Gus Gus

I sometimes get called "honey". It's odd to get called "honey". It makes me think of sticky things, or impossibly happy American households, or the next Hollywood blockbuster, "Honey, I licked the lodger". Mind you, it's better than some of the other things I've been called that are more slimy than sticky.

A very, very long time ago when I was a teenage wild thing and a struggling underage pub customer, people called me "Gus". I mean what a name, have you tried that on your lips? It sounds like the stuff that might squirt out if you squeezed that spot, the one on the end of my nose, between your fingernails. Or worse, what might be released, following an ingestive delay, as a result of curry washed down by three pints of Guinness. I used to hate being called "Gus".

Which brings me to the subject of this post, Gus Gus. While it may be tempting to court panic on the basis that there might be two of me, I'm actually referring to a band called Gus Gus. I was wondering whatever happened to them so I did a quick internet search (I try not to call them 'G--gle' searches 'cos that's product placement and although I'm sometimes naughty, I don't like placing products), and found their website.

Now because I haven't got anything else to blog about today, but felt like blogging nonetheless, I'm going to tell you about it.

You see, it's quite cool really. I'm not saying you should go there, but should you suffer from a little nag of musical curiosity, you'd find some talk of pineapples and a chap called President Bongo and his Uncle Siggi.
But what's interesting is that I can navigate through to the audio and listen in to 2 minute, in-browser MP3 song extracts. In case you were visited by that little nag, I must warn you - these are seriously funky song extracts.

It turns out that this band I used to listen to back in the 90's has started their own record label (they used to be with 4AD). There's no more effective way to describe it than to let them do it themselves:

"PINEAPPLERECORDS is a record company from Reykjavik, Iceland. It is run and owned by electronic soulmusicians calling thems(elfs) gusgus, a band that loves Elvis. Pineapplerecords won't be able to tell you why or how they will only put out hit singles but they will surely be able to tell you how to fry them pineapples: Cut down the pineapple, fry in butter on low temperature for 15minutes, soak in rum and light up ... flambeé! Serve, eat and dance (take 1 hour checking out birds before cutting the rug)."

Now I'm not entirely sure which 'birds' need to be checked or quite why the rug needs to be cut, and some of them do look a little odd, but I just learned how to cook a pineapple! Isn't it great?

I can even go to the This is Normal album and listen to the first record I ever heard of theirs, Ladyshave. It still gets me smoochin' with myself across the dance floor and wobbling with funky vibes, in fact I'm doing it right now!

(was that product placement?)