If it's performance art, it must be the 1980s ...

Just a few weeks ago, I was in Paris and watched an irritating opera called Pastorale. The music was a pastiche of everything you've heard from John Adams in the past 30 years. The visuals, however, were astounding ... well, they were astounding in 1983 when I saw the one-night version of Laurie Anderson's United States, which used the same visual tricks but with much better content and a more serious context.

Hard to believe now, but Laurie Anderson actually had a U.K. hit single with all eight minutes of "O Superman," which got her a big label recording contract and money to do beyond-state-of-the-art live shows. It also kicked off "performance art" as a lingua franca term that went far beyond the few scattered Fluxus followers wandering around upstate New York.

I've seen Laurie Anderson several times since then. A few times, she was great. A few times, "disappointing" would be giving too much praise. And "disappointing" is the word I'd use with most of the "performance artists" who ended up getting a shot at the big-time music world after her "O Superman" fluke hit. Among those are the subject of this post: Bob and Bob. Specifically, Dark Bob and Light Bob.

I couldn't have told you a whole lot about them until I stumbled on Dark Bob's Web site. All you need to know to not want to know more is that Dark Bob -- or as he prefers to be known, The Dark Bob -- is that he now collaborates with the painful, painful Andy Dick.

But back in 1983, he was collaborating with Light Bob and -- coasting on that Laurie Anderson wave -- he managed to get a lone 12" dance single out on the Polydor label ... and what an irritating record "We Know You're Alone" is. I didn't like it all that much in 1983 and I don't like it now. It feels very forced -- sort of, "We're making an ironic statement by issuing a dance-style record with stupid lyrics because we know the record-buying public is stupid and we're so clever and we'll probably have a hit." Well, as Spy magazine found out in the 1990s, irony can only carry you so far in this world.

An actual dance beat would have helped rather than a weird, not-quite-on-the-beat percussion track. And unlike Devo, Bob and Bob also failed to understand that simple doesn't necessarily mean stupid. Almost everyone can spot the difference between minimalist-but-pointed lyrics and plain dumb ones.

The record featured a long version of  "We Know You're Alone" and an even longer dance version plus a b-side track called "We've Been Seeing Things" that's slightly -- but not much -- better.

(BTW, don't be confused by the cover. It is so not a Tom Tom Club sounding item.)

So, for curiosity value, enjoy Bob's and Bob's "We Know You're Alone" EP. (No password on this one.)