Arkansas:
Ginsu Wives
CITY: Little Rock
SONGS THAT GOT US: “Hello My Love,” “Paula Abdul Jabbar”
ON THE TUBES: MySpace, You Tube
RECORD LABEL: Negative Art
WHY THEM? Ginsu Wives bust out some of the ickiest, most coked-out robot disco ever. There was a time when Providence’s Men’s Recovery Project released scads of this kind of material — fat synth grooves and the misan-thropic, vocal blank stares that you’re afraid to look behind — but that throne’s been vacant for a while. “The party is right here,” the Wives repeat ad nauseam on the plodding dirge of the same name, while the nasty fuzz-bass in “Hello My Love” marks the unholy marriage of punk and G-funk under a creepy falsetto chorus that would make Gene Ween blush. If Prince had grown up as Jon Lovitz’s adopted baby brother, we might have had the Ginsu Wives 25 years ago.
BONUS BIT! Fans of Nam June Paik, pantomimed money shots, PCP, and chubby, oiled-up shirtless men might enjoy the thoroughly NSFW video for “Hello My Love.” The rest of you have been warned.