Song Of The Day 3/24/2015: Acrobats of Desire - "Parking Boys"

Sheffield, Courteous But Firm: Acrobats of Desire were named after a carnival troupe featured in Angela Carter’s feminist/surrealist novel The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, published in 1972. I haven’t read it. In fact I just now heard of it. But I looked it up on Goodreads and found quotes from the book, my favorite of which was:

“Abandoned lovers were often lured into the false embrace of faithless mistresses and this caused the Minister the gravest concern for he feared that one day a man would impregnate an illusion and then a generation of half-breed ghosts would befoul the city.”

Does that sound like Sheffield? I honestly don’t know. Sounds a little like Salem, Oregon on Thursdays.

The band Acrobats of Desire were a great idea: a post-punk string quartet that cut their teeth at fringe festivals and composed light operas. They were part of a mysterious sub-strain of British post-punk that I like to think actually existed: the balls-out, non-rock, guitar-less chamber anti-pop movement that… you know, I think I’m just making it up. It’s a scene that feels to me like it should have existed, so just to cover my bases in case it really did happen, I’m memorializing it even though it didn’t. Unless it did. If you happen to know please leave a message with Brenda and we’ll send specialists over right away. Head Desire ’Bat Mick Wilson has gone on to have a fruitful and prolific career as a neoclassical composer, which elevates him above this conversation just by divine right.

“Parking Boys” was released in 1981 according to the best records available, which were on an frightfully red web page in Courier font.