No.25
Pop Will Eat Itself - Dos Dedos Mis Amigos
I first became aware of PWEI with Wise UP Sucker on some compilation or other, maybe one of the Now! ones, but it’s way past me being able to remember]. Later on, I picked up a £5 copy of The Looks or the Lifestyle? and enjoyed it but it didn’t really stay with me.
My impressions of the band changed pretty drastically with the release of Ich Bin Ein Auslander and suddenly the band went from a bit clownish to white knuckle rage, yelling about the surge of the far right. And while 90’s fascism now seems a bit quaint compared to the masks off fuckery of the Far Right we have today, Poppies were shouting about this decades ago. And they were right.
While Ich Bin and Kick to Kill were songs that crossed over with the mid 90’s industrial boom, there was a lot more going on with this album. Familus Horribilus is a Black Sabbath sampling, dubby pop song slagging off the Royals, Home is a trippy, spliffed up ode to the mundanity of life and miles away from the Nothing aesthetic of acts like NIN.
Menofearthereaper is the outlier here, owing far more to dub flecked dance music than anything Industrial, but I never noticed or cared, as I was too busy just enjoying the music. Then the album kicks back with two of the Poppies best floor fillers, Everything’s Cool and R.S.V.P. which are just stomping tracks. I have a vague idea that Everything’s Cool is the last song I crowd surfed to, so happy memories of that.
It took me a long time to realise how far ahead of the music curve PWEI were in Britain. In the late 80’s, they were pushing the slogan “Sample it, loop it, fuck it, eat it” while most people were still being very boring with guitars. Unfortunately, the music the band were making with this philosophy was fucking terrible. I know the early stuff has its fans but it’s not for me, but no one else was fusing dance, hip hop and guitars, while running wild with an Akai sampler.
Dos Dedos was a total Trojan horse for dance music making its way into my taste in music. Throw in some guitars and give things a bit of an edge and student me didn’t even see the slippery slope that would eventually end up with me going to techno nights, and it’s something I can never thank PWEI enough for.
Dos Dedos is a hodgepodge of styles, was never cool, but almost made PWEI big. They were touring with NIN in the States and things were looking good but then the band fell apart. I know some of the band have reformed but it’s never been the same without Clint, but I guess he won’t be back, seeing as he has all that sweet, sweet Hollywood money these days.
Anyway, this is 100% a life changing album for me and it deserves far more respect than it gets. I’m posting Ich Bin Ein Austlander but cause “Fuck fascism” need to be said now, more than ever.
