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Desperation Dancing It occurred to me this morning that in writing about Saturday, I made no mention of the space shuttle disaster. This was not because I felt it was inconsequential, but because I think the atrocious news media have managed to say everything that can be said and so much more. Flipping great wadges of cash were lost. Brilliant talented people died tragically. May they rest in peace. I must confess, actually, that I was impressed with the comments from the monkey from the White House for a change. Despite his idiocy, he managed to be, I thought, eloquent and meaningful. I suppose there must be a little good even in the worst of us. (As I'm fond of saying, "We are all the Devil, but we are also all the Christ." I'm getting seriously into certain aspects of Gnosticism these days.) Moving on to more trivial issues, I bought several more CDs yesterday. I hadn't been to Cutler's in about two months, and I'd finally found a bunch of my Frequent Buyers Cards and realised I had enough stamps accumulated for at least a $20 credit, so of course, I had to go spend more than that. I'm currently in the midst of enjoying the Pet Shop Boys' DISCO 3. Five at least sort-of new songs ("Positive Role Model" was in CLOSER TO HEAVEN, and I think I like the remix of that version better than this studio version, as I think the lyric is better.), and five remixes of tunes from RELEASE, the last album, of which I can say I think 4 are pretty much guaranteed to provoke head-bobbing (the fifth is a stately, wistful ache-coustic end-of-the-night take on "London"). Other purchases included a used copy of the CD single of the recent remake of Pat Benatar's "We Belong" that made me bounce around like an idiot on dancefloors about a year ago, a used copy of Jane Siberry's out-of-print first album. The piece-de-resistance, though, for me, is CASINO CLASSICS, a hard-to-find two-disc set of 1990s remixes of Saint Etienne tunes by a veritable who's-who of the dancefloors, both then and now (Aphex Twin, Chemical Brothers, Death in Vegas, David Holmes, Lionrock, Psychonauts, Sure Is Pure, Underworld, et al.). This is not the Saint Etienne I know and love (and saw at Irving Plaza a couple months ago...That review is still promised, and coming.), but what happens when Bob and Pete and Sarah hand off their tunes to jocks who really know how to make you wanna shake your ass; even nearly ten years later, the majority of these mixes sound remarkably relevant. I'm struck by how often the songs with the most intensely emotional lyrics (happy or sad doesn't seem to matter) are the ones that most make me want to dance. "Days go by, and still, I think of you," and I can't decide whether to dance or cry, so sometimes, I'd do both. "I want a positive role model!" Who's it gonna be, now? "Th'ow yo' hands up at me!" Indeed. And then there's Alison Moyet wailing, "Cant stop now, don't you know, I ain'evahgonna let yougo. DON'T GOOOOOOO!" Desperation dancing, highly compatible with "drunken dancing." Sometimes, it's the only way. r
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