music – Page 6 – Brian Ferrari's Blog

Madame Spivy’s Alley Cat

Ladies and Gentleman, I’d like to introduce you to a long lost lady of song that you should know: the late, great Madame Spivy LeVoe (1906-1971), also known simply as Spivy. A lesbian entertainer, nightclub owner and character actress, Spivy has been described as “The Female Noel Coward” – to which I would add “…. if he was born Bertha Levine in Brooklyn.”

In the 1930’s, the former Ms. Levine entertained as a singer/pianist in the back room at Tony’s, a Fifty-Second Street speakeasy and celebrity hot spot. In 1939, the New York Times wrote that “Spivy’s material, witty, acid, and tragicomic, is better than most of the essays one hears about town, and her delivery is that of a sophisticated artist on her own grounds. She knows the value of surprise in punching a line, she uses understatement unerringly, and her piano accompaniment is superb.”

In the summer of 1940, Spivy opened her own chic piano bar, Spivy’s Roof, on the top floor of a building at the corner of Fifty-Seventh Street & Lexington Avenue. Notable performers through its 11 year existence included Mabel Mercer, Thelma Carpenter and Martha Raye as well as early performances by Liberace and Paul Lynde. Spivy’s Roof makes an appearance in the seminal book Gay New York and pops up in several memoirs and biographies of performers, artists and notable society personalities of that era.

Writer Ignacio Schwartz fondly recalls visits to Spivy’s Roof when he was a Holden Caulfield-esque 16 year old boarding school student seeking adventure in New York:

She was a plump lady (one writer said that she was “squat like a bulldog.”) She wore her hair in a tight pompadour with a white streak down the middle. She would place a tall glass of what was probably chilled gin on the piano before her. During her time on stage, she would drain a couple, but her singing — her low, throaty voice — would always be perfect.

The one (song) I remember best of all is The Alley Cat. I cannot for the life of me remember more than a couple of lines of Hamlet that I was taught in that Prussian military school. I still have trouble remembering which novels were written by the Brontë sisters and the ones that came from the pen of Jane Austen. But to this day I can recite most of the words of The Alley Cat, along with the intonations, the riffs (and the pauses for laughs) exactly as it has been tricked away in my memory-bag for the last fifty years.

“The Alley Cat”, which Spivy co-wrote with Jill Rainsford, was a staple from her live show and recorded for her 78 album Seven Gay Sophisticated Songs (1939).

Here’s a video that I put together with lyrics included:

The Alley Cat

On the 14th floor of a walk-up flat, I used to keep an alley cat.
Each night I’d walk him down the stair, and waited while he got the air.
He grew up fast and developed a yen, no sooner was he in than he was out again.
I hated to spoil his fun, but I knew what must be done.

So I called the cat and he staggered home, with a ragged ear and a broken dome
But I knew he felt like hell that day, so I spoke to him this way:
Is it worth it? For that momentary something to yowl around til neighbors call the cops?
Is it worth it? For that momentary something to have nine hundred kittens call you “Pop”?

You’ve been an awful wild cat – you should welcome a vacation.
Just to sit around and brood and think about your operation.
I’ll give you one more night out to complete your education
Then the sheltered life is good enough for you.

I took him to the vet and had his profile bobbed, and when he sat down he said, ‘Hell, I’ve been robbed!’
He went out that night but came right home to bed, and the look on his face was a scream as he said:
“Well, you’ve done it. Now the operation’s over, I’ll never be the same, it seems so strange, but you’ve done it.
Now the operation’s over, no longer will I take chances with the mange.

I had so many wives, I didn’t know where I was at.
But since my change of scenery all the girl cats holler ‘Scat!’
I pass them by and hear them cry; ‘There goes that pansy cat.’
But the sheltered life is good enough for me.”

Spivy recorded approximately 15 of her most popular songs. Some she co-wrote with Rainsford, others with lyricist John LaTouche. None of these recordings – originally issued on 78 record albums between 1939-1949 – were ever reissued in any format. I am slowly uploading them to YouTube and will dole them out along with other Spivy tidbits in the future.

In the meantime, if you are so inclined, check out the Queer Music Heritage website , which has a lot of information on Spivy, although the site is rather antiquated and some browsers won’t support it…. If you choose to heed the “unsecure site” warnings and avoid it… then the sheltered life is good enough for you.

More Spivy posts here:
The Tarantella
Auntie’s Face
100% American Girls
A Tropical Fish
I Brought Culture To Buffalo In The 90s
I Didn’t Do A Thing Last Night
Why Don’t You?
Madame Spivy: Movies & Television
Madame Spivy on the Good Time Sallies Podcast

Gimme Gimme Gimme… Erasure Covering ABBA

When Cher’s cover of ABBA’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” was released earlier this month and immediately mashed-up with Madonna’s song “Hung Up”, one Facebook friend declared that the result was “gay ground zero”. To this I meekly respond… “….but what about Erasure’s cover of ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme‘? Cuz, ya know… lead singer Andy Bell is actually… gay?”

Erasure’s version first appeared in 1986 as a B-side of their third single, “Oh L’Amour”, a modest chart hit at the time that has proven to be one of the band’s signature songs.

Trying to keep track of Erasure’s discography takes more time than anyone but the most devoted fan has to offer. Album track listings vary on different releases throughout the world, not to mention multiple reissues and bonus editions. As far as I know, this original version of “Gimme Gimme Gimme” was never included on any of their official album releases, although there was a remix on a 2011 Wonderland double-CD reissue and a live version was included on Two Ring Circus.

It was also a staple in their live act in the 1980’s – there are several versions on concert DVD releases, some with Andy singing a few a capella bars from ABBA’s “Money Money Money” before launching into “Gimme Gimme Gimme”.

ABBA sure loved repeat-word song titles, didn’t they? Well “Honey, Honey”, I’m not sure “I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do”. But anyway…

I was an ABBA fan from childhood and got into Erasure as a teen, when Andy Bell was one of the few out gay singers. Most gay singers at that time still chose to remain coy in their lyrics – Boy George would tumble for “you” rather than “him.” Frankie might say “Relax” but not “when HE wants to come.” Erasure singing “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” was quite a revelation to my 18-year-old gay self. Covering a song without changing the gender in the lyric is done more frequently now – often just to be provocative. In the 1980’s? Not so much.

I remember playing the song in my freshman dorm room (vinyl on a record player, thank you very much) while my straight but artistic roommate came to the realization that the androgynous singer pleading for a man after midnight was a dude. Towards the end of this version, the song builds as the tempo speeds up … and up… and up…with Andy Bell imploring “Gimme. GimmeGimme….” Well. I thought my roomie’s Depeche-Mode-lovin’ head just might explode.

ABBA had not experienced any kind of renaissance at this point. They were a 70’s relic, prone to ridicule like Saturday Night Fever or Donny and Marie. Most of their LP catalogue was out of print. If you had their old albums, you certainly did not bring them to college. It wasn’t until the 1990’s that the group would have wave after wave of resurgences – ironic or otherwise.

1992 saw the release of Erasure’s ABBA-eque EP – a collection of 4 ABBA covers that hit #1 on the UK charts. Unfortunately, “Gimme Gimme Gimme” was not a part of this collection, which featured “SOS”, “Lay All Your Love On Me”, “Take A Chance On Me” and “Voulez-Vous”. The video for “Take A Chance…” had Vince Clarke and Andy Bell in and out of drag, playing all 4 member of ABBA.

The ABBA Gold greatest hits came out later in 1992 and never stopped selling…. followed by the film Muriel’s Wedding in 1994…

… and then came the A*Teens, the stage musical Mamma Mia, the movie(s)… and the rest is history.

So maybe Erasure had a part in ABBA’s renaissance. Or maybe they just caught the first wave. In any case, their version of “Gimme Gimme Gimme” deserves a listen. Maybe someone will mash them up with Cher AND Madonna for the ultimate gay apocalypse.

Oh! And while Andy Bell was often the one running around scantily clad onstage, here’s a NSFW pic of Vince Clarke from photographer Rankin’s book Male Nudes. Gimme Gimme indeed.

Revisiting Kate Bush’s Gayest Songs

Here’s something for you to chew on: Madonna and Kate Bush are the same age. I always have trouble reconciling this – they never seemed to exist on the same planet, let alone at the same time, but it’s true – The Material Girl and our ethereal goddess have both turned 60 this month. I have always been a fan of both of them and am not here to put down one over the other. I love them for different reasons – to hold one up to the other would be like comparing apples and umami. Diversity among the divas, right?

Madge has garnered plenty of press upon turning 60, so I wanted to focus on Kate, specifically her early gay-centric songs. Two appeared on her second LP, Lionheart, which came out 40 years ago this November – another number I can’t quite wrap my head around. Lionheart may be her least-known LP, rushed out just 9 months after her acclaimed debut, The Kick Inside. Many of the songs were written by Kate throughout her teens, including “Kashka From Baghdad” and “Wow”.

Prone to obscure literary inspiration, Kate would (often reluctantly) explain the origins of her lyrics by vaguely pointing the listener in the right direction and allowing them to fill in the blanks for themselves. “Kashka From Baghdad” is not a song that needs much explanation. The opening line:

Kashka from Baghdad lives in sin they say / With another man / But no one knows who

Kate sings the song from the perspective of a person watching their shadows “Tall and slim in the window opposite /  I long to be with them.”

The chorus, if you can call it that, is: At night they’re seen / Laughing, loving / They know the way / To be happy

Awfully progressive for a catholic teen writing songs in the mid-70’s British suburbs, don’t you think?

“Kashka From Baghdad” is one of Kate’s forgotten early songs – overlooked in favor of all the brilliance that came after. On the other hand, every Kate Bush compilation contains the song “Wow”, which became her third UK top 20 hit song. “‘Wow’ is about the music business,” she said at the time. “Not just rock music but show business in general, including acting and theatre.” Fill in the blanks yourself.

In the book Kate Bush, A Visual Documentary, authors Kevin Cann & Sean Mayes go a bit further in explaining the lyrics: “… people working together hype each other’s spirits up with their enthusiasm and admiration. But as most performers know this can be deceptive – ‘still we don’t head the bill.’ And this actor has a problem: many successful performers are gay, but some are too gay – ‘He’ll never make the Sweeney (a popular UK TV program at the time), be that movie queen. He’s too busy hitting the vaseline.’ For many gay actors, there is no place in the mainstream – we’ll call you – ‘but don’t hold your breath.'”

In the original video for the song, Kate punctuates the ‘hitting the vaseline’ line with a pat on the bum, which was suggestive enough to get the video censored by the BBC.

There is a song called “Moving” on Kate’s first LP that was written about Lindsay Kemp, her dance teacher and mentor. Kemp was/is an openly gay dancer/actor/mime, a highly influential British artist who was involved personally and professionally with David Bowie. He staged and performed in the Ziggy Stardust stage show among many other acclaimed theatrical productions with his own dance company.

“I couldn’t believe how strongly Lindsay communicates with people without even opening his mouth;” Kate said in a 1979 interview. “It was incredible, he had the whole audience in his control, just with his little finger. And it was amazing. I’d never seen anything like it, I really hadn’t. And I felt if it was possible to combine that strength of movement with the voice, then maybe it would work, and that’s what I’ve tried to do.”

I’m not going to pretend to know how vigorously Kemp pursued a film career, but a glance at the IMDB shows a list of film roles that seldom had character names: Pantomime Dame, Jester, Cabaret Performer …

“We’d give you a part, my love, but you’d have to play the fool….”

Well, she did give him a part. In 1993, Kate cast Kemp in his biggest film role costarring with her and Miranda Richardson in The Line, The Cross and the Curve.

Here’s wishing Kate a Happy 60th Birthday. I still hope that she might bring her triumphant 2016 stage show to Broadway for a limited run. We shall see. Whatever her next move, oooh yeah… it’ll be amazing.

You Know The B-52’s Song Roam Is About Butt Sex, Right?

A couple of months ago, the internet burst into flames when Bunny Wailer, songwriter of “The Electric Slide”, confirmed rumors that the song is indeed about a vibrator. (It’s electric!).

An article on the Aazios site quoted him as saying that he wrote the song after a girlfriend told him she didn’t need him because she had a toy she nicknamed the “electric slide”. The story went viral.

Singer Marcia Griffiths was not happy about it. “I don’t sing about vibrators,” she said. “I sing to teach, educate and uplift.”

“Why not both?” I say.

Huffpost, which initially reposted the Aazios story, then printed an update that it was not true… noting, apropos of nothing, that Aazios is “an online source of LGBTQ news and entertainment” – as if that had anything to do with Bunny Wailer, the vibrator, or the validity of the story.

Snopes has labeled the story FALSE with a quote from Bunny Wailer that reads like a statement issued by a lawyer protecting a client from litigation: “At no time have I ever lent credence to a rumor that the song was inspired by anything other than Eddie Grant’s “Electric Avenue“. To state otherwise is a falsehood and offends my legacy, the legacy of singer Marcia Griffiths, and tarnishes the reputation of a song beloved by millions of fans the world over.”

The problem is… he wrote the song in the 1970’s, years before Eddie Grant’s 1982 hit. The song was dusted off and reworked to ride the “Electric” coattails of that hit record. And thirty-five years later, it is still a dance floor staple at a certain calibre of venue. It is understandable that someone who still makes money off this record does not want to suddenly admit that their cash cow is about a dildo.

Bottom line: Either it is or it isn’t. But moving forward, you have a topic of conversation to yell over your 9th cocktail while your mom and Karen from finance are knocking into each other on the dance floor.

So… now can we talk about The B-52’s 1989 hit song “Roam“? You know that it’s about butt sex, right?

Of course, nobody is going to step up and confirm this now. The B-52’s still make a nice living touring the world performing “Roam” along with party classics like “Rock Lobster“ and “Love Shack“. One song they haven’t performed in years is “Dirty Back Road“, a track from their 1980 Wild Planet LP. Co-written by a guy named Robert Waldrop with band member Ricky Wilson, it’s not that much of a stretch to figure out what this little ditty is about:

Wreckless driving / Like a sports car / God I want you / Like a fuel engine / Energized line / Like a road / You ride me / Like a road / You ride me / Foot on the peddle / Feet in the air / Sand in my hair / Don’t look back / Don’t look behind you / Reckless drivin’ on / Dirty back road

Pretty obvious, right? Well… of course not, according to YouTube comments. People will argue about anything. I know, I know. Never read the comments.

So lets move on to “Roam“: Co-written again by Robert Waldrop, this time with the surviving members of the band. Ricky Wilson had passed away from AIDS complications in 1985 during the recording of the Bouncing Off The Satellites LP. After taking a few years off, the band came back in 1989 with the LP Cosmic Thing, which would be their biggest commercial success. The singles “Love Shack” and “Roam” topped the charts around the world and still get regular airplay today.

When did I realize that “Roam“ was about butt sex? I couldn’t say. I just always knew. I saw Robert Waldrop’s name in the cassette booklet, read the lyrics to “Roam“ and thought “Look at that. He cleaned up ‘Dirty Back Road‘.” Well, not completely – the second line has them “dancing down those dirty and dusty trails.” It may not be as blatant, but it’s there.

The phrase “Take it hip to hip rock it through the wilderness” is repeated about a dozen times throughout the song.

The chorus: Roam if you want to / Roam around the world / Without wings without wheels / Roam around the world / Without anything but the love we feel…

And then there’s this verse:

Hit the air-strip to the sunset / Ride the arrow to the target / Take it hip to hip rock it through the wilderness / Around the world the trip begins with a kiss

(at this point in the video, a banana goes through a hole in a bagel)

I would like to make it clear that I do not make these pronouncements as some sort of slander. Believe me, I am a big fan of butt sex and partake as often as possible.

In posting this piece, I realize that there are people who will get annoyed or upset that their favorite B-52’s hit is all about taking a ride on the Hershey highway, but really… if you think this is shocking or not possibly true then you never really understood the band and/or their sense of humor in the first place. People who only know them from Top 40 radio might not remember that they were/are a predominantly gay party band. They were messy, subversive and more than just a little punk. Fun punk.

If a clueless fan does not know that, it is akin to saying that you love John Waters because of the films Hairspray and Cry Baby, but have never seen Pink Flamingos or Female Trouble.

Like many other bands before or since, the B-52’s started out edgy and moved towards mainstream pop as their career progressed. While their current tour does pull heavily from their first two LPs, their bread and butter is still playing the hit songs. They are a business – not so much a band as a corporation like their contemporaries The Go-Go’s and Blondie.

Even if the B-52’s issued a statement today that Roam never was or is about getting popped in the pooper, the motivation would not be to tell the truth, but rather to protect their own livelihood. Case in point: The Village People, Inc. When faced with anti-gay protests for a gig in Jamaica back in 1998, their representative had the balls to issue a statement that there was nothing gay about them. The fucking Village People, people. I would like to think that the B-52’s are still way too cool to ever do such a thing.

So… I just thought you ought to know. Roam is about takin’ it up the ass. And now you have a topic of conversation when you hear it wafting over the airwaves at the supermarket or when you are in line at the bank. I am not going to debate the evidence. It is what it is. I think it’s a hoot – it makes me chuckle whenever I hear it. But if you feel a strong opposition to the theory… may I invite you to hit the airstrip… and teach yourself the Electric Slide. Boogie woogie woogie.

Sheena Is A Grandmother

This is a totally hypothetical scenario:

“DUDE! Dude. Duuuuuuuude. Remember that notice on the bulletin board at Parsons? About the Ramones mural in Forest Hills? DUDE! I got it! I totally fucking got it. Totally painting it. Yeah – I love the Ramones. Totally built my 80’s playlist around them on Spotify. I’m tellin’ ya, dude… every time My Sharona comes on, I totally have to stop what I’m doing and CRANK. IT. UP.

“So I went on Google Images and found this cool shot I wanna use… and they approved it but they said that the second drummer is in the pic. Marky – the replacement guy. So I gotta take him out and find a pic of the first drummer, cuz the original band is from Forest Hills, right? That’s why they’re paying for a mural in the train underpass. Dude, it’s gonna be AWESOME.

“So I projected the picture on the wall to trace it and I did my thing, man. Totally smoked and painted in the underpass all day, ridin’ the buzz and listenin’ to tunage. Awesome. Like every day should be, right? I was totally stoked just makin’ art and gettin’ PAID, man! And I added a hawk flying overhead in the mural cuz AMERICA, man!

“So… two days later I start gettin’ phone calls. Dude. They are going ballistic because I left out fuckin’ Dee Dee Ramone instead of Marky, the second drummer. There’s TWO drummers on the wall, man, and NO bass player. How shitty would that sound? And Marky’s from Brooklyn. Doubleyou Tee Eff, Man. The fans and Dee Dee’s family are calling them and pissed off and crying and shit…

“I mean how the fuck was I supposed to know? I’m like – they all dressed the same and Marky’s wearin’ shades so maybe lets just say it IS Dee Dee, right? Like, who really gives a shit? That’s what I said! But no good.

“So now I gotta go back and add fuckin’ DEE DEE to the mural. Not so much fun the second time around, man. I set up my projector and traced out the biggest fuckin’ Dee Dee you’ve ever seen. I was pissed! He’s blocking the logo, man! Covered up Joey’s name. Plus Joey’s kinda in the background like in the picture anyway but at least Dee Dee’s there, right? A big fuckin’ Dee Dee.

“Never again, dude. Whatever. As they say, ‘Hey Ho! Never mind the bollocks!'”

Category: music