Club Kid

I wanted to get this track up last week for Gay Pride, but this being The Entroporium, there’s always a little bit less energy over time.

Lizzy Mercier Descloux was a peripheral figure in the No Wave scene that hit New York City at the end of the 70s. Enormously influential on many of today’s artists, the No Wavers brought the heavy funk, a downtown art punk attitude and sly humor to everything they did. If you’re an LCD Soundsystem devotee, you should definitely do a little digging because you’re going to like what you find.

“Funky Stuff” exemplifies the best and outright funniest elements of No Wave. It’s a cover of a Kool & The Gang hit, made unrecognizable, the beat turned completely inside out and back in on itself, like somebody took the original and kicked it down a very long staircase.

It’s best, though, to think of this track as more of a visual piece. Descloux is center stage in the mix in front of a robotic chorus of men, who are dancing in unison, sweating, getting down, doing what they do. Her attitude is tough to gauge. Clearly she’s spent a lot of time in the club life, but she’s jaded about the whole scene. The men yell “Can’t get enough of that funky stuff.” She parries, “What a surprise!” And when she evangelizes everyone to “Get High! Get High!” it’s done with more than a hint of derision, not exactly the late 70s Studio 54 attitude (or present day, for that matter). At best she’s an untrustworthy narrator. But she’s there, she knows the scene, and when the track breaks briefly into a more straightforward ecstatic moment, it’s a terrific representation of one of those transcendent moments that you spend an entire night of clubbing looking for. And then it’s gone again.

“Funky Stuff” is perfect sonic portrait of the uber-jaded club girl and her coterie of male admirers & hangers-on. Jaded to the max, the best dressed, the most outrageous, the most bored, the most desired, the least outwardly desiring (except of course for the unspoken cool factor), but always there.

At 17 she was more sophisticated than anyone I’d ever known, while also seeming utterly unaffected. Or at least her affectations came from such a stubborn confidence and will to defy convention that they were irresistible…
– Richard Hell on Lizzy Mercier Descloux

[Soundtrack]
~~Lizzy Mercier Descloux – Funky Stuff.mp3~~

Lizzy Mercier Descloux bio and paintings at the Ze Records site
Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s obituary: “A Brief Career In Punk And World”