Quantcast
 Everett True

Song of the day – 638: Inflatable Boy Clams

Song of the day – 638: Inflatable Boy Clams
Decrease Font Size Increase Font Size Text Size Print This Page

Wait a minute. This is the greatest music ever made. Minimal primal electronic femme-led no wave rock’n’roll. And it originally came out in 1981. And I’ve never heard it before. What the fuck have I been doing all these years?

It’s a little bit Kleenex, a little bit Judy Nylon, a little bit Jane Bond And The Undercover Men, a little bit Yoko Ono… and a whole bunch deranged, good-time, laconic, smart, silence-bred, haunting, secretive SPECIAL music. ‘I’m Sorry’ is a spoken word elegy to a borrowed blue dress, spoiled by an unexpected period. ‘Skeletons’ is the one that’s ruined my heart. So plaintive, so mournful and stripped-back, so other. A love song from the closet for Halloween-obsessed kids to dance to. ‘Boystown’ is yr basic but no less fucked-up school-yard paranoia.

As one-half of The Garbage & The Flowers pointed out to me a few days back, such are the ways of the Internet you can now discover music you never even dreamt existed a few seconds previous, read about it, listen to it – and download it for free simultaneously. Here. Here’s a site created for, and dedicated to, Inflatable Boy Clams’ one five-track seven-inch EP alone. Gotta love the Internet sometimes.

Check out Judy’s blog here: http://artbrief.blogspot.com/JoJo has written a poem for us (she performs under the name Monique Marquisa De Magdalena these days). You can read it on the “STORIES” page.Welcome to Inflatable Boy Clams dot com. This is a record that will haunt me ’till the day I die. The first time I heard this record back in the early 80’s I was mesmerized. With my music listonline, I often get emails from all over asking about this record, so I thought to get the domain name and spread the gospel that is Inflatable Boy Clams. This is an ongoing research project and I hope to get more info for the site. I’ve had contact with many involved including a few band members. If you have any stories, or just want to sat ‘hi,’ let me know via email .

HERE’S THE MUSIC! And here’s the poem from JoJo Planteen, one-third of Inflatable Boy Clams. I hope it’s OK to reproduce it. (If it’s not, please tell me. I’ll remove it.)

first there were three girls…..
carol, judy, and jojo
fooling around with the boys
guitars, amps, bass…..

in the white snow
playing and making
white & black skeletons

in the distance…..
a french girl/boy
blowing a golden horn

she joined us too
-genvieve-
& we played more & more…

throwing snow-balls
at each other
playing our frozen
keyboards, drums
white-snowed-fender
guitar….sounding like
10-year-olds

and all the cute,
young boys
watching us playing..
at the death club
egging us on and on…

cutting a 45 in judy’s
living room
with all the boys
cords, amps,
recording machines….

now 4 little clams
playing joking
learning about
life, boys, sex, love &
music!… music! … music!……

the inflatable boy clams….
never have i heard
anything like them!…..

— jojo planteen

http://inflatableboyclams.com

(Did I mention already that, Bangs fuck, this is some of the greatest music I’ve ever encountered? This trumps almost EVERYTHING from 1981 – and 1981 is my chosen year. The year I was most unhappy, but the year with the most resonance for me in music.)

There’s a brilliant comment left on the YouTube ‘video’ for this.

I got an art school degree just listening to this.

I was tipped off to this by a member of this Brisbane band. Reckon I ought to be keeping an ear out for them?

Here’s the pull quote for the quote-heavy heavies.

Some of the greatest music ever made was created in 1981 – perhaps somewhat implausibly – by a group called Inflatable Boy Clams.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.