“Sometimes being onstage is better than sex.”
– Brian Molko
Brian Molko, the always-engaging frontman of Placebo, has been around the world twice since SuicideGirls last checked in with him. Although Placebo has had a successful decade-long career in the UK and Europe, they’ve never managed a full-on conquest of America. This summer’s Projekt Revolution tour, headlined by Linkin Park, might be the Trojan Horse that finally gets them through the gate. Did Placebo take their new audience by surprise, or was it the other way around? I got a chance to talk to Brian as he was getting ready for one of the last shows of a year and a half of touring.
Hope you liked last week’s column about graffiti, it was probably the best post since the one about pirates. I was going to write something really great this week, I swear. But, drinks were had, songs were sung, and I have a stack of photo booth prints I can’t shown anyone. Fuck.
So, you’re going to have to settle for some music recommendations and that’s about it.
SuicdeGirls presents the sixth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.
Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname “Mollywood.” These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.
In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who’d unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun’s reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).
We join Marco as he settles into his new accommodations at House Blue. After a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen, Marco realizes he’s never been shown the terms of his employment. A sense of unease sets in as he prepares for the evening’s designated entertainment – a trip to see The Most Dangerous Game. He dons a not-so-simple Li-Jun-made white button down shirt, which smells like an apple orchard in fall and gives those that brush it a shocking sense that they are actually among the ripening trees, takes a quick gulp, and heads to the “battlefield” with his new friend Heather and his Li-Jun handler Six.
“If you’re creating something you want to see it through to the end.”
– Glenn Mercer
New Jersey’s The Feelies formed in the late ‘70s around the core of guitarists Glenn Mercer and Bill Million. Between their seminal first record, 1980’s Crazy Rhythms, and 1991’s Time for a Witness, their post-punk, Velvet Underground and Jonathan Richman-inspired sound evolved from their twitchy, polyrhythmic debut to more atmospheric, complex guitar pop, leading critic Robert Christgau to say of the final record of their original run, “the minimalism of Crazy Rhythms was always misleading.”
Post-Feelies, Mercer worked on several other projects, including the band Wake Ooloo and a solo record. Million left music entirely and for nearly twenty years, reportedly, didn’t touch his guitar, leading previous attempts to reunite the band to stall without his involvement. Now, Million is back, and for the first time since 1991, The Feelies have a new record called Here Before. Despite its self-referential lyrical winks to their past, the new record would sound right in their discography next to The Good Earth or Only Life.
I spoke with Glenn Mercer recently about the new record, his relationship with Bill, and how one band becomes R.E.M. while another unfairly disappears into semi-obscurity.
To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, vintage style icon Dita Von Teese has put her own twist on the world’s favorite Mexican cocktail. As a spokesperson for Cointreau, the drink naturally includes the orange liqueur (Cointreau is a triple sec produced in Angers, France). But there’s also some more unlikely ingredients which give it a kick and a contrasting demure floral note.
This Sunday (May 8th) our very special in-studio guests are the Dance Hall Pimps and Kristeen Young.
Originally from St. Louis, though now New York-based, Kristeen Young is more Kate Bush than Kate Bush (she has a staggering 4-octave vocal range). The insanely talented singer/songwriter has a new Tony Visconti-produced EP out called “V The Volcanic” and is in the midst of a 4-week residency at LA’s Hotel Café.
LA’s Dance Hall Pimps blend blues, rockabilly and Americana with punk rock and more than a hint of goth. Catch the 21st century show band’s eclectic electric mix at The Viper Room on Saturday May 14.
Listen to SG Radio live Sunday night from 10 PM til Midnight on Indie1031.com
Its December 25th 1986, and Nikki Sixx is alone in his mansion, crouched naked under his Christmas tree with a needle in his arm, scribbling in his diary about watching his holiday spirit coagulate in a spoon. He writes, ”Merry Christmas its just you and me, diary. Welcome to my life.”
This is just one scene from a particularly harrowing chapter in Motley Crue bassist and founder Nikki Sixx’s new memoir The Heroin Diaries – a collection of riveting entries from his personal journals spanning one year from 1986 to 1987, a year he considers the height of his downward spiral into drug addiction. It’s a story about drugs, depression, and the train-wreck of self-destruction – but ultimately it’s one man’s story about survival told with unflinching and unapologetic honesty.
