ZE & Cristina

Oh, snap: Cristina's "Is That All There Is" was a favourite set-closer of mine around 1988/89, and more generally, one of those tracks which I used to delight in introducing people to. "Things Fall Apart" and both 12" mixes of "Disco Clone" are also perennial, un-witherable lifetime favourites.

Sad. Persoanl fave was always "Don't Mutilate my Mink". End of an era as they say. Fuck this virus

remember hearing 'is that all there is' listening to peel in my room in the second year of college (and peel telling a disobliging story abt leiber and stoller)

:( :( :(

wiki sez: A version with altered lyrics, by No wave singer Cristina, was available briefly in 1980. However, it offended songwriters Leiber and Stoller, who sued and were able to get it suppressed for some time. Produced by August Darnell (Kid Creole), this version was eventually re-issued in 2004, with the songwriters' blessing, as a bonus track on a Cristina compilation album Not seeing a Cristina comp on Discogs, but they do show it on Kid Creole collection Going Places.
In the Lieber & Stoller dual autobio, Lieber says that he was complaining to his WWII refugee wife, despite being at a sustained peak of success and pleasure, so she suggested that he read Thomas Mann's "Disillusionment." (wiki claims that lyrics were lifted from the story, which I haven't read). Leiber describes some record co. apprehension about its being taken as a downer in the go-go 60s, but apparently a lot of people could relate.
As for it being Trump's theme song, this interview tape was quoted by Michael Barbaro in the NYTimes:
MR. TRUMP: It’s a great song because I’ve had these tremendous successes and then I’m off to the next one. Because, it’s like, “Oh, is that all there is?” That’s a great song actually, that’s a very interesting song, especially sung by her, because she had such a troubled life.
But he quickly retreats from the moment, declining Mr. D’Antonio’s invitation to further explain how the song makes him feel about himself, saying he might not like what he discovers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/politics/donald-trump-interviews.html
(Only time I've ever seen him claim any interest in/awareness of the life experience of a woman.)

I'm a big fan of "Don't Be Greedy" too. Contender for my favorite on the first album.

the reissue they’re talking about is this one


https://www.discogs.com/Cristina-Doll-In-The-Box/release/499446

First heard "Is That All There Is" on the first Rodney on the ROQ comp. Out of place with all the SoCal bands, but a great closer and led me to other great Ze stuff.

There's a painting on her Instagram of her sitting at the stern of a boat that echoes the photo of her reclined on the bed on the cover of ITATI.

RIP.

Seems like most modern-day attention is focused on "Is That All," or "Disco Clone," but that whole debut album is a longtime favorite of mine. Frothy, fluffy, maybe a bit cartoonish, but oddly endearing to me. And she really was stunningly beautiful.

her version of La Poupée Qui Fait Non is a regular in my disco dj nights.

Are there other oddball disco records with a similar vibe? I know a fair amount of ZE Records stuff, but much less about disco, Italo, etc. overall.

the first thing to do is take the little leap over to Y records and check out Pulsallama's Oui Oui which I used to mix in or out of the Cristina song.

then there's everything else Kid Creole touched. Cory Daye's Green Light is something else I play in that context.

I guess any of the mutant disco or disco not disco comps would get you part of the way there.

Modern Romance-Everbody Salsa?

I love italo but it's a wide-ranging thing, a lot of poppy stuff that I don't like, a lot of more electro/spacey stuff that I love that probably doesn't fit the bill, some of the earlier more eurodisco stuff like Vivien Vee - Give Me a Break or more organic sounding italo.

Or Punkin Machine's Tonight.

That's all stuff I'd mix with that context I guess? I'm sure I'll think of more later.

my favourite kid creole fact is that he lived in urmston for a while

Appreciation in the Guardian:

Cristina: no wave's daring darling captured the beautiful and damned

Despite the renewed interested, she declined to make another album (“I’m an old trout”)

terrible headline

MR. TRUMP: It’s a great song because I’ve had these tremendous successes and then I’m off to the next one. Because, it’s like, “Oh, is that all there is?” That’s a great song actually, that’s a very interesting song, especially sung by her, because she had such a troubled life.
But he quickly retreats from the moment, declining Mr. D’Antonio’s invitation to further explain how the song makes him feel about himself, saying he might not like what he discovers.

I thought for a minute that 'her' in the interview Dan posted meant Cristina and I was knocked for six.

terrible headline

I quite like it because it makes me think of a newspaper headline from the early 80s.

Sorry, Alba! I should have incl. Mr. Trump turned philosophical. He recalled a favorite song, performed by Peggy Lee,

(Wonder what he thinks of "Sympathy For The Devil"?)

(I would like to hear Cristina and/or Peggy Lee sing that one, btw.)

Yeah, I also took it that he somehow knew the Cristina version, from disco parties with Jeffrey Epstein, maybe.

Of all the people I ever played “Is That All There Is” to, the strongest reaction came from a textbook sociopath. He declared it his theme song and asked to hear it repeatedly. So the Trump quote is fascinating to me.

I've just remembered that I once put it on a mix CD for a girlfriend and she hated it. Now I'm thinking, maybe I was the sociopath in that relationship.

I didn't know Robert Palmer produced two add-ons to the 1984 album.

If you can't stand to read xgau any more, says this prev mentioned comp is more of a groovy ZE thing than Kid Creole, prefers xtina's "ITATI" to Peggy Lee's (and the song as orig written):
Going Places: The August Darnell Years 1974-1983 [Stunt, 2008]
Belatedly, all of Kid Creole and the Coconuts' albums can be purchased on CD, and through the Sire and Columbia years, 1980-1992, every damn one is worth it. This is something else. Though the four cuts with Creole's name on them set the tone, it assembles side projects August Darnell oversaw for ZE, and double-damn if most don't hold up--Aural Exciters, Don Armando's Second Avenue Rhumba Band, Machine's fashionably charitable "There But for the Grace of God Go I," and the long-lost prize, Cristina's neo-nihilist takeover of Peggy Lee's/Leiber & Stoller's merely existentialist "Is That All There Is?" Though the PR calls this postpunk music "grungy," it's just DOR, the forgotten acronym for "dance-oriented rock," with an emphasis on the "D"--stripped-down disco with the occasional rock groove or instrumental flavor. It's slick. But it's also more intelligent than most IDM--sophisticated in the most tolerant sense. For longer than his dangerous lifestyle and surface success portended, Darnell was a visionary lyricist who considered all pop music his domain. He succeeded so well that even his rarities prove it. A-
Also digs Zetrospective: Dancing in the Face of Adversity, incl. "Disco Clone."

Thinking of Zetrospective the segue from Cristina’s ‘He Dines Out On Death’ to John Cale’s ‘ I Keep a Close Watch’ is inspired.

I'm so bummed about her passing. When I was going through my "mutant disco" mini phase she was of course a standout.

Don't Mutilate My Mink is one of the best songs of all time and I wish I could find my audio cable so I could play it really loud instead of through shitty laptop speakers

― Colonel Poo, Saturday, 21 March 2020 17:25 bookmarkflaglink

just want to point out that I was OTM is this thread

it is! you were!