The previous four days on Music Arcades have included a five-CD boxed set, a double album and a triple. I also had the pleasure of top performances of Steve Reich and Martin Carthy on consecutive nights — not to mention a day looking after The Boy where he vomited over ten times, poor wee soul (he's OK now, thanks). So am I glad for the light relief of a 7" single? You could say I am.
The title Heaven in a Black Leather Jacket evokes a kind of Kenneth Anger homoeroticism:
Yet, while the verses of the lyrics don't rule that out, neither do they fix that reading. In this recent interview explains why he resists assigning a gender or a sexual orientation to the protagonists of his songs, and prefers to "randomise" them.
(All three parts of this interview are worth watching in a slightly cringe-inducing trainwreck kind of way. Opinions differ on whether Stephin is butchering the ingenue interviewer, being passively aggressive or just being a jerk. For my part I think he's doing his best to indulge the guy and answer the questions that can be answered.)
The B side, Rot in the Sun warns against moving to L.A. and signing to an imprint of a major label. Its title hints and one of the risks. Stephin has since moved to L.A. and signed to an imprint of a majr label.
This single, The 6ths' first release, was an outrunner to first 6ths album, arrived in Summer 2000, part of a package imported direct from Merge.
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