By: Liz O. and Melissa M.
Melissa is in Eagle Rock looking for personal ads for desperate guys in search of naked Riot Grrrls on Craigslist. I'm in Northridge procrastinating because I have to write a news analysis based on Edward Said's work. We're both listening to the Retro Active station on Music Choice.
Melissa and I are dedicated to New Wave. Our taste in music is broad and we definitely love new sounds, but New Wave is where we got our start as little girls growing up in opposite ends of Los Angeles. Melissa has an older sister who was cool enough to sneak into Odyssey, which we have heard was the place to be in early-1980s Los Angeles, and took her to see Flock of Seagulls and the Fixx. I have a mom who listened to David Bowie and Talking Heads when she drove me to pre-school and let me stay up to watch Square Pegs with her. Sometimes, all it takes is a dated keyboard and the thought of boys in eyeshadow to make our night.
"I promise you a miracle in the form of a co-dependent ex-Goth who spends all day on Craigslist," I type after reading some of the personals that Melissa forwarded to me. Simple Minds is playing in the background. For some reason, I can never, ever connect Simple Minds with anything other than The Breakfast Club, regardless of the fact that I can recall every lyric of "I Promise You a Miracle." It's strange how music and images work.
Simple Minds turns into Love and Rockets, which turns into "Love Cats" from the Cure and we engage in the same discussion that emerges from any meeting of Cure fans. Why, Robert? Why couldn't you quit while you were ahead?
"I think he really needs to let the dream die. He's going to be playing the County Fair soon, just you wait," Melissa states.
"I don't understand why he insists that each album is the best Cure album yet when we all know that it went downhill after Disintegration," I add.
"I'll be dancing to 'From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea' with a corndog and lemonade."
"That's like me trying to dance to the Pixies at Coachella last year."
Go ahead, delete me from your friend list on My Space. I said it. The Pixies at Coachella was like going to the LA County Fair.
"Well," Melissa concedes. " I must admit that there were tracks off Wild Mood Swings that I really did love, especially the instrumentation, but I'm sorry, Bloodflowers was an awfully expensive coaster."
We talk about David Bowie growing hotter with age and that we are both "diggin' his scene," as Melissa says. Yes, like the Blow Monkey's song. We acknowledge that we like Iggy Pop, but we prefer Siouxsie's version of "The Passenger."
"We probably lost so much indie cred for saying that," I type, wishing that sarcasm could translate online without having to search for the appropriate smiley.
"I don't care," Melissa answers. "I lost Goth cred for being all jazzed to see Skid Row!!"
"I lost indie cred for being Goth."
"Cred is just another way to mask insecurity by those who feel a need to judge you."
Is this starting to read like that per-zine you did in 1995?
We start chatting about an Alarm song that we only vaguely recall, but can't quite place. Do we actually remember hearing these songs on KROQ in 1986, or have we just been listening to so much digital cable radio that it's all bleeding together? We start listing our favorite New Order songs, which I won't reprint here because we are big New Order fans and you will probably read more about that later.
"New Order just reminds me of being so excited to actually have something good played at my lame ass school dances where everyone wanted to hear Power 106 or shitty KIIS FM mixes."
"I know, it was the best part of Skateland," I write in response to Melissa. "They'd bust out New Order right before playing freakin' Timmy T."
We hear the Fixx and Melissa reminisces about her first concert. It was 1983 and she was eight.
"You know how some people are born knowing what they're good at, what they're destiny is? Seeing my first concert cemented the fact that I was a fan, meant to love and live music."
And then, somehow, it all comes back to Craigslist.
I jump up in my chair when I hear that creepy, spastic robot sound of "Warm Leatherette." I tell Melissa that she totally has to post a personal using the lyrics.
"A tear of petrol is in your eye/The hand break, penetrates your thigh/Quick, let's make love/Before you die/On warm leatherette."
"OMG! I totally should see if I actually get any responses and if they are of quality...Pic or no?"
"Put up the album cover, with the crash test dummies."
"I'm totally going to get all these PVC-wearing VNV Nation dorks who live at home, wank on Internet porn and roleplay. So wrong, I don't even know where to start."