Chris Bell "You and Your Sister"

Chris Bell I Am the Cosmos 7" single (Car Records, 1978)

OK, I admit it . . . I cheated on this one. I don't own this single, but I wish I did! I ripped the song from the I Am the Cosmos CD released by Rykodisc in 1992. It came out as I was trying to get over a boy for whom I'd fallen quite hard. In my case, however, his sister didn't say I was "no good;" rather, I felt like she was trying to push us together. I was still struggling with my orientation, and I had no idea what his was; it's been twenty years since then, and I still have no idea (nothing ever happened between us). Regardless, this song really got to me, and it was a long time before I could listen to it without bursting into tears. Chris was one third of the legendary Memphis power poppers Big Star. He left after their first album, #1 Record, however. In 1978, he released this solo single then died in a car wreck, which may have been suicide. There's a fair amount of debate over whether or not Bell was definitely gay, but it's seems highly unlikely that he was not, based on what I've read. The above-mentioned CD of Bell's post-Big Star recordings is well-worth the money, in my opinion. Rhino Handmade released an expanded version last year, but it's quite expensive ($40 for a two-CD set!) and the bonus material is mainly alternate versions of the songs on the album. I've not heard it, however, so take my comment as you may.

Antony and the Johnsons "I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy"

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Otherwise, there'd be a cute lil' streaming audio player on the left, rather than this message.

Antony and the Johnsons
I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy
CD single
(Rebis Music, 2001)

I first (consciously) heard Antony (Hegarty) sing on Lou Reed's live Animal Serenade album. My mental image was a tall, lithe, black drag queen wearing gold eyeshadow, and fanning herself with a Japanese, folding, hand fan. The visage that greeted me when I opened the copy I later bought of Antony and the Johnsons's second album, I Am a Bird Now, was rather unexpected, to say the least. That's really entirely beside the point, however. Antony has an absolutely amazing voice and has become a powerful trans icon the world over, with good reason.

Sarah Kernochan "Feeding Time at the Zoo"

Sarah Kernochan
House of Pain
LP
(RCA Records, 1974)

The world is chock full o' nuts of weird coincidences. Listener VirginiaM requested the other day that I post some S.K. Thoth. Well, I do have his first CD, so it's a possibility.

So, what's the coincidence, you ask? Well, I already had today's post ready to go save for the write-up. I knew Sarah Kernochan has worked in film (due to research done previously, after I purchased today's song source), so I went to find her entry on IMDb.com and, holy crap, she produced and directed the Academy Award-winning documentary short that Ms. M and I saw several years ago, Thoth, about none other than S.K. Thoth! She also wrote that filthy, sex movie 9½ Weeks, which I've never seen and am therefore able to pre-judge.

I knew none of this when I spied her album House of Pain in the used racks at my favorite local record store a few months ago, however. With that title and cover and price tag ($4, I think), I had to buy it, even though I had no clue who she was. Well, it turned out she was, at the time, a singer/songwriter with a bit of a demented edge. Carole King off her meds and brandishing a meat cleaver, if you will. House of Pain was her first album of two, and it's quite a lot of twisted fun. Now, I must find that second one . . .

Bic Runga "Bursting Through"

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Bic Runga
Bursting Through
CD single
(Columbia, 1996)

I first heard Bic on the compilation CD Live At Helen's. I'd picked it up for the tracks by her fellow Kiwis, David Kilgour and Martin Phillipps, but Bic's song, a version of "Drive," blew me away. A couple years later, I came across a copy of her debut album, Drive, in the new arrivals bin at a local used CD store. I snapped it up and found that I could not stop listening to it. It's probably my favorite album of 1998, in fact.

Tim Buckley "Sing a Song for You"

Tim Buckley
Once I Was
CD
(Strange Fruit, 1999)

Well, hello and welcome to my jukebox! My goal is to have a new song up every day around 9 a.m., Eastern time. We'll see how well that works. ^_^ So, for my first selection, I decided to go with something "song"-related, and this was the first thing that popped into my lil' noggin'.