OHHHHH SPANDAU BALLET AND COCTEAU TWINS HAVE BEEN REVIVED! Their new incarnation is called Pure Bathing Culture, and seeing them live will enable me to live out a dream… almost. This is horseshoes, so almost counts.

Uncomfortable admission, if I could wave a magic wand and live out a decade as an adult that I am not currently living in it would be the 80’s. Not, you know, the roaring 20’s with stylish flappers and rich in history. Not the 40’s, with all the strife of war, but the US’s unified response to it, plus FDR (while not my favs, as Teddy has that honor, still a very inspiring man). Nope, nope, nope, none of that.

Give me Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, neon clothing, asymmetrical hair cuts that look good on no one, unchecked glorification of consumerism, AIDS, and those hideous straight-leg, high-waist revolting excuses for pants. And now that I got all that out there, I know I am a crazy person. WHO WANTS TO RELIVE RONALD REAGAN? And mind you, as a gay homosexual AIDS was perhaps the worst thing to happen to the gay community (aside from years of institutionalized bigotry and unchecked violence), yet I am still claiming RONALD REAGAN as the worst part of that decade.

Why? Why am I subjecting myself to this? Because music. 80’s pop is my cat nip. I roll around in it irrational and wild-eyed. I was old enough to be aware of what I was missing in that decade. Born in 1976, the early 80’s are fuzzy, but by 1984 I was with it enough to observe the culture, but from a kid’s perspective. And I think that’s the key here. It’s that the 80’s I can conceive of in a way that I can’t decades that I wasn’t alive for, even if as a child.

Which brings me to my dream. I wish I could have been in my late teens or early 20’s in 1980. I want to know what the clubs were like with all the absurd fashion choices and music. I want to see what this music was like when it was played in all the clubs and bars.

Clearly as I have no time machine that won’t happen, but Pure Bathing Culture will get me close. Their stuff drips with neon colors and Flock-Of-Seagulls hair, and I love it. And the fact that they quote Benny Mardones in this song… Cherry meet top of sundae.