© 2024 KRCU Public Radio
90.9 Cape Girardeau | 88.9-HD Ste. Genevieve | 88.7 Poplar Bluff
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Left Of The Dial #541 - A Way Cooler Name

j. carl brown
/
KRCU

Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards spoke with Mary Louise Kelly at The Mothership.  In it they spoke about the new album, growing out of face-paint, and they tackle the topic of white privilege. 

There's new music from The Damned, their first in 10 years, and I wanted to play with "Jet Boy, Jet Girl" alongside it, thanks to one of my favorite music references in The Venture Bros.If you don’t know, The Venture Bros. is an [adult swim]animated series that’s kind of a spoof of superheroes, and pulp adventure stories. It’s also packed with great music references and in one scene a couple of henchmen, which is to say low-level villains, are trying out newly acquired jetpacks, and one of them insists that the two men ought to be henceforth known as “Jet Boy and Jet Girl,” in reference to the punk rock song by Elton Motello.  He makes his case by appealing to the indie cred they’d receive from adopting the reference. He points out it’s French, which is almost true- more on that in a minute, and that the song was covered by The Damned. His partner, unconvinced asks why can’t they be called “The Damned?” 

So, why did I then play that French Plastic Bertrand song instead of “Jet Boy, Jet Girl” on the radio you might ask? Like I said the song is almost French, in that it completely rips off the backing track of the Plastic Bertrand song. Elton Motello is an English band who unapologetically ripped off “Ca plane pour moi” with their song “Jet Boy, Jet Girl,” a rather lurid song about a 15-year-old boy who has a relationship with an older man who ultimately rejects him for a girl. I was all set to play it; I didn’t think that it was particularly explicit, but I then discovered that in 1989 radio station WIOD received a $10,000 finefor that song and I was like nope. So now that it's just you and me on the intenet, here's Elton Motello with "Jet Boy, Jet Girl." 

Left of the Dial airs Friday nights from 9-11 and Saturdays from noon-2 on KRCU. 

Thanks Pete, for the Apple Music playlist.

Related Content