Sooner or later, this happens to everyone

Dear friends,

1. I have been remiss! I forgot to say thank you very much to all of you that came out for Neon Lights presents A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Apache Beat, The Muggabears and Please Dept. The bands were all fantastic and DJs The Rich Girls are Weeping and Cassettes Won't Listen rocked the decks. I will have some superbly blurry photographs to put up soon and you can all marvel at how I can't seem to take an in-focus shot.

Cough.
Ilirjana from Apache Beat, foggy in jewel tones

For actual in-focus pro-looking pic-churrs, go to Bryan Subinev*. He got a bunch of good ones. Coming soon, photographs from Devon B and a wrap-up from Jeff K. I am lovingly handcrafting my recap of the show out of wood and plan to present the tiny sailboat on Friday. Can you wait for it? Can ya? Can ya? I think you can.

2. Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys has made a career of sounding passionately bored and cynical over a thumping beat. This is a much greater feat than you'd think. It's hard work sounding deeply invested in your ambivalence and he is; his characters are always trying to think their way out of their feelings. Even the straightforward love stories turn into battles for equality since someone ALWAYS loves someone more than they are loved in return and ain't that a bitch?

In his duet with Dusty Springfield, What Have I Done to Deserve This, Tennant mock-raps about all the stuff he's done for his lover, "I bought you drinks, I brought you flowers/I read you books and talked for hours/Every day, so many drinks/Such pretty flowers." He's bitter and in love despite himself but he is utterly incapable of making a plain admission of it. Which is of course, the reason the relationship has failed. Dusty counters at the end, "We don't have to fall apart/We don't have to fight." HA! Clearly, if you're in Tennant's world then that's how it's gonna be. And that controlled, jaded style of his works so well with late 80's disco washes that Chris Lowe provides. Both music and delivery project the same thing. Namely, "Yes, it's all very glossy and false sounding, but it is sincere and deeply felt no matter what it sounds like or what I'm telling you." His mind says no, but his heart says yes.

What Have I Done to Deserve This (featuring Dusty Springfield)/Pet Shop Boys



Sometimes, when I am bored, I like to make up bad films in my head. Specifically, action/sex thriller movies like the ones from the 80's that I used to watch on cable tv growing up. Things with heavily browed dudes looking to go straight and the pastel wearing, bad men addicted chicks that they are entangled with. There's always a day out in a car montage with head thrown back laughter and an artfully lit sex scene that ends with a SERIOUS DISCUSSION about how they're gonna break free from their life of VICE and start afresh. Of course the soundtrack for my 80's film would rely heavily on PSB. Nothing else will do. Particularly, the florid I Want to Wake Up. The favorite is when Tennant bleats about crying "sudden tears" over his situation. My reaction is the same every single time I hear it; is he for real?! Yes, he is. Listen to the selections below and imagine the covertibles, the polka dots and the light coming through venetian blinds.

Songs to seek:

Love Comes Quickly/Pet Shop Boys (mp3)
I Want to Wake Up/Pet Shop Boys (m4a)
I Want to Wake Up/Pet Shop Boys (YST link)

Buy Please by Pet Shop Boys.
Buy Actually by Pet Shop Boys.

Love, D

* Ha! Bryan noticed that something was different with the lighting. This was courtesy of that other Team DJ hanging up additional lights prior to the show.