With big balls abounding on our previous chain gang offering it seemed apt to, first of all, steer us away from any more testicular songs, and secondly, to see if we could find a song about sex that we could mention without offending too many folk. Handy then to remember Alex Chilton’s mid 1980s song ‘No Sex’, a rough and tumble wrangle of a song which reflected the perils of the then burgeoning AIDS virus and which is, quite scarily, apt again these days. Although, as Covid affected anyone who just happened to be breathing, its victims didn’t suffer the same opprobrium as those who succumbed to AIDS.
‘No Sex’ was one of the songs which saw Chilton emerging from his twilight years. Two EPs, ‘Feudalist Tarts’ and ‘No Sex’, released in 1985 and 1986 respectively, were followed by some strong albums released via New Rose Records. Although he had continued to record and produce, working with The Cramps and Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, he’d also spent time as a dishwasher, a janitor and a tree trimmer in New Orleans after dropping out from live performing around 1980. He seemed bound then to become a Syd Barrett type lost genius character but ‘No Sex’ and other mid 80s recordings gave him a second wind.
