Sheri Quirt 14 December 2009 Stories and Appreciations 1,527 views One Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

’Twas long ago in Ronald Reagan’s America that young Boy George struck a blow for tolerance with a pretty face, a fresh mouth, a sweet tenor – and three highly competent guys who helped him channel his powers for good.

In a bleak future where higher education has been entirely supplanted by fake classes about entertainment and other purely sensual indulgences, the successful Culture Club seminar must consider the group on three levels: Boy George; George’s love affair with drummer Jon Moss; and the band proper.

It was said early and often by the rest of the group: “There was no way it was ever going to be just Culture Club; it was always going to be Boy George and Culture Club.” It’s hard to impress upon today’s young ’uns just how a big a sensation George was in the early ’80s. He owned MTV. He graced print covers from Australian Bazaar to the Harvard University alumni magazine. He debated Jerry Falwell on “Face the Nation.” He was smart, quick and gave great copy. The media adored him.

George was also a Starman, like the one his idol Bowie sang of, and if you happened to be wired to pick up his frequency, he pretty much changed your life. He was living proof that adults were right when they told you to just ignore people who didn’t get you and tagged you a weirdo. George’s weirdness was more than a calling card – it was his moneymaker. Yet there was nothing sinister about it; anyone could see that if you sandblasted away all that Clinique, you’d uncover a down-to-earth soul, a flawed, slightly dorky guy who loved his mother and Winston Churchill and Mars Bars. Lyrical protestations to the contrary, he was highly skilled at selling contradictions.

And he had pipes. Even the haters had to concede that.

The bird of paradise and the pint-size, tanning-parlor Tony Curtis clone, George and Jon Moss made a strange and beautiful couple – and whatever polite fictions sensitive Americans were colluding in, it was obvious from Day One that they were together. (We were just a bunch of dumb twelve-year-olds, and no one had to tell us the score.) This gave the group an unusual edge that distinguished them from the run-of-the-mill hunklets populating the charts. The pair’s high-drama dynamic was integral to the band’s narrative, and George’s lyrics almost exclusively chronicled their volatile relationship.

A prolific idea man, George needed the direction of a group to corral his creativity. In guitarist Roy Hay, he found a writing partner, the unsung hero who took his tape-recorded warblings and fashioned them for prime time. Together they crafted a body of work and a musical identity on par with Morrissey/Marr and John/Taupin.

Culture Club continually explored new avenues. Their LPs were rich and free of filler; you got your money’s worth. To wit:

Kissing To Be Clever (1982): Jon and bassist Mikey Craig bring relentless rhythm and funk to the band’s hard-driving first album. George’s voice, though untrained, is clearly a force, and Roy subtly layers endless guitars and keyboards to fill in the rest. “Time (Clock of the Heart)” is a career highlight, and the divine nonsense of “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya!” remains near impossible to sit still to.

Colour By Numbers (1983) is required owning and listening for all humans. Showcases the kick-ass wailing of backing vocalist Helen “Brick Hithouse” Terry. “Karma Chameleon,” “Church of the Poison Mind,” “Black Money,” “Victims” and six other note-perfect songs. You remember.

Overproduction and debatable single choices hobbled Waking Up With The House On Fire (1984), though the muddy mix was redeemed immeasurably by a 2003 remaster. The jauntier the tunes, the darker the lyrics as private citizen George O’Dowd tires of his creation (“Mannequin”), and fans worldwide begin to sense something is rotten in Denmark.

The fractured From Luxury to Heartache (1986) is the Club’s contribution to that time-honored genre, Band Coming Unglued. Spawned the great “Move Away” before the PR nightmare of George’s heroin addiction blew up, and concludes with the barn burner “Sexuality,” by which time there was nothing left to lose, so why not?

In 1999, the boys reconvened for Don’t Mind If I Do, which is everything you would expect of a grown-up Culture Club album: variously moody, intimate and groovy, with first-rate musicianship. Roy conducts the London Chamber Orchestra on their cover of “Starman.”

- Sheri Quirt