Metamatic Forums John Foxx Ultravox Of Flattery And Imitation

For a very long time there's been a trend of New Zealand bands coming over to Australia and establishing themselves, chasing a larger market.

A not very exhaustive list would be Dragon, Split Enz, Crowded House and innumerable one hit wonders.

But one that stood out for me, not only because they were a one hit wonder, was because of their choice of name.

They called themselves Mi-Sex. If the song they took their name from wasn't obvious, then the band they tried to imitate, poorly, was as equally non obvious.

I had reason to go diving into my storage earlier this week and pull out my LPs. Amongst the pile, I found this -


I swear I don't know how it got into my collection.

And this was the back cover -



Does it look vaguely familiar? The strangest thing, of course, was that their hit single didn't appear on their debut LP in 1979. So it had to be included as a bonus single.

Scary memories!

"Graffiti Crimes" was never released in the USA. Instead, it was given new cover art, the tracks on it were rearranged, and the single was included so the album could be renamed as "Computer Games." That song did get some radio airplay here, but there wasn't much of a market for yelping Talking Heads electronica so they never caught on, and we were fortunately spared exposure to any more of their mediocre Ultravoxian tributes.

Lucky!

I wonder how many other bands did this and never got anywhere.

Speaking of Talking Heads, were they ever popular in the US? They did get a fair bit of exposure here.

They were very much a New York City underground band at first and got occasional radio airplay for "Psycho Killer" as a novelty tune, then FM radio picked up their cover version of "Take Me to the River" from their second LP and that got them booked as musical guests on "Saturday Night Live." Nightclubs played "Life During Wartime" from their third LP, but the band didn't really break huge in the USA until "Remain in Light" came out. It was a massive college-radio hit, and all the people who had mocked them before suddenly worshipped them -- even MTV loved them. After "Stop Making Sense" they kind of fell off the radar, but at one point it had seemed like they were going to be as huge as U2 and REM became. They kind of killed the momentum with solo projects and David Byrne being such a pretentious twit. So, yes, they were popular, and they got exposure -- maybe too much of it!

They got heavy exposure here right from the outset on Triple-J with Psycho Killer. It was enough to make them popular. I sort of figured they might have been too eclectic for the mainstream US market.

I can't remember the bass player's name but she had a minor hit here with Wordy Rappinghood.

Triple-J, of course, was how I got exposed to Television, The Residents, Throbbing Gristle, The Units, etc. That was in the days before they discovered reggae and I switched off.

The 'Mi Sex' album is pretty rare and doesn't even turn up on e bay very often. In fact it has not been on e bay at all this year.....so far. Musically its not great IMO, but still a nice little item to have.

I was surprised I even had it! I can't recall if I ever listened to it but I must have at some point.

Once I find a record cleaner, I'll play it once more then either toss it or sell it.

What do people use to post their LPs in? I would think a cardboard box would be too fragile.

Hmmm, Grafiti Crimes (under the alternative name of 'Computer Games') and the second album, 'Space Race' was released on CD, albeit not as seperate albums but as a 2 albums on 1 CD format. I should know this because I have the CD (I'm a fan ). I'm not sure about their later albums though.

Just FYI

Cheers

I doubt there were many. They didn't seem to last too long.

Just did some research:

'Space Race' WAS released on CD (with a different cover though) seperately at one point, not sure what year it was released though.

The albums they did were: 'Grafiti Crimes' ('Computer Games' in the US), 'Space Race', 'Shanghaied!' and 'Where Do They Go?'. Mi-Sex disbanded in 1985.

As for a reunion, well, that's pretty much out of the question.

Cheers