30 YEARS AGO: 1981

MUSIC

New Order – Movement

Depeche Mode – Speak & Spell

The Replacements – Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash

Echo & The Bunnymen – Heaven Up Here

The Cure – Faith

FILM

Raiders of the Lost Ark (dir. Steven Spielberg)

Mad Max 2 a.k.a The Road Warrior (dir. George Miller)

The Evil Dead (dir. Sam Raimi)

Superman II (dir. Richard Lester/Richard Donner)

Escape From New York (dir. John Carpenter)

COMICS

– Frank Miller takes over writing & art duties on Daredevil #168, which also introduces the character Elektra.

– Los Bros. Hernandez self-publish Love & Rockets #1.

Uncanny X-Men #141/142 feature the fan-favorite “Days Of Future Past” story arc by Chris Claremont & John Byrne.

Weirdo (edited by R. Crumb) debuts.

Nexus #1 by Mike Baron & Steve Rude is published by Capital Comics, an early salvo in the independent/creator-owned comics boom of the 1980s.

30 YEARS AGO

MOVIES

THE SHINING (d. Stanley Kubrick)

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (d. Irvin Kershner)

KAGEMUSHA (d. Akira Kurosawa)

MAD MAX (d. George Miller)

RAGING BULL (d. Martin Scorsese)

ALBUMS

JOY DIVISION – CLOSER

THE CURE – SEVENTEEN SECONDS

DAVIE BOWIE – SCARY MONSTERS

U2 – BOY

JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO – DOUBLE FANTASY

COMICS

RAW #1 is published

The Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont & John Byrne (Uncanny X-Men #129-138)

Domu by Katsuhiro Otomo begins its serialization in Young Magazine

Epic Illustrated begins

The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman & George Perez debuts

G.

Noising Machine Singles Club: 11

SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES

“SWIMMING HORSES”

b/w “Let Go”/”The Humming Wires”

Released 3/16/84

(Siouxsie & The Banshees)

“Swimming Horses” comes from the brief period in Siouxsie & The Banshees‘ existence when Robert Smith of The Cure was the group’s guitarist. Robert and The Banshees already had a bit of history together before he joined on as a full-time member in 1983 – The Cure opened for the then-bigger Banshees on a 1979 tour, a jaunt that saw Robert first fill in on axe duties for the band when their original guitarist bailed halfway through. By 1983, Smith considered his band all-but-finished after the emotional and physically draining tour for the band’s Pornography album the previous year, and though he agreed not to officially call an end to The Cure at the behest of his label boss, Smith was ready to be a background player for awhile. Enter The Banshees, who at the time had lost their most recent of what would prove to be a seemingly endless line of revolving door guitarists. Smith had been friends with Banshees bassist Steve Severin for a number of years and respected the Banshees musically, so the decision to join up and have the weight lifted from his shoulders was a presumably easy one. Except that he had to make it complicated.

Not happy to just be in the studio with The Banshees, Smith and Severin also decided to record an album of psychedelic pop in their downtime under the moniker The Glove. In addition, The Cure carried on, eschewing the extreme gothic doom of Pornography for the electropop of “Let’s Go To Bed” and “The Walk”, which were released as standalone singles in 1982 and 1983, respectively. Smith would literally travel from one session to the next while working on all of these various projects, grabbing catnaps in the back of the cabs that spirited him away to whatever session was next. This triple-duty left him understandably exhausted. By the time Siouxsie & The Banshees’ Hyaena album was released in June 1984, Smith had scored the biggest hit of his career with The Cure single “The Lovecats”, which charted at #7. The rest of The Banshees and Siouxsie Sioux especially became increasingly concerned that The Cure’s heightened profile would lead to scheduling and other conflicts. And they were right. Having been completely worm down by his work on three musical projects, Robert Smith was sickly ill and visited his physician, who told him that in his current state he was in no state to join the Banshees for their world tour in support of Hyaena. Thus, Smith exited the Banshees, the Glove was resigned to side-project hell and The Cure were free to begin their utter domination of the emerging alternative music movement. Siouxsie still holds a grudge and calls Robert Smith “Fat Bob” in interviews to this day.

But ANYWAY…”Swimming Horses”. Never ranked among The Banshees finest moments like “Spellbound” or “Peek-a-boo”, “Horses” still comes across as a delightfully bouncy slice of psychedelic pop, much in keeping with Smith’s influence at the time. The main piano hook was almost certainly contributed by him, as a very similar sounding line would anchor The Cure song “Six Different Ways”, released on The Head On The Door album the following year. Siouxsie lyrics add acid to this backing, with lines like:

thrown back again to drown
kinder with poison
than pushed down a well – or a face burnt to hell
feel the cruel stones breaking her bones
dead before born

….but with the song’s playful music bed it’s easy to miss these dark lines, and most like the chorus:

he gives birth to swimming horses

….is what sticks with the listener. Though you or I might be interested in a pop song where the chorus mentions the fact that it’s the male seahorse that gives birth instead of the female, the general U.K. public didn’t seem to agree and “Swimming Horses” made little impact on the charts. A shame really, because’s it a nice little song and acts as a good example of the music that came out of the Banshees’ brief Robert Smith era.

G.

Top Of The Pops performance, circa ’84.

Freaky Pinkie Toe

For the better part of ’08, I had been suffering from a dull, yet constant pain in my right foot. I made a trip to my family doctor, which did provide temporary relief, however I’m an avid runner and after several months of resumed running, the pain once more reared it’s ugly head.

So, this time around, I decided to see a podiatrist and get to the bottom of my pained foot. I attempted to schedule an appointment for late November, though wasn’t able to get into the doc until the week prior to Christmas. Who knew podiatrists were in such high demand.

Well, after a quick x-ray and an even quicker examination by the doc, she declared that I suffer from Brachymetatarsia. Yes, a classic case of….ummm….what?

I can’t exactly remember how she explained it, but it was something along these lines:

Brachymetatarsia is a condition in which one of the five long bones of the foot (the metatarsals) is abnormally short, resulting in a shortened toe. This condition usually occurs in both feet (i.e., bilaterally)… –podiatrychannel.com

She also mentioned that it’s genetic and if we went back through my family tree, there would probably be a long-line of brachymetarsia (when I confronted my parents with this fact, they both denied their respective sides having such a genetic disorder and quickly blamed the other).

In short, I have, well, a shortened toe. Observe.

brachymetatarsia

This is my foot.

Now compare to Scott’s “normal,”hobbit-like foot.

non-brachymetatarsia

Well, with this shortened toe, there is a shift of the distribution of pressure to other points of the foot, and in my case it’s primarily placed upon the pinkie toe.

The cure?

Had it been caught when I was a kid, surgery would have been recommended. However, since I have horrible parents and this wasn’t caught until now, the doc claimed that surgery would be too complicated. Yet, after some internet research (which the doc surprisingly suggested I do), I found that the surgery is performed on adults and for typically cosmetic reasons. Though when you’re toe looks like this…

I suppose you would be shamed into having the surgery. As one podiatrist’s website said, “(brachymetatarsia is) emotionally traumatic and embarrassing to the individual preventing them from wearing any shoe gear that would expose this condition.” The condition is so embarrassing that you don’t even need commas in your sentences!

Finally, my internet search also uncovered that I am not alone in my pain. Jennifer Garner (of “Daredevil” and Ben Affleck fame) is also afflicted by brachymetatarsia.

(source – goddamn tmz)

Gross!

As for now, my condition, is solved with a simple insole. Over the last few weeks the pain has decreased and the callouses on my pinkie toe joint are disappearing, which the doc said would be a sign of the insoles working. But I will always have the creepy toe!

Ryan

related posts:

Dede Koswara: “The Tree Man of Java”

Sexy Frankenstein’s Monster

Synaesthesia:hearing colors,seeing sounds, etc.

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