Le déjeuner sur l'herbe

Like everyone else who was around back in those days, I came to Bow Wow Wow because of “I Want Candy.” I bought the EP with the “shocking” cover (a naked 15-year-old Annabella Lwin - of course all her naughty parts were concealed). Their music was poppy and catchy, but the repetitiveness soon wore thin; how much tribal drum can you take?

By the time it was over, I had bought four albums (including Annabella’s awful debut solo album), seen them perform live, and gotten a t-shirt signed by the Burmese Lolita.

Other than seeing the albums every time I browse through my record collection, I haven’t given much thought to Bow Wow Wow lately. Then, as if back from the dead, the band surfaces this year on the soundtrack to Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette.” And not just once, but three times. A hot Kevin Shields remix of “I Want Candy” is suddenly back in the public consciousness.

What can a poor boy do, except to jump on this bandwagon while it’s rolling. I dug into the record crates, and pulled out and dusted off those Bow Wow Wow disks. I decided not to go with the way-too-obvious “I Want Candy,” but instead went a little deeper, taking “Louis Quatorze” from the EP; a couple of songs from a 1981 compilation titled “I Want Candy,” which I think was rereleased a year later as “The Last of the Mohicans”; and the single “Aphrodisiac,” from their last 80s album, “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going.” I also found, on Annabella’s Web site, a weird version of David Bowie’s “Fame,” which I tossed in just for fun. And "Fever" is from Annabella's aforementioned 1986 debut solo effort.

Louis Quatorze.mp3
C30C60C90 Go.mp3
Fools Rush In.mp3
Aphrodisiac.mp3
Fever.mp3 Annabella solo
Fame Shmame.mp3 Annabella solo

Some other things about Bow Wow Wow that I didn’t know, courtesy of Wiki:
*Lwin's mother alleged exploitation of a minor for immoral purposes and instigated a Scotland Yard investigation. As a result the band was only allowed to leave England after (manager Malcolm) McLaren promised not to promote Lwin as a "sex kitten". This included an agreement to not use a nude photograph depicting Lwin as the woman in Manet's The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe), though the picture was used as the cover of an EP in 1982.
*Annabella was born Myant Myant Aye (Burmese for "cool cool high", the name given to her by a Burmese priest).
*Annabella reunited with former bandmate Leigh Gorman to reform Bow Wow Wow for a tour in 1997, and has had a frequent small-venue concert schedule since 2003 (see the above pic ^).

The Bow Wow Wow homepage.

posted by aikin @ 10:40 AM