We Are The Last Teenagers

Clinic “Kimberley” (live at WFMU) – Right now I am trying to figure out whether or not I should see Clinic at Southpaw in Brooklyn tomorrow evening. I have a ticket, but I have a few good reasons for sitting this out. For one, I’ve developed an aggravating chest cold which has reduced me to a hoarse-voiced phlegm machine. I am not sure when this show will be over (though it can’t be too late, since it seems that Clinic absolutely refuse to play sets any longer than 40 minutes), and so I do not know if I will be able to catch the last train home, and I have not set up a place to stay if I were to be stranded overnight. I really would prefer not to stay at someone else’s place, because I very rarely sleep well when I do. Clinic will be performing a lot of new material from their forthcoming Winchester Cathedral LP, which is both a good and a bad thing – I’m very curious to hear the new stuff, but I generally can’t get into hearing unfamiliar songs played live. It’s just not as fun for me. I’m on the fence right now. Talk me into it/out of it, folks. The power is in your hands.

Shampoo “Viva La Megababes” – I’m a bit amazed that I’ve never posted a Shampoo song on this blog before today. Shampoo were a duo of teenage girls from England who scored a series of cheesy, glossy, sassy teen pop hits in the UK and Japan in the mid-90s. “Viva La Megababes” is the apotheosis of their aesthetic; a mix of flamboyant self-aggrandizement (“we’re blonde haired teenage terminators!”) and bratty put-downs (“hippy chicks are sad and supermodels suck!”) set to hyperpop candy rock. It should hardly come as a surprise that Shampoo are among the all-time top selling pop acts in Japanese history.