My first week at the Pitchfork office, it became not only painfully apparent that it's a total boys' club, but that I was one of the only single guys around. Usually that kinda info I could keep to myself, changing in the locker room when everyone else was out to lunch and whatnot. The more astute boys soon noticed, though, and while I was gently heckled about it, they did their best to help, setting me up on blind dates with their cousins, sisters, and exes. But to no avail. Then our glorious editor hisself greased my palms with this disc of lost singles and found reel-tapes from Gary Wilson, saying, "Beck name-checked him, dude, he's like the white Prince. Pure Game." He also slipped me some Horny Goat Weed and said, "You can thank me later, Oz-style." With my hair dippity-dooed, my jeans pressed, and my shirt tucked in, I was ready for a night out, with Forgotten Lovers, a collection of various Wilson recordings dating from 1973-1982, just waiting on the hi-fi for my return.
Bringing that groovy chick Cindy home, I cued up "Dream(s)", turning my little room into something right out of a Kojak love scene. The shag carpet was growing right out of my floorboards while Wilson got to sputtering such choice advice as "girls are cool for kissin' when the hour strikes twelve." Oh yes. I took him at his word and made my smooth move as his backing band, The Blind Dates, jerked a fuzzy sort of funk rhythm that somehow turned everything slightly prog. She wasn't really digging on the Steely Dan scene, but I said, "It's cool, baby," as that fat synth bass straddling the line between Curtis Mayfield's superfly porn and cheesy Atari blips came back around, and I knew that I was home free.
But then, "Chrome Lover". The timbales had the vibe going, but the scene got interrupted by Wilson's snotty come-on: "Hey, why don't you just drop dead, huh?" The remark was followed by some strangulated "make out" commands, followed by piercing free jazz cries, completely off-the-hook phone operators, and the sound of a main-vein draining. This schizophrenic shit completely salted my game! I got slapped a good one as she left, too, leaving me alone to enjoy the odd hiccups of "Sick Trip", which came off like Michael Stipe doing a Charlie Feathers impression before segueing into a straight piano jazz ballad with a stand-up bass. "I Wanna Take You on a Sea Cruise" was like Sun Ra leering in cocktail lounge at a 17-year old, and veering very close to Wilson's classic "6.4 = Make Out" in the process. I was filled with longing when the perverse tape-slurred whispers of, "You are my girlfriend-- that entitles me to one kiss," crept up at the end of the album. Maybe I could call Cindy later and leave that part on her answering machine?
Gary Wilson successfully jumped between new wave synth spasms, soundtrack jazz and skronk, James Brown pep, noise collage, pre-Prince strut, and the Jonathan Richman School of Painfully Geeky Lyricism way back in the mid-70s, as evidenced here. Then again, so did You Think You Really Know Me, and a lot of the finest moments here are executed on that record in a slightly more deranged manner. I can't say if there's room enough for two Gary Wilson records in the bachelor pad, but as I sit here now with this steak on my eye, I wonder if the boys at the Pitchfork office weren't just trying to put me on a sick trip or something.
