sharona" move

(Knight on Knack)

And a kind of jock jam - or jill jam. 

Farfisa-y - could not be more Noo Wave really

More Boogaloo