Monday, October 24, 2022

Song(s) of the Day # 3,190 GIFT

 In 1998 I went to Manahttan with one of my best lifetime friends for a couple of weeks. We had the most wonderful experience. A couple of English bachelors roaming one of the best cities on Earth. Still the best in my estimation. Punching above our weight with wonderful woman who gave us the time of day because of our English accents giving us novelty value that we probably didn't deserve.

One evening we found ourselves at a club I seem to remember being called The English Disc,o where we met and had a great evening with a cool Chinese American girl and her friend. The club was festooned with showroom mannequin dummies and played exclusively British Pop Music, mostly from the Eighties. At at a certain point I remember the DJ playing Joy Division and then following it up immediately with Duran Duran. Something which would never have happened in an English club given our strict, almost regimented perspectives about music. What was cool and why. Earnest men in long coats and hedonistic men on yachts. Not things that belonged together on the dancefloor.

A similarly disorientating experience can be had listening through to Momentary Presence the debut album from Brooklyn Pop Psychedelicists GIFT. Clearly Anglophiles, every track reminded me of British bands, but a whole fistful of different ones, generally from the early Eighties with Spacemen 3 occasionally chucked into the mix.

Mostly though it's early Eighties British Synth. Simple Minds between New Gold Dream and Sparkle, Flock of Seagulls, Fixx, OMD, Psychedelic Furs and the like. Highly listenable Pop but certainly rather odd to someone of my vintage.

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