ON REPEAT: Ginger Root, Tobe Nwigwe & Coast Contra, jev., Isabelle Antena, PPJ, Klaus Nomi

Yes, I'm a simple man.

Folks, it’s been a week. I spent a few days in the hospital and I’m FINE but still not out of the muck just yet. Hospitals suck! Some more than others.

In better news, everybody is loving this Sweeping Promises set on The Best Show and it makes me so happy. Check it out if you haven’t already.

Also, The John Gentle Show is finally coming together. Here’s a clip of him meeting Tom Scharpling & Sarah Squirm:

https://twitter.com/BrettDavisRIP/status/1707761144482742519

Now onto some newish music picks. Here’s a link to a playlist where I keep all of this stuff.

Ginger Root “Loretta”

If there was an award for nailing an aesthetic, Ginger Root should win for perfectly getting this 80’s citypop vibe down, both in sound and visuals, even gaining Mariya Takeuchi as a fan.

Remember how the “Hey Ya” video was impressive for its time? This video does the same but cheaper, more impressively and it’s the 4th most interesting thing going on.

Also, it’s available on VHS!

Isabelle Antena “Be Pop”

Old, but new to me. I’m a fan of the bossa nova/electro band Antena (I love “Camino del Sol”) but never really dug into singer Isabelle Antena’s solo stuff despite it being recommended to me years ago. While Isabelle was from France, this album blew up big in Japan and one can see why—it’s very citypop-esque, and she won some prestigious awards for it.

PPJ “Fourmis”

Every PPJ song keeps winning me over. I’ve featured songs on two occasions by the trio of producer Jules Rosset aka Povoa, vocalist Páula, who fronts the Brazilian electro-pop band Tampon Tango, and Christine & The Queens live member Jerge.

Tobe Nwigwe & Coast Contra “DESTRUCTION”

Here’s some good future music. I’ve previously featured Coast Contra, but this is my intro to Tobe Nwigwe. I don’t like grills, particularly when people open their mouth and stretch out their lips with their fingers to show off said grills. Besides that, no notes—this is good.

jev. “lonrworld (freestyle)”

The smallest sunglasses imaginable.

THE GOLD STANDARD

Klaus Nomi “Simple Man”

I warmed up to this after multiple replays on New York Noise back in the day and I’m glad I did, Klaus Nomi is now one of my all-time favorites.

If you’re unfamiliar with Klaus Nomi—shame on you—here’s a recap: a classicly-trained operatic singer leaves West Berlin for New York City, and develops a “lost alien” persona, and makes a huge splash at the "New Wave Vaudeville" event, impressing everyone from Ann Magnuson to Glenn O’Brien.

This leads to Klaus becoming one of the cool kids for a while, even performing alongside David Bowie on SNL and appearing in Urgh! A Music War. Sadly, Klaus Nomi died way to young due to AIDS in 1983.

This song in particular sees Klaus having more fun than usual and even slightly dropping the alien persona a bit (or just wearing a suit and a cowboy hat). He’s joined by performance/drag artist Joey Arias (also seen on the SNL clip) and Man Parrish, a huge figure that bridges the gap between early hip-hop and electronic music, who worked with everyone from Yellow Magic Orchestra to Kraftwerk to Michael Jackson.

During the waning days of The Special Without Brett Davis, I decided to go full indulgence on the penultimate episode, doing a TV Party episode and enlisting Ian Lockwood to play Klaus, who did an excellent job and helped a lot with the costume.