(Chicks On Speed/Inertia)

The unbearable lightness of being a break-dancing rent boy…

Sometime around 2002, fashion damaged German/Americans Chicks On Speed reached their critical and commercial peak thanks to what was (then) a fairly radical musical approach. Their trick of combining aggressively lo-fi early ‘80s dance sounds and detached spoken-word vocals with heavy handed sexual politics and a trendy cut'n'paste aesthetic made them the undisputed art school darlings of that era. A million and one younger bands paid tribute, running the gamut from tolerable to hysterically, unlistenably awful before disappearing as quickly as they arrived. For Toronto queercore group Kids On TV, though, the heady days of 2002 endure like the residue of cheap speed on the cistern of popular culture. The press release accompanying their latest effort uses phrases like 'punk', 'booty house', 'electro', 'no rave' (points for sneakily inventing a new genre) and 'electro', as well as referencing the band's sweat-drenched, interactive live show. If you're wondering about the music, opening track Breakdance Hunx pretty much sets the tone … stealing a keyboard riff from DAF's late ‘70s kraut-rocker Der Mussolini, the track examines the ethics of trading sex for money over cheap Casio beats. Some standard issue 'ironic' hi-nrg stompers and morose lo-fi moments (a gratingly unsubtle cover of Roxy Music's In Every Dream Home A Heartache) follow, and there we have it. My failure to engage with Kids On TV on any political or aesthetic level probably betrays a certain lack of intellectual rigour on my part, but fuck it, I'm off to listen to Justin Timberlake instead.

**

ALASDAIR DUNCAN

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