Nada Mucho

“They are not frisky,” said Fiona.

Fiona, the heavy-bellied tabby cat, watched the video for “Crimes” from Seattle’s Monogamy Party cooly with slitted eyes and gently moving whiskers.

Vocalist Kennedy smearing Popsicle across his face and yelling about sitting you down, shutting you up, and showing you how it feels drew no reaction. Nor did crotch and Popsicle or thigh and Popsicle or lip and Popsicle. Or all the dangling and shaking or stroking of Popsicle.

“Is Kennedy a puritan?” asked Fiona.

Monogamy Party sets itself out as a sex-positive, drug positive emission of uncontrolled energy that in “Crimes,” the band’s first video, gives the impression of also seeking some righteous high-ground.

Released to promote False Dancers, the band’s first full-length album out now on Good to Die Records, the video fails to achieve whatever Monogamy Party wanted it to express. What that is – other than to portray Kennedy as a screechy adolescent – is unclear.

“There’s this energy and there’s the obsession with Popsicle,” Fiona said. “What can the Popsicle represent? Or what can it not represent?”

I called Fiona a spy and told her to shut up. “Can’t you see that they are promoting an enlightened state? Listen, maybe without watching,” I said.

“It make me feel sticky,” Fiona said.

“This is a problem for you, not for me.”

“I think the video is trying to shock or have shock value. What does it take to impress these days? It doesn’t work.”

“You may be right.”

“There is nothing redeemable here. Or if there is, it’s similar, in essence to a mad, but declawed cat attacking your feet. There are more bad things to fuck then a guitar and vocal chords, but don’t make a video involving fucking Popsicle and historic legacy. I’ve suffered enough. You too.”

Fiona fell silent. The computer screen clicked off into hibernation mode.

“Or, wait…do you think the video is trying to be ironic?” Fiona said.

“I have no faith that they are trying to be ironic,” I said. “I hope so, for substance. But hope is no policy.”