Soundtrack in my head: Fuzzbox: Love Is The Slug
You know you’re getting old when the bands that you listened to in college start going on reunion tours. I chronicled the 2010 comeback of The Primitives in a previous post. I didn’t know until later that a more obscure group called We’ve Got A Fuzzbox and We’re Going To Use It, known more commonly as Fuzzbox also reunited for a tour that year. This all-girl group formed in 1985 and dressed in colorful clothes and even more colorful big-hair mohawks. Like The Primitives, Fuzzbox played pop-tinged punk (or punk-tinged pop), but the band was less well-known and seemed to have more of a punk DIY ethic which they displayed well in the video below :
In 1989 Fuzzbox became exclusively a dance-pop group. I can’t say that I was fond of this phase of their development, so I won’t post the video–but if you wish, you can find it here. Quite honestly, I wonder if the band members themselves were fond of this phase–this occurred after they’d signed to a new label.
One genre I’ve grown to appreciate as I’ve gotten older is punk. (And yes, I once successfully sneaked The Clash onto the dance floor.) I was quite into the punk scene as a college student in the 80’s even though I never had a mohawk or a leather jacket. I could pogo and slam dance with the best of them. Oh yeah, and the scene in Repo Man where two friends clutch each other and swing each other around in the mosh pit? Yeah, a friend of mine and I did that too. (Unfortunately the clip cuts off that part of the scene a bit too early–what they did and we did was to grab each other by the wrists and move around in circles, build up some centrifugal force and send ourselves flying into the surrounding crowd.) But I never did any stage dives.
Fuzzbox went on a reunion tour in 2010 and disbanded again in March 2011. Apparently they had no intention of making this an ongoing project. With the tour, they released a cover version of the 1979 hit Pop Muzik by M. I actually like this cover version.
Sure, laugh if you will, but I get the feeling that Fuzzbox would laugh right with you. They look like they’re having fun with this and not taking themselves too seriously. I actually understand the lyrics better and understand better the irony that was the original song’s intention. I can’t help but wonder if they are also making a statement about their pop years. They definitely got some of their attitude back.
