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You Can’t Go Wrong With Pink Chaps
By Andrew Burns Origin: We have Little Mix to thank for this one. Little Mix and their pursuit of new and inventive ways to wear as little as possible. While being shown their video by my nine year old for the song “No More Sad Songs” one of the girls is sporting the afore mentioned item of clothing. You can’t go wrong with pink chaps, says I. Good name for a band… You Can’t Go Wrong With Pink Chaps (often known simply as “Pink Chaps”) formed in Sydney, Australia in the early 2000s, around the coming together of two undoubtedly unique talents. Former drag queen Michael “Micha” Rodriguez and burlesque performer Angelina “Angel” Khoury were kindred spirits and the music they produced together was a melange taking in influences of Disco, Glam Rock, Electronica, Dance and Heavy Metal. In the Sydney incarnation of Pink Chaps Micha and Angel were joined by guitarist Johnny Good and drummer Boomer McGhee. Their music back then was chaotic, frenetic and lacking the pop polish we might associate with them today, but they were playing with gender stereotypes and glorious, outrageous costuming right from the start. Pink Chaps built up a sizeable local following, but they felt their appeal in Australia was restricted to the Sydney metropolitan elite. This frustration lead to Micha and Angel hatching a plan to decamp to the bright lights of New York City. This was unfortunately sold to Good and McGhee as a disbanding and lead to the inevitable, incongruous court case a few years later. Once in New York Angel and Micha wasted no time in reforming Pink Chaps this time joined by Marty Gould and Steph Soprano on guitars and Daniel Gray on drums. The new polish arrived quickly, the heavier elements of their previous incarnation filtered out by the more sophisticated influence of Soprano in particular. Again, quickly they garnered a sizeable local following, but their breakthrough came across the Atlantic when their Disco infused reimagining of Queen Quackers’ “Love’s Laser” was picked up on the UK’s Radio 1. They followed this hit quickly with their own “Slow Sexy Cruise”. Their sexually adventurous lyrics along with the dance beats meant they were hugely popular in the clubs, while their playful personas and outlandish costumes gave them pop crossover (cross dressing) appeal. On the back of their self-titled first album they went on tour in support of the newly reformed Queen Quackers. While that tour was cynically put together (Queen Quackers’ Healey openly admitting he at least was only involved for the money) and, for the most part, cynically received, Pink Chaps’ involvement was life changing for that band. The exposure propelled them into stardom. That stardom lead to Good and McGhee (original members of the band in Sydney) suing for lost earnings. This was a difficult time for You Can’t Go Wrong With Pink Chaps. Eventually Daniel Gray left Pink Chaps to be replaced by Boomer McGhee, the original drummer. Johnny Good was paid off handsomely by all accounts. With their difficult history dealt with and a revised, stable lineup now in place, Pink Chaps were free to pursue greatness. And pursue it they did with their second album “Your Welcome”. It was a name they came to regret though, spending the majority of the following two years explaining that it was as grammatically correct as it might have been had it been called You’re Welcome. Angel in particular took to abusing interviewers (violently in one memorable case) who even dared to raise this with them. But this just added to their irreverent, establishment defying aura. The third album, “Who Cares?” Was the one that really defined them as pop royalty becoming a number 1 hit in the US, UK, Japan and across Europe. They continue in the same genre-defying, establishment debunking vein- always innovative, always exciting, always (sometimes confusingly) sexy. We as fans are eagerly waiting to see what they will do next…
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AuthorAndrew Burns really should know better and has so many more important things to be doing than writing this drivel. Please offer him no encouragement either via social media or through the contact page Archives
September 2017
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