Video Vault: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Kiss Them For Me

This keeps coming up in iTunes lately, so here goes.

By 1991, every struggling post-punk act had to start jumping on whatever bandwagon happened to pass by. One of the most promising trends of the day was the whole Madchester indie-dance thing centered around the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and other New Order acolytes.

Lots of bands that had previously been all doom and gloom suddenly aimed for the dance floor. The Cure did, and the Fall, and Echo and the Bunnymen, and the Jesus and Mary Chain too, so why not Siouxsie and the Banshees?

Siouxsie threw her eyeliner into the ring with Kiss Them For Me, a jaunty little number built around a drum sample from PSK by Schooly-D (no, really!) ... which is ironic, because the Banshees had a drummer, named Budgie, who was supposed to be pretty good. I guess he made tea while they recorded this track. In fact, the whole song is pretty much a vehicle for Siouxsie's vocal, plus some stuttering guitar and vaguely psychedelic synthesizer swooshes and (fake?) strings. Steve Severin, usually an inventive bass player, is just along for the ride on this one.

And just on a purely superficial level, Siouxsie looks quite fetching in this clip. She cleans up real nice.

BONUS!
Also: Peek-a-boo!

Hey, when you've gone through as many guitarists as these guys have, eventually you hit upon the solution: just come up with a killer song that doesn't rely on guitar at all! I like this one a lot. Great drumming by Budgie, and Severin growls out a menacing, minimalist bass figure that's full of attitude. (He also poses like Gary Numan's nerdy cousin in the video.)