Today’s Song of The Day was triggered by playing a cover version of it that I had not heard in over a decade. Back in 1990 Erasure released a wonderful single called “Blue Savannah” and the US CD single of that title is stuffed with seven tracks and 42 minutes of music, not the least of which is the key song for today: a cover of Gina X Performance’s seminal track of electro-slink, “No G.D.M.” I would imagine the youthful Bell got familiar with this in the clubs of the early 80s. Rusty Egan always had this on his New Romantic hotlist of major tracks to play and one hopes any gay clubs that Bell may have visited made double damned sure that this track was played in the course of an evening’s set.

Sire Records | US | CD5 | 1990 | 9 21428-2

 Erasure: Blue Savannah US CD [1990]

1. Blue Savannah [single ver.]
2. Blue Savannah [der Deutsche mix 1]
3. Blue Savannah [der Deutsche mix 2]
4. Runaround on the Underground [12″ mix]
5. Blue Savannah [Mark Saunders remix]
6. Supernature [William Orbit’s mix]
7. No G.D.M. [Zeus B. Held mix]

Erasure sagely got the song’s original producer [you know him, you love him; Mr. Zeus B. Held ladies and gentlemen!] to oversee the mix here, and it hews rather closely to the electrofunk template that the original version brought to the plate. The arrangement mirrors the original production; all sinuously deep synth basslines with a measured, methodical melody line and the same shimmering sinewaves of synth that the original sported a dozen years earlier. The biggest difference is the quality of Andy Bell’s delivery compared to the flat, declamatory, Teutonic delivery of Gina Kikoine.

LTM | UK | CD | 2005 | LTMCD 2450

Gina X Performance: Nice Mover UK CD RM [2005]

1. Nice Mover
2. No G.D.M.
3. Plastic Surprise Box
4. Casablanca
5. Be A Boy
6. Exhibitionism
7. Black Sheep
8. Tropical Comic Strip
9. No G.D.M. [Berlin 1992 mix]
10. Nice Mover [7″ edit]
11. No G.D.M. [7″ edit]
12. Homage A B.B.

Bell actually facilitates comprehension of the lyrics, which provide an inside take on gender bending as inspired directly by Quentin Crisp’s autobiography,”The Naked Civil Servant.” But his delivery seems primly restrained next to the original singer, Ms. Kikoine. He seems unmoved by it all in spite of the fact that he actually is a gay man. Gina’s gleeful delivery of the lyrics seriously belie the fact that she was married to Held at the time she sung them. She is utterly convincing in her embrace of transgressive pansexuality.

Statik | UK | 12" | 1985 | TAK 33/12

Gina X: No G.D.M. Reissue 12″ [1985]

1. No G.D.M. [ext./LP ver.]
2. No G.D.M. [7″]
3. No G.D.M. [dub ver.]
4. Be A Boy

In between the 1978 original release and the 1990 Erasure cover version, Gina X had signed to Statik Records for the release of her fourth and final album, 1984’s “Yinglish.” After several tracks from that album appeared in single form, I was shocked to see that Statik had reissued the still-potent “No G.D.M.” as a 12″ single in 1985, that most double-breasted* of musical years! The only ex-post-facto mixing done to these tracks was the new dub ’85 version that added the most tasteful touches of echoplex to the mix, making it about 30 seconds longer and in no way besmirching the memory of the licentious original.

– 30 –

* special Monk-Thanks to John Foxx for this evocative turn of phrase!