ZE & Cristina

Don't Mutilate My Mink is one of the best songs of all time and I wish I could find my audio cable so I could play it really loud instead of through shitty laptop speakers

Geniunely pissed off to this day that we had a Cristina in the music world and lost her bcz she convinced herself her only real talent was being married to a label head.

"You Rented A Space" is another bizarre gem.

The 2CD Mutant Disco expansion from 2003 (later split into two volumes) remains one of my favorite releases of anything, ever. No one else on it has quite Cristina's specific attitude, but it is wall-to-wall great.

Fans of the label/scene may enjoy the Michael Zilkha-produced Basquiat shaggy dog story that is Downtown '81 (available here in low quality), which has performances/bits from Kid Creole, Coati Mundi, DNA, The Plastics, James Chance, Debbie Harry... but no Cristina IIRC, sadly.

@ZEBooks_USA
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on ZE's first title by
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https://twitter.com/ZEBooks_USA/status/1240684458392485890/photo/1

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETfIHSuUwAAa3GJ?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

was bored a few months ago and decided to look Cristina up, surprised to find out she's on Instagram! And still as brilliantly droll and fashionable as ever: https://www.instagram.com/rupertandedith/?hl=en

thanks for bumping this thread, been meaning to post about this but kept forgetting.

Oh wow that’s an immediate follow for me, thanks

Almost made me sign up for Instagram.

completely obsessed with this multilingual-rap/AOR anthem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrU8Ghbx7BU

word is going around that she's passed, due to complications of coronavirus.

What?! No...

yeah, I just poked around. No official announcement yet but a few clear messages from friends of hers on social media and such.

Oh fuck no :(

Hell of a final post: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-ZdBpGgRcW/?igshid=hbwcqdw1988e

Going to jam her version of “Is that all there is?” in tribute. Godspeed you badass legend.

Oh no!!

Shit, I just started following her Instagram after it was mentioned above (one of three accounts I now follow). Having briefly "met" her again this way, I had thought I might catch up. Now, all of the sudden, it seems she is gone. RIP.

Godammit - RIP Cristina

This is so sad. Rest In Peace to a force of nature! x

this interview with her that my friend Kurt wrote is worth re-reading.

http://festivefanzine.blogspot.com/2010/12/from-vaults-merry-cristina-mas.html

also - http://www.zerecords.com/booklets/32.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0ZZ05CwjY_4bMCBXrC9u_aI5LeKK-LKl-lf530rXFBckLMGzUASTszBWA

well shit!

thanks for those links, Stirmonster, I know how much those records meant to you x

mean, not meant.

thanks jed. so sad. she had been hoping for over a decade to record another album but it never came to be as she had majorly struggled for the last 15 years with a serious auto immune condition. X

such a shame.

💔

Feels weird because I just fell in love with those albums in the last 6 months but I'm glad she has more fans than I imagined. I hope people will be writing lots of articles about her soon.

So, I heard she talked about having Covid on her Instagram. I don't use Instagram but had a look and can't see where that might be. Any ideas?

Guardian piece - https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/apr/01/pop-singer-cristina-coronavirus-us

Dark Entries on twitter had said something, I think.

or maybe just alluded to and you already knew that.

Josh from Dark Entries saw my post. I heard about it from John Caples then looked at Instagram and saw some comments on her last post and then a post from a friend of hers about it.

Ah, ok. Thanks.

She may have posted about it on FB, she has an account there too but it’s private.

She posted a bunch of images/artwork of death on IG last week though - in her usual way of commenting on what’s going on in the news. Seems like grim foreshadowing in hindsight. :(

i ran a new wave / post disco night for a couple of years here in Bristol and we'd often play her explicit version of 'Is That All There Is' as the closer. Feels extremely apposite, especially when the original is apparently Trump's favourite song

Oh, snap: Cristina's "Is That All There Is" was a favourite set-closer of mine around 1988/89, and more generally, one of those tracks which I used to delight in introducing people to. "Things Fall Apart" and both 12" mixes of "Disco Clone" are also perennial, un-witherable lifetime favourites.

Sad. Persoanl fave was always "Don't Mutilate my Mink". End of an era as they say. Fuck this virus

remember hearing 'is that all there is' listening to peel in my room in the second year of college (and peel telling a disobliging story abt leiber and stoller)

:( :( :(

wiki sez: A version with altered lyrics, by No wave singer Cristina, was available briefly in 1980. However, it offended songwriters Leiber and Stoller, who sued and were able to get it suppressed for some time. Produced by August Darnell (Kid Creole), this version was eventually re-issued in 2004, with the songwriters' blessing, as a bonus track on a Cristina compilation album Not seeing a Cristina comp on Discogs, but they do show it on Kid Creole collection Going Places.
In the Lieber & Stoller dual autobio, Lieber says that he was complaining to his WWII refugee wife, despite being at a sustained peak of success and pleasure, so she suggested that he read Thomas Mann's "Disillusionment." (wiki claims that lyrics were lifted from the story, which I haven't read). Leiber describes some record co. apprehension about its being taken as a downer in the go-go 60s, but apparently a lot of people could relate.
As for it being Trump's theme song, this interview tape was quoted by Michael Barbaro in the NYTimes:
MR. TRUMP: It’s a great song because I’ve had these tremendous successes and then I’m off to the next one. Because, it’s like, “Oh, is that all there is?” That’s a great song actually, that’s a very interesting song, especially sung by her, because she had such a troubled life.
But he quickly retreats from the moment, declining Mr. D’Antonio’s invitation to further explain how the song makes him feel about himself, saying he might not like what he discovers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us/politics/donald-trump-interviews.html
(Only time I've ever seen him claim any interest in/awareness of the life experience of a woman.)

I'm a big fan of "Don't Be Greedy" too. Contender for my favorite on the first album.

the reissue they’re talking about is this one


https://www.discogs.com/Cristina-Doll-In-The-Box/release/499446

First heard "Is That All There Is" on the first Rodney on the ROQ comp. Out of place with all the SoCal bands, but a great closer and led me to other great Ze stuff.

There's a painting on her Instagram of her sitting at the stern of a boat that echoes the photo of her reclined on the bed on the cover of ITATI.

RIP.

Seems like most modern-day attention is focused on "Is That All," or "Disco Clone," but that whole debut album is a longtime favorite of mine. Frothy, fluffy, maybe a bit cartoonish, but oddly endearing to me. And she really was stunningly beautiful.

her version of La Poupée Qui Fait Non is a regular in my disco dj nights.

Are there other oddball disco records with a similar vibe? I know a fair amount of ZE Records stuff, but much less about disco, Italo, etc. overall.

the first thing to do is take the little leap over to Y records and check out Pulsallama's Oui Oui which I used to mix in or out of the Cristina song.

then there's everything else Kid Creole touched. Cory Daye's Green Light is something else I play in that context.

I guess any of the mutant disco or disco not disco comps would get you part of the way there.

Modern Romance-Everbody Salsa?

I love italo but it's a wide-ranging thing, a lot of poppy stuff that I don't like, a lot of more electro/spacey stuff that I love that probably doesn't fit the bill, some of the earlier more eurodisco stuff like Vivien Vee - Give Me a Break or more organic sounding italo.

Or Punkin Machine's Tonight.

That's all stuff I'd mix with that context I guess? I'm sure I'll think of more later.

my favourite kid creole fact is that he lived in urmston for a while

Appreciation in the Guardian:

Cristina: no wave's daring darling captured the beautiful and damned

Despite the renewed interested, she declined to make another album (“I’m an old trout”)

terrible headline

MR. TRUMP: It’s a great song because I’ve had these tremendous successes and then I’m off to the next one. Because, it’s like, “Oh, is that all there is?” That’s a great song actually, that’s a very interesting song, especially sung by her, because she had such a troubled life.
But he quickly retreats from the moment, declining Mr. D’Antonio’s invitation to further explain how the song makes him feel about himself, saying he might not like what he discovers.

I thought for a minute that 'her' in the interview Dan posted meant Cristina and I was knocked for six.