If My Car Could Only Talk - Lou Christie

War. What is it good for? Like Koala bears and cufflinks, pretty much sod all... apart from settling land disputes, ousting dictators and providing employment for the one soldier in the platoon who can play the harmonica.

Yes, war makes Charlie Sheens of us all: caught wide-eyed between the naked and the dead. Spare a thought too for the survivor, the returning soldier and the Veteran. The flashbacks, the emotional scars... the fact that your girlfriend has been borrowing your car and using it to conduct illicit affairs while you've been popping 'Gooks' in the D.M.Z. Whatever that is. Charming.

If only my car could talk, muses girly pop dramatist Lou Christie, it would tell me if my lady was gettin' it on in the backseat. It might also be able to tell me how many mixed fruit travel sweets are left in the tin in the glove compartment. Oh, right, it's all icing sugar. Thank you, Car.

With his overwrought, crescendoing pop operas, Lou Christie came close to challenging Roy Orbison's title as the world heavyweight champion of echoey male heartbreak. The only thing that scuppered his challenge was his use of ear-piercing, audible-only-to-certain-breeds-of-beagle soprano notes...

From Frankie Valli and Smokey Robinson through to any number of Heavy Metal acts in the eighties, the use of upper register warbling by male singers was a feature of rock and pop for years. Now it's a trick confined to milk-sop boybands and irate Physics teachers.

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Sam Stone - Swamp Dogg

Swamp Dogg - just one in a long line of self-styled "I'm bonkers, me" Pop characters. Like Frank Zappa or Bootsy Collins, Swamp proved his 'mad' credentials by changing his name and wearing a funny hat...

Hats are important. A wacky name is no good without a funny hat. "Look at me. I've got a funny hat, I'm singing about a Galactic Zoo and waving my hands about."

How about Nikita-era Elton John? He had a little drawing room pillbox hat on. He looked like Womble paterfamilias Great Uncle Bulgaria. Only fatter, pastier and more coke-addled. No, his hat wasn't funny enough; more creepy than wacky.

"There's a whole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes. Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose." Here Swamp Dogg covers country singer John Prine's anti-Vietnam song. Prine also sang 'Your flag decal won't get you into Heaven anymore. It's already overcrowded from your dirty little war." Still relevant today given the current occupant of the White House. etc. etc. Yawn.

Swamp Dog himself was heavily involved in the anti-Vietnam movement, and the Nixon White House took note by placing him on their infamous list of enemies and agitators...

You know your paranoia is gettng serious when you start fearing men in funny hats. "Get G. Gordon Liddy on the phone. I've never seen that sonovabitch in any crazy Commie hat."

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Manifesto & Book News

If it's ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it's in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, toothy teen idols, candy-based metaphors for carnal acts or lyrics about hugging, squeezing and rocking all night long, it's in.

Ace. Of base



> Martin Lampen (latest book news, contact details and other stuff)

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