Music

JUNO REACTOR – “Pistolero” [Sub6] (2012)

April 13, 2023

I have mentioned this in the past, but my body is stupidly physical. “I want to be thrown around.”

It’s hedonistic and I’m not proud of it but that’s what fucking techno is all about and this remix is the most physical of all of them. The beats just surround you and you succumb to them.

Oddly, I didn’t discover this mix until recently, but this fucking remix rips.

JUNO REACTOR – “Pistolero” [JUNO REACTOR Remix]

April 12, 2023

My wife and I danced to this mix at our wedding. There’s something about the length that gives one abandon, freedom to physically enact, which to me is totally what “Pistolero” encapsulates, and we absolutely wanted that.

It helps that it hits every fucking sense in my body. I just want to dance and feel the beats cascade over me and smile, which is what JUNO REACTOR is absolutely perfect at providing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it one more time: every version of this song makes me glow.

JUNO REACTOR – “Pistolero” [ASTRIX] (2014)

April 11, 2023

If you took one glance at me, you’d probably assume I’m a seasoned drug pro, and I wouldn’t blame you. Over the years I’ve repeatedly been been asked by absolute strangers: “Hey, you holding?” Even if I cut my hair and wore a polo shirt, I’d still read that way — just something about my brunette locks, wide-eyes and brows and slouch — but no. I didn’t imbibe until a few years ago and I still keep it legal and mostly solo. Friends legitimately teased me about it when they found out how naïve I was about all of it, and rightly so!

I do not routinely get high apart from late-night use — the edibles I use are perfect for an insomniac like me! — because I’m hyper-sensitive and it earnestly and honestly helps to sedate me, and that’s all I want.

However, I goddamn love a good body-high and know how to rock it and electro/trance matches exactly what I want right before getting a good night’s sleep, and this remix via PsyTrance artist ASTRIX hits all of the right notes while accentuating the positive attributes of “Pistolero”. It’s an extremely intense remix of the original that I only recently discovered, but has become a treasured track in my playlist.

JUNO REACTOR – “Pistolero” (1998)

April 10, 2023

The original version of JUNO REACTOR’s “Pistolero” is all about its beat and escalation and the punctuational gunshots and guitar, and I can’t help but fucking glow when I hear it. It’s concise, biting, and brilliant.

PISTOLERO Week

JUNO REACTOR’s “Pistolero”, initially released via their album “Shango”, is permanently stuck on a loop in my head. I love electro music and spaghetti westerns and when I was a DJ I would find any excuse to play any mix of this song. I would routinely throw myself around whenever others would play it, and it was a centerpiece for our wedding reception, which I’m not exactly proud of, but we are who we are, and we danced our asses off to it.

So, welcome to “Pistolero” week.

I hate robbing banks.

SOFT CELL – “Tainted Love” (1981)

Granted, this week of “Tainted Love” songs has run longer than a proper week, but I couldn’t go without mentioning SOFT CELL’s cover, which is the quintessential version for Gen X’ers and always guaranteed a good turnout on the dance floor.

Featuring Marc Almond and David Ball, it’s perhaps this is what SOFT CELL is best known for. It even set a Guinness World Record for longest stay on the Billboard Hot chart.

Perfectly programmed, expertly composed, it’s an absolute earworm that will never die. The video is oddly queer phantasmagoria, even for the 80s, but also completely fascinating and compelling.

COIL – “Tainted Love” (1985)

April 4, 2023

Even though this is the most languid cover of “Tainted Love”, I have so much adoration for it. It’s so evocative and has so much heft, a quality which I always loved COIL for. They managed to aurally imbue queer anguish into it, which is a goddamn feat. While I know it was specifically recorded for the AIDS/HIV pandemic — yet another pandemic that still isn’t over! — it works on so many other levels.

“Everybody is looking for something. I traveled the world and the seven seas…”

ATROCITY – “Tainted Love” (2018)

April 3, 2023

One of the very many dumb things about me is: about every few months or so, my body goes into a weird physical overdrive which is kind of a nightmare scenario for me as I’ve always been terribly sensitive. I’ve consulted doctors, I have therapists, I’ve been through a regiment of therapeutics, and those behind them have just thrown hands up and ask: “Are you sure you’re feeling this?”

To which I respond: “Yes, I’m fucking sure. It’s been happening for years, as you can see by my fucking records. My body feels like it’s on fire and wants everyone to put it out, and I mean everyone. How many times do I fucking have to say this?”

When it’s at its peak, I’ll maybe be awake for nine hours a day — to work, thank God — and then I crash, hard. It is physically exhausting and I hate it…

“I’ve got to …get away! You don’t really want anymore from me!”

…but I also love it. I love it way too much. When awake, my face glows in a way that I seem high, as my wife can attest by: “It’s like you’re on Ecstasy.”

“I’ve never done E! You literally talked me out of doing it prior to our courtship!”

(That’s a story for another time.)

What’s worse is that the ascribed drugs I’ve been given happen to exacerbate the feeling, which obviously doesn’t help.

This is a very long-winded reasoning for part the impetus for this deep-dive into “Tainted Love”.

“Some of them want to abuse you.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I’m stupidly physical, which is a weird thing for a middle-aged man to admit to but I am. I’ve put my body through a lot. Too much. Sometimes I marvel at the fact that I’m still here.

“Some of them want to be abused.”

I can’t help the want but can curb the need, which is good because I’d be absolutely fucked if I couldn’t.

So, to return to matters at hand: I enjoy this cover, but it is rather lifeless and perfunctory and listless. Ta.

UPDATE! Fun fact! This post was prompted because I had a psychiatrist who prescribed SSIrs to me. I am bipolar, and they knew that. I did not know that prescribing SSRis to someone who is bipolar is like oil and water. That shit lit me the fuck up and exactly what prompted this post and they did not listen to my complaints! It killed my hair — it’s finally getting back to its normal, overly greasy and unbridled self — and did more damage to myself than good, despite my complaints. I was told: “Oh, you’re on a small enough dosage that you won’t suffer withdrawl.” No, that was not the fucking case. I’m still dealing with the fallout.

I’m on non-SSRis now and no longer have to deal with those sort of self-destructive shenanigans. If you’re reading this you probably don’t need this advice but, always, be your own advocate. You know your body. If anyone — anyone — suggests otherwise? Find someone else as soon as you feel that twinge, that ‘Really?’, that ‘Oh, this isn’t going the way I’d hoped.’ feeling. Do not fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy. Cut ties and move along because otherwise it’ll do more harm than good.

POMPLAMOOSE – “Tainted Love” (2018)

April 1, 2023

This is a very quality live jazz cover of “Tainted Love” but I’ll give you two guesses as to what I don’t like about it, and the first doesn’t count. (My wife immediately sussed it out, if that’s a hint.) Otherwise, it’s hella fun!