I first wrote about the Hot Corn Girls here in 2005, but being that I don’t recommend digging that far back on this blog (lest you discover how directionless and slavishly unedited my posts were, at the time), I’m going to re-purpose the crucial bits for you now. You’re welcome.
Today's song comes from the Hot Corn Girls, an endearingly amateurish quartet of Lower East Siders who date back to the mid-90's. Being friends with Joanne their bass player and Dean Rispler their drummer (a punk rock renaissance man who'd later go onto play for bands like The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Murphy's Law, Tiger Mountain and the Brought Low, as well as becoming a sought-after producer in his own right), I was fortunate enough to catch the band performing live a couple of times (notably at the Pyramid on Avenue A and again at Under Acme on Great Jones Street). Rounded out by one Bob Limp on vocals and the enigmatic Squeaky on guitar (an erstwhile member of the similarly inclined Japanese band, The Chimpanzees, despite not being Japanese himself), the Hot Corn Girls were both hilarious and surprisingly catchy, as this tune handily demonstrates.
Through the beneficent affiliation with the Chimpanzees (whose lead singer, Naoko Nozawa a.k.a Diarreah Naoko, was -- evidently -- a hugely popular television comedienne in her native Japan and Bob Limp's girlfriend), the HCG were fleetingly financially solvent enough to be able to go into the studio and cut an album. Look at My Bum came out in 1994 on Stingy Banana records, graced with a suitably pervy cover photograph by transgressive shutterbug extraordinaire, Richard Kern, and fifteen luridly surreal tracks with largely improvised, unintelligible lyrics. Despite their willfully challenged aesthetic, the sound (produced, once again, by budding knob-twiddler Dean Rispler) absolutely crackles with depth and definition (not things normally associated with humble East Village bands).
I believe the song titles were assigned to their respective tracks with Burroughsian arbitrariness, so don't bother listening for the song's title in the already indecipherable and quite-possibly-not-sung-in-any-language-known-to-man chorus. Incidentally, I'd have posted a picture of the band or the sleeve if I could find one on the `net, but I was unsuccessful in that pursuit and have yet to purchase a scanner for such things. Suffice it to say, a Google search for "the Hot Corn Girls" didn't turn up anything I could re-produce here (especially if you have your Google filters turned off) without offending a whole lot of people. So, without further ado, herewith "My Pile of Leaves" by the Hot Corn Girls.
Incidentally, the name "Hot Corn Girls" itself does not refer to any deviant sexual practice but rather to a book by Solon Rovinson called "Hot Corn - Life Scenes in New York" from 1854. The Hot Corn Girls themselves were Irish-American immigrants who peddled hot corn in the streets. There's also the arguable theory that the Hot Corn Girls doubled as murderous prostitutes who slew their johns. I'll defer to the historians over that one. If you're as smitten with this track as I am, you can still find copies of Look at My Bum if you're willing to search for it. The Hot Corn Girls went onto record another 7" single before splitting. Dean Rispler went onto work with dozens of other great bands. Joanne got married and left NYC. Bob went off to Japan with Nozawa where they perform as the tastefully named Ass Baboons of Venus. No idea what happened to Squeaky.
Just to bring this saga up to the present day, the great Dean Rispler continued to play with a host of great bands before becoming a full-time member of the legendary Dictators (for whom he plays bass, unlike the Hot Corn Girls, for whom he bashed the shit out of a drum kit). He is still a tireless champion of great music and big-hearted, gregarious soul.
Joanne H. (above) said goodbye to all things East Village some time ago, and now lives in Connecticut, where she is a teacher, a mother and a wife. Despite this placidly domestic veneer, she is, was and remains way more Punk Rock than you, I and/or anyone we know will ever be.
I’m honestly not sure what happened to Bob.
I closed that piece in 2005 with “No idea what happened to Squeaky.” I’m happy to say this is no longer the case. Through the magic of Facebook (hey, it does have its benefits), David – his actual name – and I are back in touch. As such, I couldn't help noticing recently when he posted some vintage Hot Corn Girls to his page, leading me to discover that several of the band’s tracks (including such perennial favorites as “Maggot Fiesta,” “Twit,” “Crackhead Bit My Dick,” “Angry Crouton” and, of course, the unforgettable “My Boner, Your Fish Tank”) were ready to be slavishly re-enjoyed.
Twenty-plus years after the fact, it’s still hard to reconcile the East Village as the same place that used to be home to lesser-celebrated bands like The Hot Corn Girls, let alone bands of any kind. That piece of downtown just doesn’t seem to exist anymore, despite valiant efforts by luminaries like Handsome Dick Manitoba and Jesse Malin to keep that spirit alive. To be fair, both the clubs where I saw the Hot Corn Girls play live – the Pyramid and Under Acme – are technically still there, although the Pyramid is barely recognizable and Under Acme is now called Acme Downstairs, “a storied and time-worn rock ‘n’ roll club [that] has been renovated into a cocktail bar, ideal for pre-dinner drinks, large party dining and private events.”
How genteel.
Once upon a time, though, it sounded like this….
Recent Comments