This post was inspired by the incredible series of originals/covers posts that Any Major Dude has been running for a while now. For the last twenty years I've been under the impression that a song called "Biting My Nails" was written by Renegade Soundwave. Their version was probably the closest thing they ever had to a hit. At least here in the States. So sleazy, menacing and bad attitudinal was their version...who else could have written it? It was tailor made for them, no? Apparently not...not at least originally.
Originally the tune was written & performed by one Genevieve Waite on the 1973 album, Romance Is On the Rise. The album was produced by her then husband, John Phillips of Mamas & Papas fame. She being his third wife. According to Wikipedia, the album was released to some critical acclaim at the time, and the artwork used a photo by Richard Avedon so there must have been a decent artwork budget.
Anyway, I only found this out a few days ago as I was visiting my friend Michael Overn. Once a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, Michael took tickets, and shot video and did some lights at Danceteria here in NYC. He and some friends, including Karen Finley and Carlo McCormick also did a public access TV show. Michael pulled out a DVD and proceeded to show me an episode that was a tribute to Haoui Montaug's monthly cabaret show at Danceteria, No Entiendes (yes, this is where Madonna made her live debut in 1982 or so).
That's Haoui on the left. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Falgerho)
In this particular episode was a performance of "Biting My Nails" sung by Deb Parker & Cathy Underhill. As the song was playing, it sounded a bit "downtown New York" which was typical of the time. Sort of campy, ironic, fun...sort of like Pulsallama with a pretty hot backing band. Not much different than the original version it turns out. It didn't take long for me to recognize the tune, and realize that it preceded, by a good 3-4 years, the Renegade Soundwave version. It really sort of blew my mind.
The original -
The cover -
2 comments:
Deb and Cathy used to call themselves "The Downtown Ladies of the Evening" and always performed in their underwear....
Hey, we actually called ourselves "The G- Spots" and our back-up back was killer : Frank Finley on guitar, Dougie Bowne on Drums, Tad on bass and when we could we'd hit the right notes for them to follow,which wasn;t often, but we came out in long leather trench coats and dropped them to show off our skinny bodies (pre babies) in black lace slips!
I'd love to see our videos so I can laugh and cringe and fondly remember old times!
Cheers my dears!
Deb Parker
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