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The B-52s - Source: ONE News
As an adolescent festering in the provincial tundra otherwise known as Wanganui, circa early 80s, I often consoled myself with a cassette tape.
Ordered through what was then called the World Record Club, I played it many times on the Sony tape recorder my Dad bought on a missionary trip to Papua New Guinea.
If you concentrated, the squeaking of the cogs was audible, as they made your music.
The tape was an eponymous offering from a group of art students in Athens Georgia, who, on account of being drunk and having nothing to do formed a band called the B-52s.
The cover came in parrot yellow, and showed the band.
I most remember the size of the hair the girls wore. I was then, and remain, a fan of insuperably large hair.
In retrospect, they were so appealing because they exuded the patina of newness that as a teenager is so desirable (you are, by virtue of hormones, a new creature), without the associated risks.
They didn't curse. They dressed in what Americans call 'thrift store', and we call 'op shop', clothes. Their songs were like pop art canvases.
The B-52s went on to write one of the defining party anthems, Love Shack.
Moi? I managed to get out of Wanganui, though, as anyone who has ever lived there will agree, you never really truly leave.
We meet again
I encountered the B-52s again the other day on Governor's Island, just off the tip of Manhattan.
They were playing a concert there, and were due to be interviewed beforehand.
I skulked around with my cameraman and soundman, surveying the fans, people like myself who had been moved by the B-52s in their teenage years.
The intervening decades had reduced us to a mist of consumerism, dormancy and cellulite.
The band themselves were a pleasure.
The girls were now women in late middle age, with smaller hair. The men were more self-effacing than I expected.
It's silly to want people to appear as their public personas, but the urge remains: entertain me.
One of the band was missing, Ricky Wilson, the original guitarist and brother of singer Cindy.
Keith Strickland, who had been the drummer but had taken up guitar after Ricky's death from AIDS-related cancer, talked about writing 'Love Shack' while grieving for his friend.
He explained that in youth, you're more present (or vividly involved) in the moment than at any subsequent time; somehow the rawness of mourning had reproduced that alchemy.
Music and thunderstoms
Later the band played. It was stiflingly hot. In the darkness over the harbour, I watched fork lighting march towards us.
The thunderstorm hit after about six songs.
As the B-52s cleared the stage, the DJ who had been playing before resumed. The hardier members of the audience, mostly shirtless 'Muscle Mary' gays and trashed young fans, started dancing.
My camera and sound men, having taken refuge in the DJ pagoda, started dancing too.
Lighting burst around us, water poured through the sides, roadies scurried around trying to prevent death by electrocution. The storm approached a climax.
At some point, I started doing a dance called 'The Robot'.
"What's the worst that could happen," shouted the DJ, "that we could be struck by lightning?"
The crowd roared its fearlessness at this possibility. It was so pure, one of those wonderful transitions when the substance of a moment alters for the better.
The B-52s didn't return. The dance party continued; we took the ferry home.
The thunderstorm was reportedly the worst in 30 years, downing trees in Central Park.
I mentioned this at the local rice and beans shop, where, at midnight, I bought dinner.
The guy behind the counter pointed to one of the housing projects across the road and told me three kids had been shot to death there in a drug deal gone wrong. They were 17-years-old.
They would stay that way forever.
Click here to read more of Tim Wilson's blogs.
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