happy tunesday! ("boys in dresses" by suzy saxon and the anglos)

A long time ago I was the music editor of a college newspaper.* One of the perqs of that job was that I got first dibs on the record that were sent to the paper to be reviewed.** In some cases that meant hotly anticipated major-label releases, but other times it meant indie-label releases by unknown acts.

And so it was with Guilt by Association, the debut album by Suzy axon and the Anglos. I immediately fell in love with the album, likening it to the early new wave music that England's Stiff records had been putting out a few years earlier. As I did with bands that I liked, I kind of latched on, trying to promote them however I could -- probably with more gusto than their place in the pop world merited. Tommy Shaw from Styx is coming to campus? Meh. But Suzy Saxon & the Anglos? I reviewed the album. I arranged to interview the band. When they played in Manhattan I reviewed the show. A few years later, writing for Tower Records' Pulse, I managed to get them to publish a short article previewing the Anglos' next release.

One of the thing I found interesting about the band was their knack for offbeat fundraising. Notably, they sold chocolate bars with their name on them. All of that was the brainchild of their producer, "Mad Dog." I won't post his real name here in case he wants to maintain some anonymity. I have had ome poradic contact with him over the intervening years, so I will email him a link to this post, so if he want to out himself, he can do so in the comments.

Anyway, the band put out two more records -- Scream To Be Heard and A Deal's A Deal. Then a CD called Downtime in Dogtown, which included remixes of some of their early recordings. I guess they broke up after that. In 2001 I got in touch with Suzy when I found a kip on my copy of Scream to Be Heard. he got back to me and promised to send another copy. That was in August, 2001. I never got the copy, but I also never followed up.

At any rate, the two standout tracks on the album were "Get Out of My Stomach" and "Boys in Dresses." I am haring the video of the latter because that's (to my knowledge) the only official video they ever did. Honestly, my favorite recording of theirs was a cover of Cat Stevens' "Wild World." I'm sorry that the audio and video aren't properly synced, but it's the best quality version of this song I could find.
 
*It was called Skyline, FWIW
**Interestingly, there was some dispute over ome of the records that came in. Skyline wasn't the only new paper that year. It and the QC Quad had both risen from the ashes of The Phoenix, which had existed the year before. Packages addressed to Skyline went to Skyline, and packages addressed to The QC Quad went to The QC Quad. But there was some wrangling over what packages that were addressed to The Phoenix. Not that you care...