SHARP GAY BLADES
FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD
Liverpool Warehouse
SOMEWHERE IN your darkest fantasies, Frankie Goes To Hollywood will find a leather bound niche; a perversion for every closet, a stud for every field. If you would step with De Sade through a sharp Parisian daydream then you will be equally tempted to goosestep to Hollywood with these bikers in black.
Frankie and the gang play heavy on the ‘break a taboo’ ethic; portraying your most suppressed ideals with a shocking verve, leading you into the woods that your mother could only warn you about. But what fun lies in those words, what delights crack through the sex, sweat and blood of a cool Mersey night. The stunning visuals writhe about the stage in a gross sexploitation of the ‘muscle and ‘tache’ gay clone, the raw funked beat spins to the jockstrap gyrations of the singer, the prickly Holly.
The fraulein in uniform act and the fake fornication, amplified by the throwaway lyric sheet, teeter on the edge of farce, walk a knife-carved line around vice and finally slide shaft-first into the naughty-but-nice sheath that the Liverpool lushes love them for. Ideally this ‘Pool band would find themselves breaking the stardom barrier in some sleazy Hamburg basement. As it is, they’re cruising for fame on a baby oil boulevard.
David Dorrell