Photo by Alexis Kleshik — click link for IG account to see uncropped version and more excellent photos plus Linktree…

The Deli is currently vacationing down in Dollywood Country (Miss Parton says “Happy Pride!”) where the other night we met a local resident who’d recently seen new wave icons Duran Duran at a Nashville concert which they described as being “Satanic” and sure we get how a strutting sexagenarian in white vinyl trousers singing “wild boys / never lose it” could be viewed as Luciferian but still we suspect this characterization had more to do with the current trend of maligning anything not designated as pablum for the masses as George Soros-sponsored, culture-war-provoking Satanic provocations designed to undermine the sanctity of God, Country, and Mud Wrestling In White Panties…

…and we’ll get back to mud wrestling here in a second but the salient point for now is how hearing the phrase "Duran Duran" made us long for a re-watch of 1968’s Roger Vadim-directed, sci-fi-romp Barbarella starring a pre-Hanoi Jane Fonda especially the scene where the film’s villain Durand Durand—a moniker corrupted by our fave Old New Romantics—pleasures/tortures our titular hero with a musical instrument-cum-weapon to the tune of “Sonata for Executioner and Various Young Women” designed to induce deadly orgasmic pleasure except that Barbarella’s "big O" short circuits the machine so she’s able to escape…

 …a movie fondly remembered to this day not only for Fonda’s allure but also for its acid-washed psychedelic visuals and Mod-style futuristic fashions along with its playfully transgressive comic book tone all of which derived from the actual comic book on which the film was based written and illustrated by French artist Jean-Claude Forest and if you’re looking for a cool new song that gives off some strong Barbarella vibes then look no further than “Metrocool” by fresh-faced Brooklyn pop-rockers Le Bang…

…cuz this bangin’ threesome have got the whole Mod-inflected-comic-book-inspired-pop-art-meets-proto-punk-garage-rock-meets-yé–yé-inspired-Gallic–cool thing down cold and they don’t even need guitars to pull it off cuz “guitars are lame”—just drums and vocals and dirty overdriven basslines, the latter acting as the group’s de facto orgasmatron—with French/Filipina front-heroine or is that front-villainess moonlighting as a fine artist and visual designer Lola Lancon cooing lyrical come-ons and bon mots en français with her guise partially disguised at all times by a black Zorro-style bandit mask…

…like Françoise Hardy in What’s New Pussycat meets Michelle Pfeiffer in Catwoman meets Maggie Cheung in Irma Vep meets Jane Fonda in Barbarella complete with a comic-book worthy backstory where “after swallowing a grenade during a Godzilla attack in New York City, Lola was transformed into an explosive maniac with a thirst for destruction and awesome music” which is at least as plausible as Catwoman’s origin story…

…backed by her dual sidekicks of Billy Hay and Stavros Lari of Gun who lock into one singularly slinky, sleekly danceable groove after another as if Julie Ruin/Le Tigre were being rendered in Ben-Day dots and of course any comic book protagonist needs at least one worthy antagonist and in this instance it’s another Lola (two sides of the same coin etc. etc.) in the form of fellow vocalist/writer/filmmaker Lola Daehler who fronts her own band of musical marauders known as Homade as covered previously in this space… 

…with the two Lolas facing off Lady Gladiator-style in a kiddie pool full of wet ‘n’ gushy mud two weekends ago at the Great American Mud Wrestling Show held in the backyard of the most highly valuated real estate property in Bed-Stuy which is supposedly owned by a shadowy Bruce Wayne type Tbilisi tycoon who makes the space available to Georgian artists (the Georgia more known for grapes than for peaches) and to rising-up-from-the-underground singer-songwriter-rockers like November Girl and Sofia Zarzuela i.e. the duo who organized the event and who rocked out on stage and tussled in the mudpit alongside Le Bang and Homade and lemme tell ya none of ’em were messing around when it came to getting messy…

 …and to bring things full circle wouldn’t ya know Duran Duran famously featured the ancient sport of mud wrestling in their “Girls on Film” videoclip from 1981 (view it uncut here and be aware the relevant scenario doesn’t come until the very end) which succeeded in making these feather-haired Brits the epitome of “metrocool” for American new wavers by tapping into the messy zeitgeist of the early Eighties (fun fact: the first American mud wrestling match was held in Akron, Ohio in 1938 with more than 2,500 in attendance) as featured in timeless cinematic classics such as Stripes (1981), The Beach Girls (1982), and the button-pushing Joysticks (1983)…

 …with the critical difference in wet hot 2023 being that the (I think it’s safe to say) feminist femme-domme combatants—and to be fair there were at least a couple male-identifying combatants as well—did more than just sling mud and sling each other around the inflatable ring cuz they also ran the show and produced the show like if Duran Duran’s models for hire had tied up the band and hijacked the "Girls on Film" video shoot reclaiming their primordial roles as goddesses of rhythm in a ritualistic return to humanity’s earthy, earthen roots…

…and seeing as ’80s style Satanic panic is back in style then why not mud wrestling too and thanks to the GAMWS crew it’s not only about playfully fighting in the mud but also fighting against the moral-panic-driven misogynistic/anti-LGBT tendencies of today’s weirdly repressive yet dangerously aggressive times so bring on the mud-filled kiddie pool we say cuz for one thing this is what a real battle of the bands should look like plus there’s nothing much better than a fun-filled festival of outdoor indie sleaze music and sport in the name of saving what’s left to save of our humanity… (Jason Lee)

photo by Nicole Miller

I came up with the name for the band when I first moved to New York about a decade ago. I’d see the thousand ways to die on every street corner; garbage truck, scaffolding collapsing, etc. and would think "Certain death" every time. Before the pandemic I decided to change the name of my band from my name (Henry Black) to Certain Death. They my dog died and the lockdown started a day later. I wrote the song "Certain Death" both about my dog Brook passing, and also the impending doom of it all in the face of a modern day plague. Fortuitous timing in a dark and horrible way.

 It’s pretty perverse when you think about it. The only certainty in life is the certainty of death. Self-awareness comes only with the awareness that one day the self will no longer be aware…

LISTEN TO CERTAIN DEATH’s "CERTAIN DEATH" (STUDIO VERSION)

…which is exactly why songs like “Certain Death” by Certain Death need to exist—the band’s debut single—and if it re-appears later as the opening track to their debut album also assumedly titled Certain Death the band will surely be a shoe in for the 2023 Black Sabbath Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Triple Identical Band/Song/Album Titles on a Doom Metal Debut Record award…

…a song which at 5 minutes and 51 seconds is only 26 second shorter than "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath and which likewise addresses death directly, not merely as an abstract idea/concept but rather as a manifested presence ever-present in daily existence as a matter of psychopomp and circumstance…

…and if you’re gonna look the Grim Reaper (an invention of plague-afflicted late Middle Ages Europe, a figure who reaps souls like a farmer harvesting souls with his scythe) directly in the eye under a musical guise, you’d better have some sick tritone-laden riffage at the ready—sick as the state of the world itself—and some blazing fretwork pyrotechnics with which to counter Death in the manifested rotting flesh…

…and “Certain Death” has got all of this to the n’th degree oscillating between passages of brooding wraith-like menace and outbursts of unbridled instrumental sound ‘n’ fury shredage—a death rattle more euphoric than morose like a Dia de los Muertos celebration—with vocalist/guitarist Henry Black leading the charge into the metal meltdown all guns blazing but "Certain Death" works equally well in it’s scaled-down, moody acoustic demo version as seen/heard above which should satisfy fans of Mark Kozelek’s covers of AC/DC tunes even if the demo version actually came first…

…and to experience more of Henry’s songwriting/arranging acumen just check out the playlist below which is more in the vein of Gordon Lightfoot or Harry Nilsson than Pagan Altar or Witchfinder General and we especially recommend "YGS" which flows fluidly from the intro’s pensive lyrics and strummed guitar into a rollicking rocker complete with barrelhouse piano and massed cumulous-cloud harmonies before passing over to another realm in a brief psychedelic/psychopompy outro… (Jason Lee)