Johnny Staco — Nefretica

One immediately thinks of Peaches, the electro-trash diva from Montreal. From this Wichita, Kansas native come the same scrambled beats, the same in-your-face sexuality, the same nonchalant insolence. Johnny Staco (born Germaine Tool), a salacious crooner, asserts his eurodance approach which could be described as being an un-danceable mixture of catch-tune military beats. But his originality lies in the audacious way he adorns his humble origins with the rags of the rich, or rather more prosaically "to submit them to Staco’s magical feminine touch".Glockenspiel pearls, harp necklaces, finery made up of distinctly revamped violins. The setting is daring, sumptuous in scope. Perverse as well, as in his humiliation of both the artificial rhythm box and his use of a provincial Swingers-Club deÅLcor. Johnny Staco, with his gold tooth and impeccable three-piece suit, celebrates the beautiful game of love and sex. Tenacious or languid, his high-pitched voice (not unlike Gordon Gano’s of The Violent Femmes), adds layers to the obscenity of the lyrics in such songs as "Fuck me I'm dead / Fill me like bread" ("Sexy Sallie") or "Suck my dick/You 're so chic" ("Alexander Smith"). He even manages to pervert innocent nursery rhymes into salacious hymns, "Sleep little boy/Mummy gets your toy" ("Lovers Are Assholes"), all the more so by his sublime use of a children's choir. Those with prudish ears refrain! Nothing prevents this Nick Cave lookalike – complete with moustache – from claiming the title of Instant Trash Icon, although he would probably be better located in a Berlinese Prenzlauer Berg cabaret rather than in the suburbs of Wichita. A discrepancy?