Label: Shimmy Disc – shimmy 040Catalog#: n.a.
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1990
I recently bumped into some news on a terrific and powerful woman known (not famous) as Ann Magnusson (I was actually reading stuff on her as a performer), and went back to Bongwater’s music, that somehow I had forgotten along the way.
Shame on me.
And of course to apologize, here I am suggesting you to listen and inevitably fall in love with this two piece band, whose story lasted 7 amazing years from 1985 to 1992.
Bongwater consisted of Ann as lead vocalist, front woman, performer and icon, and Mark Kramer as instrumentalist, engineer, producer, a former member of Shockabilly, Half-Japanese and head of the Shimmy Disc label, but still had some time to play with New York Gong and Butthole Surfers. Helped by drummer David Licht and guitarists Dave Rick (and many guests) had enough time to release 2 EPs and 4 full length albums, among which the one I’ve been listening for the last 4 weeks continuously.
The power of pussy is, yes you’re right, about sex, a lot about sex, in many different ways, none of them predictable, and yes/yes the doll is yours, the title song that opens the album is a feminist anthem.
Bongwater were a psych folk trippy rock band, very much alternative and, as I found out, with a huge number of crazy fans and lovers all over the world. In their songs and through Ann’s lyrics, you’ll find her amazing vocal performances, ’cause really she’s not just singing, declaiming or acting, samples from Nixon’s speeches, weird stories about Nick Cave dolls walking on Hollywood Boulevard, noisy guitars, and folk acid ballads, moans and whispers, loud and curse words and even more. If you like them you can find a lot of amazing, interesting articles about them searching the web, but I would recommend you take a look to the video of “The power of Pussy”, posted below, and I think you’ll get the whole picture, plus read this post written by Richard Metzger on the making of the video, very funny story (…budget was $1000 and $600 of that went to Ann’s hair and make-up, with the remainder going to pizza and videotape stock…).
Quoting her, I also think: “I don’t need therapy/I don’t need religion /I don’t need faith/I don’t money/I need a new tape.
Do you? 
