Below is a telling example of the ridiculously inane trivia that seemingly rules my ever waking hour.
People constantly dump on MTV, myself included (although, having fleetingly worked there a few years back, I may have more reason than most). But back in the day, as the hip kids say, MTV had a few things to recommend it (y’know … way back when they actually played music). When I was a sullen teen, MTV may not have been playing videos by my favorites at the time like The Misfits, Black Flag or the Circle Jerks*, but the channel did introduce me to the odd band here and there that I might have been hard pressed to discover on my own. One such outfit was Los Angeles’ Wall of Voodoo.
Mention their name to anyone in their late 30’s/early 40’s now, and the reply is almost an immediate given: “Mexican Radio.” That breakout single by the willfully bizarre, artsy band catapulted them out of the L.A. punk scene and into fleeting fame almost overnight. The strikingly strange visuals of the video clip (an iguana on a spit, a pinata filled with lizards, a face submerged in refried beans, etc.) matched the uncompromising oddness of their music perfectly, and the combined elements left an indelible impression on viewers of the era. I was no exception. I loved it.
Captivated by the endearing wrongness of the band, I immediately went out in search of all the Wall of Voodoo records I could get my hands on. Along with the obligatory copy of Call of the West (the album from whence “Mexican Radio” sprang), I picked up a copy of the ominous Wall of Voodoo e.p. and the 12” single of “Mexican Radio” (appended with a suitably strangle b-side called “There Is Nothing On This Side”). While a few of the tracks on the Wall of Voodoo e.p. were endearingly weird to the point of unsettling, the most markedly strange thing about these records was the sleeve art to the “Mexican Radio” e.p. Featuring a creepy collection of rotting doll heads impaled on wooden stakes in what looks like a murky peat bog, the image seemed entirely incongruous to … well… anything. I remember my mom finding it on the coffee table in the living room one summer afternoon and being actively put off by it (not that I could really blame her). Adding to the eeriness, there was absolutely no explanation as to what the image meant or why they chose it to grace their sleeve.
In time, Wall of Voodoo slid back out of the limelight, but continued to make excellent music. Lead singer Standard Ridgway departed the ranks to pursue and equally excellent solo career (my favorite moments being his collaboration with Stewart Copeland, “Don’t Box Me In” and the rifftastic “Drive She Said.”) Wall of Voodoo filled his big shoes with San Francisco’s Andy Prieboy, who did an admirable job before the band broke up for good. Prieboy went onto to release a series of truly awesome and sorely undersung solo records that you should all go seek out. The legacy of Wall of Voodoo seems now sadly relegated to being a “one hit wonder,” to most people’s minds.
So, why, exactly, am I discussing any of this in November 2010??
Well, yesterday, when I was perusing Salon.com, I came across a compelling gallery called Fascinating Urban Mysteries, Explained. Sure enough, four slides in, I discovered their item on the Isla de las Muñecas. Evidently, on the canal of Xochimilco near Mexico City, there’s this bizarre little sanctuary populated by “dolls – in varying states of decay, disarray and dismemberment – tied to trees.” Want to creep yourself out? Do a Google image search for “Isla de las Muñecas” and check it out. Given its geographical location (Mexico, duh!), I guessing that this strange, far-flung little plot of weirdness is the source of the image on the sleeve of “Mexican Radio.” Mystery solved.
*To be entirely fair, hardcore-wise, MTV did occasionally play clips by Kraut (the gloriously low-budget “All Twisted”), the Cro-Mags (I remember seeing “We Gotta Know” on “Headbangers’ Ball”) and the perennial classic, “Institutionalized” by Suicidal Tendencies.
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