Bow Down! They Are The Superions!

urprisingly, The B-52s released a new album last year after aeons and now Fred Schneider is already fronting a new band which could finally bring pure Exotica back into the mainstream (or not).


With collaborators Noah Brodie and Dan Marshall they are The Superions. Formally called The DelMorons, the trio has released "Totally Nude Island" as a single late last year. The original version is a slow, lilting panoptikum of Martin Denny/Les Baxter-style exotiki, complete with the sounds of crashing waves and bird calls. This aural concoction is completed with Fred Schneider reciting the legend of totally nude island like a horny and tipsy National Geographics narrator at a suburban backyard luau.


The invocation of getting nekkid ends with the hilarious cop-out line: If you have any inhibitions cast them aside! Put on a strategically placed shell and raise a little hell on totally nude island.

Then there is the Ursula 1000 version of "Totally Nude Island" which ups the tempo that adds an irresistible groove to the whole thing. If the song passes you by on first listen, play it again and you will be hooked!


VJ Tom Yaz has created a video for each version. If you are into horny animals and vintage tits you should watch the original. In the remix video the women are better dressed, while 50s beefcake guys are showing their stuff. So basically, there is a straight and a gay version. You should -of course- watch both. They are the Superions after all!

The Superions - Totally Nude Island

The Superions - Totally Nude Island (Ursula 1000 Remix

My Favourite Mutant

Charles Burns´ paintings are glowing from the centre with the blackest black. Obsessed with the horrors of science, puberty and nature, Burns is certainly one of the most "american" contemporary artists.



A vast exhibition has just opened in New York and David Fincher is currently adapting Burns´ "Black Hole" for the big screen.



Charles Burns also did the sleeves for Iggy Pop´s 1990 second attempt to cross over into mainstream rock with "Brick by Brick" and his stunning duet-single "Candy" with Kate "B-52" Pierson.



Both characters in their own right look as if they jumped out of one of Charles´ paintings. Here is the video for "Candy" which is always welcomed for the incredible vocal performance of Kate Pierson and Iggy´s sleek, marine-green chair.

Loud Nights in Clichy - Fred Chichin 1954-2007

While I was compiling a post about French-Pop from the 80s onward I learned that Fred Chichin of Les Rita Mitsouko died last November. Even in times of information overload you can miss these things. Fred was born in 1954 in Clichy and started working with Catherine Ringer in 1979. By the mid-80s they became the bonafide French avant-pop-band, which could do no wrong.

I was never a huge fan of the band (I only own the album "Marc & Robert"), but I always adored their videos and their full on OTT-style.
Looking back it is easy to see how truly fantastic and forward looking Les Rita were, especially if you compare them to the other stuff that was out at the time.
Fred Chichin was a great musician and arrangeur! He was also a great dancer. He holds his own next to Catherine Ringer, who really is one of the best dancers on pop!

When Les Rita Mitsouko stormed the charts with "Marcia Baila" and "C´est comme ca" in the mid-80s they appeared to be a surreal French version of The Eurythmics, the B-52s, the Associates and the Sparks. Their videos were frantic and chaotic and their music was overdoing their "french-ness" to an hysterical extreme.

I don´t know how popular they were in North America (if at all) but they have clearly inspired Deee-Lite, Madonna and other nineties artists with their interest in outrageous fashion and stylized music.

They also did a record with the Sparks, who they quite obviously adored.

Despite disappearing slightly from the international stage, they went on recording and touring until a few days before Fred fell victim of cancer.

Check out some of their truly great and imaginative clips:

"Marcia Baila" started their career. It was originally released in 1984. It became an international hit in 1986. Now watch this and then look up some pics of Madonna from that time.


"C´est comme ca" Their second hit. A great dancefloor burner which would be played from exclusive big-floor clubs to underground discos.


"Andy". Check out her Minnie Mouse shoes!


"Le Petit Train". One of my favourites. Funky, hysterical and the video is a scream!


"Singing in the Shower" with the Sparks. A perfect match!


"Y´a d´la haine" I think this is definately their best video and one of the best of all time. Seen once, never forgotten! This won the MTV best Video award in 1994 and is probably one of the two Rita-Videos which are filed at the MoMA.


"Meme Si". The last one. A beautiful ballad taken from "Variety", their 2007 album. Fred, who was always pencil thin looks even more fragile than usual and Catherine´s eyes are heartbreaking in this.

Frederic Chichin died while the band was touring Europe. Catherine Ringer, who was also his partner off stage and mother of his three children, continued performing soon after his death. It was his wish.

"I´m at the mall on a diet pill": B-52s Funplex-Video

The video for Funplex has just arrived and its almost suberversive. And fun!
Seeing Fred Schneider rolling around this fantasy mall on a Segway is just too funny and there is even another cameo of RuPaul.

It seems that the dreaded mall-culture is recently becoming the subject of artistic re-evaluation from spontaneous musical performances to dystopian novels about people who live in retail-land.

Leave it to the B-52s to cause a party riot in this dreary place. But "Hippie be quiet, your peace-sign t-shirt can cause a riot."

Break my heart at the FUNPLEX! The B-52s are back!

After only 16 years the B-52s are about to release a new album called "Funplex"!
The single of the same name is donwnloadble now and can be heard on their MySpace site.

Its amazingly good and astonishingly nothing new (or vice versa).

Upon first listen you are back in B-52-land: Shopping malls, diet pills, taco-tiki-huts and wonderbras are the buzzwords. The sound harks back to their early days. There are fuzzy guitars, drum machines and the typical party-wall-of-sound in the background.

Finally, both Kate and Cindy are back together. Even a duller B-52 song gets catapulted into the ionosphere with the B-girls singing their outlandish harmonies.

As annoying "Love Shack" sounds today due to overplay and bad memories of drunken yuppie assholes at yuppie weddings, it was one of the last great pop records to emerge from the USA before grunge levelled everything. But this is really not the bands fault.

They are still one of the best bands in the world and I am happy to have them back! And don´t they look smashing these days!?
Strangely enough, my favourite 52-album is "Whammy" which is certainly not the best in their discography. But any record that begins with an ode to counterfeiting and the words "We are in the basement, learning to print" is gold in my book!

I remember seeing them live for the first time around this release. It was one of the first concerts I went to and the opening "Song for a future generation" is still one of my dearest memory of any live show I have ever seen.

To the simple riff of a drum machine the band members appeared one by one and told us what they wanted their life to be.

Anyway, its great that they are back. This could be one of the comebacks that are not doomed to fail or fall into obscurity like so many others.

The sound of today is very much the sound of the B-52s in 1979. I don´t know if this is good or bad, but hey:They wanna be the rulers of the galaxy, the first ladies of infinity and the nicest guys on earth!

Lets meet and have a baby now!

Here they are with the late Ricky who loved computers and hot tamales.