Saturday, January 16, 2010

Request Line: Cat on Form

In 2002 I saw a (post)punk band called Cat on Form play Upstairs at the Garage, which I now note is, sadly, known as the Relentless Garage (being sponsored by an energy drink called Relentless), in London.

During their set they dedicated the song "Soiled Skulls" to the Queen Mother, who had died the day before, in a not entirely favorable way. "She was a hundred and two!" shouted a well-meaning audience member. Years later when I was teaching a class on British culture to a bunch of Chinese teenagers, I thought of this moment -- an anarchist punk band celebrating the death of a member of the royal family, and one of their fans defending her -- as the most quintessentially British thing I saw in the two months I spent there.

My request, then: Can somebody please send me an mp3 of "Soiled Skulls?" It was a great song, but the closest I have come to finding it is a 30 second clip on Last.Fm. Apparently it originally appeared on a UK charity compilation called Audioscope.

P.S. Incidentally, during the second band's set at the same show, the promoter cut the sound to announce that John Travolta had been killed in a car accident in America, and played a recording of Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life," for some reason, in memoriam. The show then continued and the next day I found out that John Travolta had not died after all.

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