Romeo Void

As a fan of cheesy 80s music (when are we going to Karaoke again Chimatli?) and an avid listener of KROQ2 I often wonder what happened to certain bands when I hear their songs–as I write flame bait comments on blogs or finishing up reports.

Thanks to the power of Google and Wikipedia I can now waste more time on other people’s dime when I’m supposed to be working. Who would have imagined that there was more to time wasting than just smoking in the 90s? The Internet has turned time wasting into an art form.

I have learned many interesting  useless facts. For instance I leared that the lead singer of the  Australian band Midnight Oil, Peter Garret  is not hanging out in a bar in Sydney. He is now a member of the Austrialian House of Representative and their Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts. I thought that was pretty awesome.

I always like happy endings. I’m American.

But what about one (or two) hit wonders?

Remember that band Romeo Void. The band with the catchy songs “Never Say Never” and “A Girl in Trouble” what happened to them?

When I first went to Wikipedia the first thing that caught my eye was that that their songs were written by the lead singer Debora Iyall and the second thing that caught my eye was that she was a member of the Cowlitz Indian  tribe. Wow didn’t know that. I then put her name into Google and discovered the reason that the band disappeared was owing to them getting dropped from their label because Debora was deemed too voluptuous  in an age that brought in MTV.

People who sing songs about sex and abortion are supposed to be skinny. Singing about cutting edge things are fine as long as you have the “right” look and the “right” look in music, tv and movies is skinny.

The white American idea of skinny. (I put white, because I don’t think any other ethnic group who are just as American put quite as much of a value on that. Its been exported, but I think it started here first. I could be wrong.)

But I wanted to know what happened to her. This woman who wrote cool songs. Songs that I think hold up even today.

She’s teaching art in the Navajo Nation. That’s in Arizona. And according to her Myspace page she is doing very well. She went on to graduate school and to become an artist and teacher. And of course she’s still voluptuous and making music with her band Nvr Say Nvr.  She actually looks about the same as she did in the 80s which is not something most people can say, especially people from the music scene.

Amazing what you can find on your 20 to 60 minute break but just pressing some keys.

Browne Molyneux