A modern love song singer

The Resurrection of MooMoo

MM was a singer. MM wanted to sing love songs. Both sad and glad. MM had a bit of the 80's sad pop inside. Those melancholy synthesizers and the catastrophe of love. MM knew that the 80's was a cheeseball decade. But MM was a bit of cheeseball, especially about love. MM, when alone, would don a black outfit, mascara and slicked back hair. MM loved that slutty androgynous look that bloomed in the 80's and died so quickly, never to be seen again (outside of a Motley Crue/Soft Cell cover band.)

MM also had a thing for R&B love songs. Toni Braxton, Jodeci, Teddy Pendergass, et al. MM wept with epiphany upon hearing Toni sing, "It's just another sad love song, racking my brain like crazy." But MM also smiled obscenely when Jodeci sang, "Come and talk to me I really wanna know your name…."

Alone in an apartment MM sang love songs. MM had to close the curtains because the scene was pretty pathetic. A grown person crying while singing old songs being played on Lite FM. But MM was a singer. And singers do three things: rehearse, perform and live the lush life. MM did two of those things well. MM practiced with verve and relentless determination. And MM lived the lush life with aplomb. It was the performance that was lacking in MM's troika of singerhood.

Rumors abounded about why MM would not perform. Some said it was because MM was no good. Some said it was because MM was scared. Others said it was because MM was not with the times. Still others said it was because MM had a terrible secret that precluded performance singing.

MM tried as hard as possible to rectify the situation. MM auditioned for bands that posted crude fliers in the back of slacker coffee shops. MM's desire to sing love songs in a style that blended 80's synth melancholia with melodic R&B did not go over well. Nor did MM's heavy use of mascara and eyeliner. Then MM put together a demo tape and sent it out to agents and record labels. 98 out of 100 demo tapes did not garner a response. The two that responded used sentences like, "nice voice, wrong millennium," and "the kids don't do love anymore."

MM was taught to believe that if you follow your heart good things will follow. But the only things following MM were jealousy and despair. For a singer without an audience is like a Peep in a microwave. The forces that cause the singer to expand are sealed in a box, and instead of showering others with musical joy, the solitary singer explodes against empty plastic walls.

Then MM had a visit from an old hustler. This was a person who used to creep around the neighborhood. The hustler was working down in Miami for a while then crept back in to town. MM confessed to the hustler the dilemma – the inability to create a connection so that love could flow from MM out to the world.

The hustler leaned back in a chair and considered a minute: "A hustler hustles, nothing more."

MM heard this wisdom. It seeped into the marrow. It was obvious. If MM was going to perform, MM was going to have to perform. Then the hustler tried to sell MM a Mercedes for cheap. MM did not want a Mercedes. MM wanted a van, big enough to hold a band. The hustler told MM that this could be arranged, give the hustler a week to come up with a nice van for..."What's the band's name?"

MM thought about it a moment, "Thin Line."

MM put together a flyer advertising the formation of Thin Line. Musicians interested in reclaiming the love song for the modern world were asked to audition at noon that Sunday. The flyer claimed that Thin Line was a group dedicated to "music that chokes hate, weeps love, cannot forget and has got to hit that."

Musicians responded. Not the typical talentless hipster hacks who thrashed about like momma was withholding love and the world owed them sex. But rather, 'bitter classical music program' drop outs who desperately wanted to play music for money. Any kind of money. MM put together a band. It had one guitar, one bass, one synth, one drum, one sax, one tambourine and one singer.

MM demanded heart, soul and a pound of flesh as well from the band. The band bitched. The band fought. The saxophonist had to be replaced by a clarinetist with a rented alto sax. MM had big dreams. Literally. MM dreamed of a lost highway, a forgotten seaside resort, a deluxe old ballroom and a band that recalled the true terror of love.

MM knew what motivated musicians – money, sex and the lush life. To provide those things for the band, MM turned sleazy manager. MM called bars, clubs and theaters. MM demanded that people listen. MM lied, wheedled and cajoled. Not that much happened, but MM did get Thin Line booked in this dingy cabaret nightclub – a god-forsaken refuge for musical theater detritus.

Thinking messianically, MM did not scoff at such an offer. She merely beat her band harder. They whined like only musicians can. Musician whining can break glass, it is well known. MM needed one good hour of music. A sixty-minute set, no breaks, no mistakes. Was that so goddamn hard? MM asked this at practices that lurched into the next day with beer no longer cold.

Thin Line got booked for a Tuesday evening. Worst evening of the week. (Monday was not considered an evening as everything was closed.) Thin Line was to play on a stage built in the 1920's for a two-piece band accompanying a slow moving burlesque artist. Thin Line was to follow an a cappella group of ex-junkies who sang about dirty deeds done in alleyways.

MM filled the place. MM could get about 150 people to show up if every threat, plea and lie were used. MM put 150 people in that room. The crowd was loud, boisterous and thirsty. The crowd applauded the ex-junkie a cappella group. The crowd bought the drug-addicted songsters cigarettes and coffee after the show. A DJ came on while Thin Line set up its instruments. The crowd buzzed, milled and wondered. Was Thin Line going to be worth going out on a Tuesday night?

The DJ stopped. The house lights dimmed. The sound was only shuffling of feet. From the wings climbed Thin Line. They packed compactly onto the small stage. MM was hit by a spot light. MM wore a black outfit, mascara and long eyelashes. Was MM a boy or a girl? The first moaning notes that softly swelled the room did not answer the question.

MM had known for a long time that when the first notes were played, the first line sung, the song could only be one song: "Another Sad Love Song." Written by Babyface and Daryl Simmons, executed brilliantly by Toni Braxton, MM knew there was perhaps no better homage to that thin line between love and hate than this song.

The band exhaled a deep African beat, a syncopation that was music by itself. It rippled through the crowd, spiraled through people's bodies and all began to move. Then moaned 80's pop synth notes. It conjured in the crowd a remembrance of things past, a feverish nostalgia. Then the saxophone muscled in, a bridge, an invitation to either joy or despair.

MM leaned into the standup mike and let it go:

"Since you been gone
I been hangin’ around here lately
With my mind messed up.
Jumped in my car tried to clear my mind
Didn’t help me…
I guess I’m all messed up now baby."

Thin Line did it faster than Toni's version, hoppier, an homage really. MM moaned it. An alone and palely loiterer searching for an 80's English beat. The crowd swayed. The crowd remembered again what a catastrophe love can be.

And the crowd recalled too what life can be: A wanting love song between birth and death.

Even before the hook started, MM began to cry. The crowd gaped at this weeping apparition in a spotlight on a creaky stage in a musty club. Some of them began to weep too. For it all came out of Thin Line then – ecstasy and agony.

MM stepped into the hook. The band began to sweat, the crowd began to roar and even the decrepit owner in the corner smiled for the first time in 35 years (so it was said…)

"It’s just another sad love song
Rackin’ my brain like crazy
Guess I’m all torn up.
Be it fast or slow
It doesn’t let go
Or shake me…
And it’s all because of you."