Ep 38: Crushing the Comeback with Josie Cotton
She’s the Girl in Gold Boots! 2020 is Josie Cotton’s year, and you heard it here first, folks! Legendary 80s songstress Cotton shares some of her swinging re-released songs with Sparkle and Destroy! Photo by Mike Ruiz
Don’t call it a come back, she’s been here all along! New Wave princess Josie Cotton is so much more than what we remember from the 80s flick Valley Girl. She’s complex, multi-faceted and absolutely whip smart. Behind the big hair and lusty vocals is a hilarious gal with a penchant for sci fi and sincere storytelling. It was an honor to have her on the podcast!
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It’s Josie’s year!
Josie’s on fire! Below is an excerpt from the feature I wrote for BUST Magazine about Josie’s new album, Invasion of the B-Girls, out now. Read up, then press play: Our conversation was long and full of interesting gems (we talk Tammy Wynette, Stasi uniforms and even Angelyne)!
About Invasion of the B-Girls
Inside the kaleidoscope of Josie Cotton's psychedelic songbook, every pop culture reference holds an unexpected meaning, every late night B-movie a deeper story to tell. Earlier this month, BUST Magazine premiered Cotton's grooviest track to date, “Girl in Gold Boots,” inspired by the 1968 film of the same name, and what Cotton has herself has described as “one of the worst movies I have ever seen, in which insanely bad dancing hits an all-new low.” That's right. Grab the popcorn and don't you dare skimp on the butter. Just dump it on!Cotton’s long-lost album Invasion of the B-Girls, slated for a new release May 1, is a totally swanky, sometimes funny, always danceable homage to her favorite so-bad-they're-great films of yesteryear, including themes to “She Devil on Wheels” (1968), “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” (1965), “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” (1970) and John Water's iconic cult classic “Female Trouble” (1974), which Cotton released as a digital single earlier this month.
You could say that the singer-songwriter has built her career on crafting her own one-two punch of sly, neo-retro style and subversive substance (always with a mischievous wink for the peanut gallery).
“I was obsessed with science fiction movies since childhood, a lot of which you could call B-movies; but seeing 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!' as an adult was a kind of come-to-Jesus moment for me," Cotton said of her inspiration to cover these forgotten “classics” (unlike her eyeliner, she uses the term very lightly). “It suddenly occurred to me that I could do a whole record of theme songs from B-movies. So I went on a search and watched an insane amount of movies for about a year ... My criteria was it had to be a ‘great’ song from a ‘bad’ movie…‘bad’ meaning ‘good’ and ‘great’ meaning it was a fantastic song.”
Originally debuted in 2007 as an unmastered, unpolished and extremely limited CD-only release, Invasion of the B-Girls never enjoyed its true moment in the limelight. In fact, many diehard fans are probably just hearing about it now. Meticulously remastered and shimmering with fresh sonic sparkle, the release will be available via streaming platforms with vinyl courtesy of Cotton's own label, Kitten Robot, as well as Dionysus Records.Produced by Cotton, punk legend Geza X (Black Flag, Dead Kennedys), and Bill Rhea (Del Rubio Triplets), Invasion of the B-Girls includes liner notes written by John Waters as well as guest performers like David Kendrick (Devo, Sparks) and Paul Roessler (Screamers, Twisted Roots), Geza X, Kenny Lyon (Spain), and Tower of Power’s horn section, which appears on the single “Female Trouble.”
Born in Dallas, Texas with killer pipes and a mind to use them, Cotton made the obligatory rock n roll pilgrimage to Los Angeles in the late 70s, just as the new wave scene had reached an apex of Aqua Net and attitude. Her famous rendition of “Johnny Are You Queer?,” the hit single off her beloved 1982 album Convertible Music, truly marked an era, and Cotton's energetic 1984 follow-up, From the Hip, hangs tough alongside any quintessential ’80s listening. Pop masterpieces like “He Could be the One” and “Jimmy Loves Maryanne” further stoked Cotton's international fame (plus, teens fell in love with her prom scene performance in the seminal '80s movie Valley Girl). Still, Cotton never quite reached the level of success of contemporaries like The Go-Go's, instead remaining just slightly off-kilter from the crowd and eternally cherished by the underground. Last fall's previously unreleased full length, Everything is Oh Yeah!, and standout single “Ukrainian Cowboy” marked Cotton's revved-up return to the public stage (although she'd been quietly recording songs in her own studios for years).
Any fan will tell you: this has been a miraculous time to be alive. Sure, the world is in shambles, but we've got new Josie jams to spice up the apocalypse!No longer relegated to rare midnight showings and seedy drive-ins, Invasion of the B-Girls is Cotton's cheeky contribution to a world that could undoubtedly use some daring distraction, if not a bit of green slime. Listen closer, and you'll understand that the new wave princess isn't simply reveling in high camp fun. By shedding light on this dark and somewhat sticky corner of the theater, Cotton is championing (or at least egging on) these B-movie heroines, however flawed they might have been. Perhaps it's not so insane to imagine that a leather-clad villainess lurks inside each of us. Slide off that motorbike and zip up those gold go-go boots! Now we can all savor Cotton's midnight screening soundtrack like we were always meant to: with a martini in one hand and some poor sap's heart in the other.
