Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian

There are days in which I’m able to channel my thoughts into productive work, in which I’m disciplined and razor-focused and know exactly where I need to go with my thinking and what I need to do in order to get it done. Then there are days on which my brain rolls its eyes at me, cuts a fart, says Smell ya later, alligator, and heads off on a little day excursion that, while certainly scenic, makes no sense to anyone who is living outside of my head. (Which the little voices inside my head tell me are most of you.)

The other day, for example. I had an errand to run in the morning to pick up milk and yogurt from Stew Leonard’s. I go to Stew Leonard’s not because I really need to drive eleven miles for milk and yogurt, but because their dairy products are local and fresh and they usually have an abundance of free samples and I am, after all, easily swayed by the lure of anything that is bite-sized and without cost. On the way back, I was listening to an interview with singer Levi Kreis on the radio—he’s one of those vocalists I find interesting whenever I hear him interviewed or read about him, but the moment the magazine is down or the switch off, I forget all about him.

The interviewer asked him to choose a track from an upcoming album to be released later in the spring. Levi picked one. I’ve forgotten the name. My poor brain didn’t have a chance, because the track started out with a mixture of strings and bells in a poppy arrangement that had it thinking, within the first four notes, “That’s ‘Escapade.’” The bells and strings played on for a very long time. “That’s Janet Jackson’s ‘Escapade,’” I said aloud, to no one in particular. Then the singing kicked in and I was singing “Es-ca-pade! We’ll have a good time! Leave your worries behind” along with the chorus, with no real deviation from the rhythm or chord structure. And then the host came back on and was thoughtfully mooing into the microphone about what great appeal the song had, and I was shouting back at him, “Yes, because it was a VERY POPULAR SINGLE FROM RHYTHM NATION 1814!!!”

I’m sorry, Levi. Just callin’ ‘em like I see’s ‘em.

So by the time I got home, fuming over having to listen to “Escapade” tarted up with electronica appropriations and earnest male singing, my brain had already sailed off to sunnier shores as it demanded to hear some choice tidbits from my collection of flop soundalike songs.

I delight in flop soundalike songs. They are a genre unto itself. Even to say the phrase ‘flop soundalikes’ is redundant. The point of soundalike songs is not to achieve massive popularity. It’s to trigger enough familiarity to cause someone to buy the record, keeping the soundalike artist from having to get a real job for years, even though they never reach a point of saturation or fame to become self-sustaining.

The nineteen-eighties masters of the soundalike were producer Bobby Orlando and his house band The Flirts. I’ve always meant to write an essay about how masterful Orlando was as a rip-off artist. (This isn’t it.) Some of the Flirts’ early work is more impressionistic in its copycattedness—“Jukebox (Don’t Put Another Dime)” follows an easy, peppy Go-Go’s imprint that’s hard to pin down—until the middle sixteen, that is, when suddenly one can sing the “Hush my darling, don’t you cry” part from “Our Lips Are Sealed” atop it, and suddenly the source becomes clear.

But their later ripoffs were more blatant, to the point that lawsuits should’ve been filed by the estates of Madonna (because “New Toy” doesn’t even try to pretend that it’s not “Like A Virgin”), Laura Branigan (because “Helpless (You Took My Love)” is applause-worthy in its reconstruction of “Self Control”), ABBA (as when The Flirts’ “Voulez Vous” steals both the lyrics and melody of “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” and then confuses us with one of the Swedish’s band’s other song titles), and Janet Jackson (who might’ve been interested in hearing “Nasty” come out of the speakers whenever someone played The Flirts’ “All You Ever Think About Is (Sex)”). Sigh. I love The Flirts, with their blatant, calculated, and increasingly devil-may-care rip-offs of songs way more popular than they ever were.

Once my brain was on this sonic journey, it was difficult to stop. I went to another of my favorite soundalike songs, “Mismatch,” from Apollonia’s self-titled only solo outing. “Mismatch” is a boppy little song that didn’t perform very well on the charts, and that also draws from the inexhaustible well of Janet Jackson rip-offs. If you listen to the opening bouncy bass and perky synth strikes, it’s pretty clear that it’s a chord-for-chord reproduction of “What Have You Done For Me Lately?”, down to the one-fingered piano solo about three-quarters of the way through.

And you know, except to Jackson and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, there’s really nothing wrong with that. If you liked “What Have You Done For Me Lately?”, say Apollonia’s producers, you’re going to like “Mismatch.” Here, have another slice of that sweet imitation Flyte Tyme pie.

It was at this point that my brain really started to chug toward its destination, because I thought it was a shame that Apollonia’s solo album really never did better. It’s not bad. It’s about as lightweight a pop album as a couple of feathers resting on a helium balloon, but the arrangements are crisp, the songs are fun, and somehow the producers managed to cover up Apollonia’s dubious singing voice. But even as a legitimate co-star of one of 1984’s top-grossing films, Purple Rain, Apollonia never got any respect.

Okay, it might because the only thing thinner than Apollonia’s singing voice is her acting talent. I saw Purple Rain about a dozen times when it came out and was such a fan that for a year I wore a pencil-thin mustache, a frilly pirate shirt, and what I thought was a come-hither look in my smoldering eyes, which probably most people interpreted as indigestion. Upon viewing the movie recently, though, my only thought was, Were we really so starved for the internet and smartphones in 1984 that we thought Purple Rain was thrilling entertainment? It’s not. It’s pretty dreadful, in fact.

So. Levi Kreis. Soundalike songs. The Flirts. Mismatch. Apollonia. This is the chain of association I followed so far, that morning. And when I think about Apollonia, it’s tough not to think about her big breakthrough in Apollonia 6—the lingerie-clad band successor to the Prince spinoff project Vanity 6, after Vanity left the band to pursue a solo ‘career.’ Oh, don’t give me that look. I’m allowed to use those judgmental air quotes. I’m the only person on earth who bought both of Vanity’s solo albums.

Ah, Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6. You remember them. They consisted of The One Who Was Sleeping With Prince At The Time, the One Who Was Pretending To Be Underage, and the Skanky One. Or if that didn’t narrow it down enough for you, the Skanky One With The Cigarette Permanently Hanging From Her Mouth.

One of the interesting things about Prince’s Apollonia 6 project, of course, is that the band’s almost more famous for the songs it didn’t release than the songs it actually did. The original album was chock-full of good stuff that, at the last minute, got pulled until the album was pretty basically gutted. “Take Me With U” was originally mixed as an Apollonia 6 song until his purple highness yanked it, made it a duet that featured himself, and stuck it on the Purple Rain album; it became one of his biggest singles. The album’s lead-off song was, up until the very final pressing, none other than “Manic Monday.” Prince pulled that and handed it off to the Bangles, who made it a huge hit of their own. The group recorded “The Glamorous Life” for the album, only to have it handed off to Sheila E.

It all seems a little unfair until one considers the fact that having three singers and a trunk full of wispy camisoles, the group really had two weak links. One of them was the lead singer. It pains me to say this about one of my favorite campy bands, but during most of “Sex Shooter,” Apollonia 6’s only semi-hit, Apples' 'singing' sounds startlingly similar to the noises made by a tickled pig.

Then there was Susan. Poor, perpetually adolescent Susan, who spent her time in Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6 awkwardly posing in white lingerie and clutching a teddy bear. In both the band’s incarnations she sang lead only three times—if we can call it singing. It’s more like chanting . . . no, that word implies that Susan might have a rudimentary sense of rhythm, which she decidedly does not. Intoning, then. Her songs consist of Susan intoning sexual come-ons like, “I got a shape like a bottle of Co-Co-Co-Co-Cola” over increasingly frantic New Wave Prince compositions in a timbre that can only be described generously as ‘adenoidal.’

It was when I was reflecting on Susan and what can only be described as her triumph as the fastest-ever vanishing ‘talent’ from show biz after the dissolution of a band when my brain demanded to know: Hey. Is Susan on Facebook?

I know better than to oppose my brain on pursuing these trivial paths. If my brain wants to know, I scurry to obey its bidding, rather than pay the consequences. It was a lucky thing I knew Susan’s middle and last names—don’t ask me how. My brain has been on these fact-finding missions before—and all I had to do was type them into Facebook. Boom, there were pictures Susan in her current life. Happily fat, married, and raising three kids (one of them in a stroller), at Disney World. She looked very much like any other mom in her late forties or early fifties who didn’t spend most of the eighties strutting around in white lingerie, clutching a teddybear like her virginity depended on it, and shouting tone-deaf lyrics along the sophisticated lines of, “My name is Susan! And I’m a-oozin!”

Then my brain wanted to know what Brenda Bennett was up to. Brenda was the Skanky One, of course, and she was the only one out of the band that could really sing; she attacks her solos songs on both bands’ albums with a nicotine wail like she’s some kind of basso Teena Marie. It’s not really a surprise that on Apollonia 6’s seven tracks, Brenda gets to sing lead on three of them. That’s even more than Apples herself gets, if you don’t count the song in which Apollonia moans orgasmically in Spanish over some pretty flamenco guitars.

Now, I’m sure Brenda wasn’t really a skank in her real life. She seems like an intelligent woman in her current interviews. Yet though she was merely playing the part for videos and album covers . . . damn, she surely did throw herself into the role with the kind of Method vigor that usually nets Daniel Day Lewis an Oscar. When she’s chomping on her gum and a cigarette butt at the same time and growling at the cameras through sex-smudged mascara and blue eyeshadow, she’s freakin’ scary. But Brenda has recently released her own album of bluesy folk music. It’s really nice. I bought it.

But no, my brain still wasn’t satisfied. It had to know one more thing. Whatever happened to the Apollonia 6 movie?

You see, back in the mid-eighties after Purple Rain came out, it was pretty widely reported that Prince was having a movie made featuring Apollonia 6 and a good chunk of their album. It was supposed to be called Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian, and it was supposed to feature actor/singer Ricky Nelson in the lead opposite our three innocents. At the time I followed every news item about the film. I cheered when I read it had been wrapped. I waited and waited. Then I never heard anything about it again. A few years back I heard it had been scrapped, that it was just a rumor and nothing more. But thanks to the internet, where every piece of flotsam eventually washes to shore, I was now able to locate Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian in its entirety. After watching it, even my brain knew that it had reached its terminus for the day.

It’s perfectly clear why Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian never got a release. Simply put, it’s dreadful. It’s awesome, but horrible at the same time. It’s directed by Brian Thomson, the Australian who designed the sets for the original London Rocky Horror Show and managed to show no restraint whatsoever in designing everything in the Rocky Horror movie sequel, Shock Treatment. I’m imagining the conversation between him and Prince, pre-production, ran a little something like this:

THOMSON: So Prince, mate. I’d like to bring to Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian a dark and satirical edge that shows how mercilessly women are exploited and how they are forced to sexualize themselves in order to. . . .
PRINCE: U need 2 find a part 4 Ricky Nelson. I dig “Garden Party.”
THOMSON: Um, sure. I’ve been heavily studying the German Expressionists, particularly Fritz Lang, and I’d like to. . . .
PRINCE: That sounds good. Put in a lot of titty shots. Here’s a check 4 U, Mr. Tungsten.
THOMSON: Thomson.
PRINCE: Whatever. Peace.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian vacillates wildly between pretensions to high art, and the lowest cliches of softcore pornography. The sets and lighting are masterpieces of expressionism—huge constructions, walls of words, mazes of automobiles, stylized shadows, noir black-and-white dashboard shots caught in reflection in the rain. The costumes are theatrical and extravagant. Even Susan’s teddybear gets outfits matching her own. It’s obvious Thomson is trying to make A Major Statement.

But it’s also obvious that the short film is a product of compromise—the biggest compromise being that Apollonia 6 fans didn’t want arty camera work. They wanted to see the girls bustin’ out of their camisoles. He had only a thimbleful of actual talent with which to work, too. The acting is strictly out of My Mom Is a Bondage Slut IV, as when Apollonia gasps at the camera, “But we have nothing to wear!” and not only has to take a breath after the first word but needs to pause and peer at the cue card after her third word as well. The compromises create strange and even comical visual juxtapositions. One moment Thomson is aping the arty craziness of The Night of the Hunter; the next he’s inserting cheesy shots of Apollonia in black leather.

Basically three and a half songs go into the twenty minutes of Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian. (Oddly, the song that gives the movie its title is cut to about a quarter of its length.) Susan’s “Oo She She Wah Wah” is a bit of a throwaway in which Susan stomps around with a bunch of teddybears who turn into the Village People. Brenda’s “Blue Limousine” (after a cringe-worthy beginning in which a strangely lisping truck driver who seems to think he’s in Haulin’ Ass 2: Slippery Roads Ahead leers, “Sssstep right in, girlsss! Your meal ticket has arrived! And it’sss hhhhhhhhhot and waiting!”) is simply terrific.

But it’s Thomson’s video for the band’s single, “Sex Shooter,” that is notable for its je ne sais quoi, its liberal air of what the flippin’ eff? The traditional “Sex Shooter” video has the girls fooling around and gyrating more or less in time to the beat and giving their garters a workout. It’s a song in which the height of lyrical wit is Apollonia imploring listeners to “Come on, kiss the gun.”

But Thomson seems to be auditioning for a shot at directing a grim new version of 1984. He has a dead-faced Buck Henry as Everyman (was he blackmailed into this?) wandering the aisles of a massive concrete supermarket surrounded by aisle after aisle of lifeless advertising and products, attempting to find his place in a world of rampant consumerism that leaves him increasingly moribund both inside and out . . . interspersed with cheesecake shots of Apollonia in black lingerie. He has Buck Henry as Everyman infantilized by unrestricted commercialism, reduced to nothing but his credit card and a scan code, able only to parrot what messages are shouted into his ears . . . interspersed with more shots of Apollonia leaning over to expose her ample cleavage. The video is freakin’ bizarre, y’all. It’s perfectly obvious that Thomson has Something To Say here, but the message has about as much to do with sex shootin’ as do the Teletubbies.

APOLLONIA 6 "Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian" from Videodrome Discothèque on Vimeo.


I can only imagine that when Thomson handed over the final print of Happy Birthday Mr. Christian, Prince probably leered mysteriously through the opening half, smiled during Susan’s teddybear extravaganza, then sat up in his seat during the middle third that “Sex Shooter” occupies, stood up to his full four feet and seven inches, and chased that lousy Ozzie back down under. Then (before he even saw Brenda’s number, which is a shame) he put the video in the very back of his vault and tried to pretend the whole thing never happened.

Levi Kreis. Soundalike songs. The Flirts. Mismatch. Apollonia. Apollonia 6. It’s been days since I ended up watching Happy Birthday, Mr. Christian. My brain’s still reeling.

But not so much that it didn’t wake me up and demand, Hey, you. Why don’t you write about it?