In honor of April Fool's Day here's a song called "April Fool" (1973) by the all female funk band, ISIS.
I can't decide if I hate the song or if I like it. ISIS tried to be the female version of Blood, Sweat & Tears, but it didn't quite pan out. Their music was surprisingly lesbian - what I mean is the Village People were singing about gayness in "YMCA", "Macho Man", "In the Navy", but most of us naive idiots didn't have a clue; however, ISIS made it very plain what they were singing about. Maybe they figured not too many people were listening anyway, so no one will notice.
The ISIS promotion in the image above was for a concert at the legendary Continental Baths. Located in the basement of the Ansonia Hotel in NYC, this decadent predominantly gay club included a disco, an Olympic sized swimming pool, a cabaret, an STD clinic (!), a Turkish bath, and a buffet. Bette Midler got her start by performing there with Barry Manilow.Of course my favorite ISIS is not the band, but the TV show - a program I still love to hate. Read my highly astute and intellectual commentary on it here: The Secret of Isis' Awfulness.
And finally, one more explicitly sexual April musical reference...
This song by April Wine may well surpass "My Humps" as the worst song in the history of popular music - a period of time beginning with medieval travelling bards to the present. Why so awful? Check the title - an astonishingly awful piece of sexual innuendo - "If You See Kaye"... get it? Ha, ha, ha, ha!*
As for the video, it features a chick climbing up and jumping off a diving board while the band "rocks out". What was it with the "chicks on diving boards" fascination in the 80s? Fast Times at Ridgmont High (ahhhh... Phoebe Cates, how I loved thee), Christmas Vacation, and now this?
* - A highly sarcastic and mocking laugh; if you could hear my condescending laughter, you'd want to punch me in the mouth.
