ANODYNE, "ANACELICA" b/w "THE SEA" (GRIG Records 45, 1985)
...I truly did. In Jr. and High School I REALLY wanted to be Goth. I occasionally wore pink scarves, hung out in front of mall book stores well after closing, pretended to read Nietzsche. I even spurned high school graduation to lie on a mattress at a friend's house, eat cucumber sandwiches and listen to Kraftwerk in the dark (and, to my later credit, The Louvin Brothers' 'Satan Is Real' which we borrowed from his mom cos it had the devil in the title).
But, like so many other things pre-matriculative, I lacked fluency in the social cues that would have opened & allowed me to rub clove-smelling shoulders with the jnco jean goth jet set. SO, instead, I had to settle for standing invitation Saturday nights spent playing AD&D and getting good grades.
So lame.
Thankfully, some 'rich college twentysomethings' - to quote people who saw them live - from near my neck of the woods (Mobile, Alabama) were much more successful in affecting a death rock southern pose.
Anodyne - for those less quick on the wikipedia-draw - is not only a (good) song title by the Cocteau Twins and a (dumb) album by (fake rural dumbos) Uncle Tupelo; it is also a generic term for late 19th century patent medicinal concoctions believed to ease pain. Laudanum and the like.
Which is fitting as Anodyne's attack is patent Chameleons UK guitar-goff with a dash of Bauhaus. ...which is probably inadvertent unless the import bins in the Port City circa 1985 were A LOT more adventurous (which I highly doubt). Dudes probably thought they sounded like poo2.
Aspirations notwithstanding, if I had heard this in H.S., you can best believe I would have added it to my solo ethereal spotlight dance fantasy mix.
Can you believe girls weren't lining up to date me? Maybe Anodyne had better luck with the ladies (or men) in Mobile.
SO! Pile up your hair and close the blinds and dance like only Daniel Ash can see you.
'ANACELICA'
'THE SEA'
