TO BE A MUSICIAN SHE GOES TO SCHOOL

Trouser Press, February 1982
Holly and the Italians
1. Poster Boy
2. Medley (I Wanna Go Home/Miles Away/Tell That Girl to Shut Up)



There was a time when it was the ultimate insult to call a band “faceless.”

The appellation was generally reserved for your Foreigners and your Styxes and your Kansases. You know-- bland, colorless, corporate rock.

But I have to admit, I couldn't pick Holly and the Italians from a sassy power-pop lineup of themselves, the Waitresses, Josie Cotton, and say, Martha and the Muffins.

Probably the signal characteristic of Holly and the Italians was the one that was shared by the others of their ilk: a single, defining song.

In the case of Holly and company, that song was Tell That Girl to Shut Up, and it's included on this bright, opaque lipstick-red flexi as part of a medley with two lesser songs.

It is Rip Her to Shreds writ sideways, and awesome at that.

Transvision Vamp covered it in the late '80s, adding a British accent, booming late '80s drums, and a face.

But I'll take the brilliant anonymity of the Holly and the Italians original every time...

PLACE COIN HERE IF SOUNDSHEET SLIPS

Trouser Press issued its first flexi disc bound into subscriber copies of the January, 1982 issue.

The discs were manufactured by Evatone Soundsheets out of Florida, who had apparently introduced flexible records to the consumer market back in 1960. Evatone closed up shop fairly recently, after declaring bankruptcy back in 2008.

Trouser Press issued these flexis over the next couple of years, alternating between basic black and a rainbow of different colors.

My goal here is to do a quick survey of the color flexis. Or more specifically, the color flexis that I have in my possession.

That very first flexi from back in January of 1982 was this one-sided, canary-yellow disc that contained two songs from Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: New Stone Age (or more properly, The New Stone Age) and Bunker Soldiers, which appeared on their third and first albums, respectively.



If all you know of OMD is If You Leave from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, you might be surprised at the industrial post-punkiness of the music on this bright yellow sheet...