26 REDS & A BOTTLE OF WINE

Bebe Buell – Covers Girl, 1981

My Little Red Book (originally by Love)
Wild One Forever (originally by Tom Petty)
Little Black Egg (originally by The Nightcrawlers)
Funtime (originally by Iggy Pop)
[ED note: The audio track above is from Bebe's website and is a really bad transfer. -jrk]


Bebe Buell is most notable to people of my generation for passing Liv Tyler through her vagina. Liv Tyler is most notable to people of my generation for getting half naked with Alicia Silverstone in an Aerosmith video. Alicia Silverstone is most notable to people of my generation for not fitting into her Batgirl costume for Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin. Joel Schumacher is most notable to people of my generation for directing Lost Boys. Lost Boys is most notable to people of my generation for having the most buff half naked saxophone player in the history of American cinema, so there ya go.

I guess at the heart of ever pointless hanger-on groupie is someone who wants to be a star. I mean, just look at Cynthia Plaster Caster. No, on second thought, don’t look at Cynthia Plaster Caster. Bebe was the perfect groupie; she was sort of famous on her own having posed on magazine and in Playboy in Nov. 1974. I guess she was like a Kate Moss for the power ballad generation, but without all that camera phone footage.

So there is a bit of a debate about exactly how this four track EP came about. The generally excepted story was that in Feb of 1981 The Cars lead singer and professional super-model banger Rick Ocasek produced the B-side with the rest of The Cars indulging Rick’s attempt at getting some Bebe booty. Naturally this story purports Bebe to have an amazing singing voice. One that Ocasek simply had to record.

"I would've made a record a long time ago, but I wanted to do it when people would accept me as a singer instead of somebody's girlfriend. Elvis [Costello] heard me singing to an old Smokey Robinson song that was on the radio one day and he said I was incredible. That was good enough for me." Of course he was fucking her at the time.

The Cars sound so tight on these two tracks. Ben Orr does such a great job on Funtime. Her vocals aren’t bad, Bebe gets rock and roll, I’ll give her that, be Funtime doesn’t give much chance for vocal range and she sings Little Black Egg like she’s an eight year old. The Cars backing tracks were so good that Rick Ocasek rerecorded the vocals to both songs himself and released Cars versions of both songs on the 1995 Best of The Cars collection.

The Derringer produced tracks are rather forgettable so I’ll say little about them other then they suck.

Funtime is the real takeaway here. Little black Egg (originally by The Nightcrawlers) is good too but Funtime (originally by Iggy Pop) is so much better. It’s just a better song. Anyway. She’s still pretty hot, I must say.

PS - I bought this record for four bucks at A1 Records on Sixth and Ave A.

PPS – Bebe is playing at Irving Plaza on May 19th if you care.