Quite a while back, EV Grieve and I got in a bit of a competition to see who could cite more album covers that featured depictions of New York City. I'm not exactly sure who won, but this morning, as I was ripping songs to my iTunes (largely an exercise in meaningless futility, as I'm no longer able to synch my iPod to to my iTunes), I started playing a selection of hoary old gothic chestnuts from Alien Sex Fiend and remembered another one.
As it happened, the sleeve art for the original U.S. release of the band's infernally lysergic debut LP, Who's Been Sleeping in My Brain? from 1983 was quite hard to track down online. I actually own a copy of it, but it's locked in a trunk in a storage space on Varick Street. It features a somewhat crude and juvenile picture of Alien Sex Fiend (namely vocalist Nik Fiend, keyboardist Mrs. Fiend, drummer Johnnie Ha Ha and -- if memory serves -- guitarist Yaxi Hirizer), cavorting in front of the smoking ruins of Manhattan (flanked, naturally, by giant skulls and a blow-up sex dolly). The British edition of the album featured a comparatively tamer, abstract image, and the compact disc re-release reprises that version. In any case, after some creative Googling, I managed to find it to submit for your approval.
Oddly, given the placement of Manhattan in the background, one would assume the A.S.F. clan are standing on Ellis Island, but I could be wrong. Either that or Hoboken? Weigh in, geography-trainspotters.
For those unfamiliar with Alien Sex Fiend, they were (and -- somewhat surprisingly -- still are) a ridiculously campy and pruriently naughty British goth band that sprang out of London's fertile Batcave scene alongside similarly-inclined outfits as The Specimen and the Sex Gang Children. As their name might suggest, they took themselves much less seriously than genre peers like Bauhaus and the Sisters of Mercy (owing more to the theatrical shenanigans of vintage Alice Cooper and The Cramps than the stark gloom of Joy Division et al.) but still managed to make some memorable records along the way. For my money, however, Who's Been Sleeping in My Brain? wasn't one of them. As far as I'm concerned, their finest hour remains their second LP, Acid Bath (produced by Killing Joke's Youth). I wrote a needlessly lengthy paean to that album on the ILX discussion boards back in 2004, which you can read here if you give a whoop. Or, you can simply hit play on the video below for a sample. If possible, enjoy!
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