'We are just dancing fools'
THE B-52s - Funplex
***1/2
THE party started with the scream of a lobster going into a pot of boiling
water.
When The B-52s rode in on the crest of the New Wave scene in 1979, no one had
heard or seen anything quite like them.
They came from Athens, Georgia, the same college town as REM, but headed to
New York to find their feet in the same crowd as Blondie and Talking Heads
at clubs like Max’s Kansas City and CBGB.
Their debut hit Rock Lobster was deeply silly but has there ever been a better
opportunity to get up and dance so insanely?
They wore outlandish costumes, the two women sporting towering beehives that
make Amy Winehouse look vaguely normal. The tacky DayGlo colours of their
record covers also helped them stand out from the crowd.
After continued success through much of the Eighties, a long pause in the
Nineties and a full-on return to touring in recent years, they’re back with
their first studio album in 16 years, Funplex. In typical B-52s style, it’s
a high energy summons to the dancefloor with the emphasis firmly on fun.
The album has a glossy, contemporary sheen, helped no doubt by the sonic
mastery of New Order producer Steve Osborne. But there’s also plenty of
trademark B-52s weirdness including one song about sex in outer space in the
distant future.
All of the original line-up bar the late Ricky Wilson remain, including his
sister Cindy, fellow singers and lyricists Kate Pierson and Fred Schneider
and the man who writes most of the music, Keith Strickland.
When I meet Kate (latest hair colour pink) and Keith (hardly a line on his
face and not a grey hair in sight) at a West London hotel, they tell the
band’s story with much humour and affection, starting naturally with the
lobster.
First, Kate gives me a private rendition of the lobster’s screech (sounding a
bit like Little Britain mental patient Anne these days) before explaining it
was inspired by another prime exponent of weird sounds, Yoko Ono.
