None New Wavier (17 of ???)

 

Proficiency of the musicians - and the prowess / power of the singing - suggests an Old Wave into New Wave makeover.

And indeed... 

Before Angletrax, the singer Wendy Herman was in Sadista Sisters, an all-female confrontational cabaret troupe who made a fairly feeble record in 1976 for Transatlantic Records

Their Brechtian agit-prop approach went over well in Germany and Holland though

In the UK probably big among a certain Time Out reading contingent

Although Sounds put them on the cover

Then the Sadistas dropped the soft rock stylings for something a little more arty and angular for one last single 

Somewhere between Peter Gabriel and Pink Industry

Probably they heard a Judy Nylon record and thought 'oops better change it up sharpish'

 ‘This company aimed to explode myths about the female psyche and challenged the notion that women are there to serve as ciphers for male protagonists in theatre. This music/theatre company – eclectic, savage, funny, tender and populist exploited everything from performance art to punk – and carried on in many incarnations for 14 years. It was a marriage of many styles’ - from http://sadistasisters.blogspot.com/

Jude Alderson on Sadista Sisters first show at the Hard Rock Cafe, via Unfinished Histories, a website documenting alternative theatre in the UK

"The thing at the Hard Rock wasn’t a show, the thing at the Hard Rock was a sort of event… it was a happening. The first show was…the opening, the set was a pair of female legs and a heart shape, in the centre, which I don’t need to tell you what that was, with a cellophane covering, and Teresa and I in pink cat suits with these amazing masks that were across here [indicates across face], that were like with cheeks and dummies on them and we had pink swimming hats on. So we looked like babies or foetuses or whatever, and we tore our way out of this heart, and then we sang this song ‘Baby Doll’, so we turned immediately into…desirable… nubile, Barbie doll baby women."

T.V. Eye versus TV In My Eye

 

"T.V. Eye" is not about television, of course. 

T.V. has a particular private slang meaning in Stoogesworld and to be honest, I would advise you not to look it up, it might subtly impair your enjoyment of the song as it has ever-so-slightly with me, which is a shame as it is a Top 10 all time rock song for me. 

Somehow I've only just got around to hearing Los Microwaves, despite Barney Hoskyns going on about them in the NME back in the day. 

They are None New Wavier that's for sure.

"TV In My Eye" is yet another example of the very low status of television in the cultural hierarchy back then, compared to nowadays.

 From punkers to highbrow literati, all agreed that it was nonstop garbage, rotting your brain. 

cheeky monkeys, Rezillos, going on Top of the Pops and taking the mickey out of it! 

Gil Scott Heron obviously...

What else? 

(Talking Heads being clever semi-invert the idea and in "Found A Job" have the characters making their own television)

"Damn that television, what a bad picture"

"Don't get upset, it's not a major disaster"

"There's nothing on tonight, " he said, "I don't know what's the matter"

"Nothing's ever on, " she said, "so I don't know why you bother"

We've heard this little scene, we've heard it many times

People fighting over little things and wasting precious time

They might be better off, I think, the way it seems to me

Making up their own shows, which might be better than TV

Judy's in the bedroom, inventing situations

Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations

They've enlisted all their family

They've enlisted all their friends

It helped save their relationship

And made it work again

Their show gets real high ratings, they think they have a hit

There might even be a spin-off, but they're not sure 'bout that

If they ever watch TV again, it'd be too soon for them

Bob never yells about the picture now, he's having too much fun

Judy's in the bedroom, inventing situations

Bob is on the street today, scouting up locations

They've enlisted all their family

They've enlisted all their friends

It helped save their relationship

And made it work again

So think about this little scene, apply it to your life

If your work isn't what you love, then something isn't right

Just think of Bob and Judy, they're happy as can be

Inventing situations, putting them on TV

(No quite the total inversion of rock convention as with "Don't Worry About the Government" but different than railing against the braindeath)

Most rock songs, the attitude to television is on the level of Network and Being There, or Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and his short stories like "The Pedestrian", or Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death i.e. typical highbrow "admass" critique of the brainwashing machine in the living room

Ironic, in a way, given that your highbrow literati like J.B. Priestley would have lumped rock'n'roll and youth culture in with TV, supermarkets, advertising, etc as part of admass. 

Now, are there any pro-TV songs? 

I have never really inspected closely the lyrics to ZZ Top's "TV Dinners"

None New Wavier (Gruppovoodoo)

I remember when I was first looking at music papers seeing the name Gruppo Sportivo and being faintly intrigued, in the same way that Brand X adverts were faintly intriguing. Couldn't get a fix on what either band would sound like. 

I don't remember ever hearing Gruppo Sportivo  then although they got quite a bit of exposure in the UK. And they were pretty big on the Continent, or parts thereof.

A Dutch group - basically a Dutch bloke, as there's this one central, recurring figure, Hans Vandenburg - who take Anglophilia to an extreme. They basically seem to want to be The Members. 

Although I think they started before The Members. 

Actually what they are really like is a Netherlands version of Deaf School. I believe Bette Bright sang with Gruppo later on.

Well this is None New Wavier to the power of I don't know what - Gruppo Sportivo covering Wall of Voodoo

Like Fabulous Poodles, like Jona Lewie, like Costello and Joe Jackson and Graham Parker, they represent that side of New Wave where it is a time when funny-looking blokes have a chance at being pop stars. People who in most other eras would not get a look-in for not being a looker -  too ordinary-bloke unmemorable,  or actively mis-shapen.

 

No funny-looking or even ordinary-looking women of course - in New Wave, it's still expected that you are pretty. At least when it comes to fronting a band. (So not so "New" after all). 

You can be quirky and wacky and easy-on-the-eye like Lene Lovich but the beauty double standard still applies.

Gruppo have good looking backing singers, who jig about a bit like the girls in Squeeze's "Cool For Cats", to offset the bald gnome-like central geezer. 

Eeuw the mohair makes it look he has horribly hairy shoulders.

Design wise you can't get much more None New Wavier than this cover below

Still going

Elvis's Ankles (none New Wavier part 172)

 

What on earth is Elvis Costello doing with - and to - his ankles in this video? 

Throughout, but there's a particularly alarming sequence of bends from 2.41 seconds through to the end of the promo. 

I wonder if in later life Costello suffered from having done these ankle bends, in the same way that ballerinas who do pointe work -  dancing not so much on the tips of their toes as the ends of their toes, putting incredible pressure on the nail - can be left with permanent damage.... 

No information about that I can glean but I did find something about how EC developed this party trick:

He does it a bit in this video, but not as often and not quite as twinge inducing in the viewer 

Also in this one 

The ankle bends, but the whole repertoire of Costello moves,  is a prime example of New Wave's performative rhetoric - announcing that Verily We are In a New Era of Rock. C.f.  Devo's herky-jerks,  Fay Fife's hand-jive in the Rezillos and body posture, Pauline of Penetration, et al. 

Yet it also seems to hark back vaguely to rock'n'roll and the Fifties - the kind of foot work done by Elvis Presley. With EC's bug-eyed speccy image,  there's also the ghost of Buddy Holly.  

In this video, the Performative Rhetoric is mostly done with the face. 

The My Aim Is True album artwork points to ankle stress but is not enough to pain the viewer

"Can't stand up properly? Well, it's hardly surprising, given how you are treating your feet" - lots of alarming looking fool's splay in this video 

 

The extreme bends in "Pump It  Up" reminded me of this classic wince-maker of an album art image from around the same time