I’ve posted a few Halloween songs each October over the years, so there’s quite a collection for anyone who cares to scroll through my archives.
The 2007 documentary You Weren’t There: A History Of Chicago Punk showcased a music scene that was tragically overlooked by the rest of the country back in the early 1980s. Bohemia’s high energy assault, led by vocalist/keyboards player Carla Evonne, prompted a Chicago Sun-Times critic to proclaim Bohemia was every bit as good as X from Los Angeles. Following the 1980 release of a self-titled, three-song 10 inch EP in 1980, Bohemia struck again a year later with their impressive debut LP, Deviations. The album’s title reflected an obsession with offbeat and disturbing subject matter on songs like “Plastic Doll,” “Standard Deviations,” “Empty Room,” and “Dr. Werner.”
“Hydrogenic” was dark in a fun, highly melodic way. A punk rock masterpiece that offers a girl-meets-mutant love story with an underlying jab at nuclear energy, “Hydrogenic” kicks off with the single-named bassist Zirbel’s fueling an extended instrumental intro. Carla Evonne sets the romantic tale in motion, singing, “Since I met you baby/I haven’t been the same/You hit me like an H-bomb and now I hardly know my name.”
Her lover’s appearance has been drastically changed by exposure to massive doses of radiation. “Momma says you’re different/With your long green hair/You got webs between your fingers/But I don’t even care.” Carla Evonne celebrates her unique beau with lines such as “I can see you glowing in the dark/In my life you really caused a spark,” and the song features an overjoyed chorus of, “Ooh, our love is new/Our love is new . . . nuclear.”
On a personal level, Bohemia was the inspiration for a novel I wrote and am looking to get published.
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