Department S - My Coo Ca Choo

by Helen Tipping

published: 9 / 11 / 2008

Label: Sartorial Records
Format: 7"

Somewhat needless and unnecessary remixes of cover of the old Alvin Stardust song from early 80's band Department S, who have reformed after over 25 years apart

Review

Oh good, a novelty record ! It beats formulaic metal with eye liner any day for me. I used to like Department S back when they did ‘Is Vic There?’ in 1980, so I thought it would be interesting to find out what they were up to these days. It appears they are making cover versions of kitsch Alvin Stardust songs. The original cover having been released in 2007, this is 2 remixes of it – one an electro pop dance floor remix and the other more glam in style. The more glam style one was remixed by Micko Westmoreland who is more well known for scoring post modern gay porn. So, obviously, I have no experience of his previous work – though I suspect it’s a long way from the 70s boom-chicka-boom style of porn soundtrack. Not that I’d know anything about that either. But I do prefer the gay porn remix over the electro pop one. These remix tracks are quite fun and do manage to breath life into the original song. Their MySpace site says that they are recording an album to be out early next year, but it’ll be interesting to see if anything more does come of this especially given the lack of original singer and lyricist Vaughan Toulouse. Toulouse died of an Aids related illness back in 1991, and I feel that they’ll miss his lyric writing skills. I suspect these remixes will be played at any number of 80's nights, or cyber-goth dance nights (yes really), but if the band can’t get it together then they’ll just disappear back into the mists of people’s memories.