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September 17, 2008
Retrohump: Wait, You Want to Do What?
Magazine - "Permafrost"
(Live in Berlin, 1980, West German Television)
I hadn't thought about this song, the frigid finale to Magazine's positively sub-zero 1979 sophomore album Secondhand Daylight, in a couple of years until I recently picked up a live record in which it was prominently featured. In truth, it's actually kind of a hard song to forget about. While his Buzzcocks' mate Pete Shelley ditched that quintessential punk singles band to record some swell robo-pop (as recently detailed in this space) Howard Devoto got real grim. His second band's debut Real Life stands high atop the list of way-too-serious post-punk classics. Its critical reception apparently convinced Magazine that songs like "Shot By Both Sides" were a little too light and fluffy. Secondhand Daylight's synthetic dread is spread equally throughout its 43 minutes, but not even a toe tapper like "Rhythm of Cruelty" can match "Permafrost" for abject alienated misanthropy. Let's just take a gander at the sweet nothings of Devoto's chorus:
"As the day stops dead/ at the place where we're lost/ I will drug you and fuck you/ on the permafrost"
You've got to give him points for directness, if not tact. But in spite of containing perhaps the most ill-advised speed dating line of all time, "Permafrost," has a kind of strutting menace and retro-futurist instrumental prowess (I was going to saw "charm" but that's clearly not an apt descriptor). Above, the band tackles the song in an appropriately dark German concert hall, taped for the always mind-boggling Rockpalast program. In the clip, a very sweaty Devoto resembles some sort of alien fish creature, who's just been let out of his protective tank. It's a distinctive look.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at September 17, 2008 01:00 AM
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