Kieron Gillen's workblog

 
             

   
 
 

1/15/2004

 
Just recieved through the mail. A better class of club flyer:

UNPOP
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 21
8PM-LATE
@ THE PENTHOUSE (above The Freebutt, Brighton)
**FREE ENTRY**

Unpop. Weird Pop. Pop gone wrong. Beautifully errored Pop with a glitch in its component parts. From post-Nazi polysexual alien kabuki robots to lesbian teen runaway lovers fleeing the Lilya 4-Ever dystopia of dead-Communist Russia. A gorgeous parade of heroes and villains, misfits and mis-shapes marginalised by the grinding, crusher wheels of Pete Waterman’s Evil Pop Industry where every little star save Pete Burns is slung back on the production line and pulped into homogenic pop putty, ready to be remoulded into more Will’s and Gareth’s. Even Kylie, Pop’s own ass-wielding hologram redeemer, could only cheat her fate at the cold hands of Nick Cave, a rock and a pool, gloriously reincarnating herself forever as a typeface (German Bold Italic). Unpop is soundbite slogan shorthand for a kind of Outsider Pop. It’s a badge, a clubhouse, a heterotopia – the name of a better time and place, a world that never quite existed, except perhaps in Leiji Matsumoto’s head and Dickon Edwards’ hair. On February 21st, from 8pm til late, at The Penthouse a portal will be opening to this shinier, happier universe. In Unpop Klaus Nomi and Jobriath were never slain by AIDS before their rightful thrones were cruelly snatched away by metteur en scene’s, in Unpop Gary Numan *did* die in that plane crash and thankfully never got to hear Nine Inch Nails.

Why Pop? Because it’s the only genuinely rootless music. The only music that actively abhors atavism and all the fake guitar-smashing that goes with it. It’s the only music that thinks starjumps are fucking cool. Every so often a ‘what-the-fuck??’ solar flare of weirdness erupts from its cold, controlled landscape. These chancers are the Unpop avatars. Some of them were visionaries, most just dared to be wrong in a world where wrongness (unstraightness, ungreyness, uniqueness) is sent to the showers and the charity shop bargain bins. Some of them had Number 1’s. Most had their flame pissed out before that ‘difficult’ second single. They *all* desperately, heroically, wanted to be wanted.

Pop exists purely because of and in spite of itself. Pop is fearless and deathless. You think Pop is for girls? You got facial hair like a polar bear, your face is mean like Halloween, you got the IQ of a didgeridoo, you look insane ain’t got no brain, got a big fat belly like a bowl full of jelly. Ooh stick you, your mama too. And your daddy.

Unpop is NOT about kitsch, it’s about finding style, sensitivity and intelligence in the uncoolest of all musics.

All Pop, All Style.

We are Unpop. We’re rockin’ in our teenage world. Be us.




David McNamee - author of the unwritten authoritative bible on Outsider Pop, ‘Unpop’, published by photocopiers – and electric ‘friends’ will be spinning the following…

Shibuya kei/J-pop, Neue Deutsche Welle, Krautpop, Northern Electronic, Lascivious Parisienne Pop, Undisco, Wrong Funk, No New Wave, Teenage Death Songs, Electrocock, Glitch Pop, Cyber Pop, Romantic (the ‘New’ is redundant), Futurists not Retro-Futurists, pirates, dandys, androids and glitteringly evil plastic sex conjured by starry-eyed neon-veined eunuchs. !!! 21st Century Girls A Flock Of Seagulls Adam Ant Afrika Bambaata Alan Parson's Project Alexander Robotnick Alberto Camerini Alizee Anita Ward The Art Of Noise Arthur Russell The Associates The B-52’s BBC Radiophonics Workshop Babylon Zoo Beach Boys Blancmange Bow Wow Wow Boytronic Buggles The Carpenters Can Chicks On Speed Cibo Matto Coach House Rhythm Section Common Sense Connie Case Cornelius The Cramps Cristina Crush Daphne & Celeste David Bowie Deee-Lite Delia Derbyshire Devo Dexys Midnight Runners Dick Hyman Digital Emotion Dinosaur DAF DFA Don Cherry Donna Summer Dusty Springfield EBN-OZN ELO Edwina Biglet & The Miglets Eighth Wonder Ex-Girl Exkurs Fannypack Fat Truckers Fox Fantastic Plastic Machine Fashion Fehlfarben Fischerspooner Freelance Hellraiser Fosca The Flying Lizards Fuzzbox Gary Numan Giorgio Moroder Gonzales Grauzone Gravy Train!!! Hanson Heaven 17 Holger Czukay Human League Ian Dury Jackson 5 Japan Jefferson Airplane Jobriath Joe Meek John Foxx The Juan McLean Julee Cruise Kahimi Karie Kenickie Kid606 Kid Creole & The Coconuts Kings Have Long Arms Klaus Nomi Kleenex The Knack Kraftwerk Kriss Kross Kylie L’Trimm Laptop Laid Back Leilani Lene Lovich Liquid Liquid Loose Joints M Marc Almond Max Tundra Maximilian Hecker Men Without Hats Minamino Yoko Minnie Ripperton Miss Kittin Mochipet The Modern Lovers Mylene Farmer Naked Eyes Nancy Sinatra Nena New Order The Normal OMD Orlando The Osmonds The Passions Patrick Wolf Peaches Pet Shop Boys Pizzicato Five Prince Princess Superstar Printed Circuit Pulp Puffy AmiYumi Rachel Sweet The Ramones Richard X Rocky Horror Roxy Music Sandy Steel Savage Process Sexus Shampoo The Shangri La’s Shonen Knife Sigue Sigue Sputnik Silicon Teens Soft Cell Sparks Starter Steve Miller Band Strawberry Switchblade Sugababes Takako Minekawa Talking Heads Tatu Telex Towa Tei Ultravox Vanessa Paradis Visage The Waitresses Was Not Was White Town Yello Yellow Magic Orchestra Yoko Ono Yukari Fresh and much, much more...


 

.

HOME
&
ARCHIVES


Kieron Gillen's Workblog, foo'.