{"id":1052292,"date":"2022-05-26T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1052292"},"modified":"2022-05-26T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T13:00:00","slug":"what-john-waters-is-listening-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1052292","title":{"rendered":"What John Waters Is Listening To"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What John Waters Is Listening To<\/h1>\n
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The Pope of Trash talks ear masturbation, karaoke with Beach House, and Orville Peck without his mask<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Shannon Carlin<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Graphic by Callum Abbott, photo by Robin Marchant\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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John Waters wants you to know that he was way ahead of the scammer trend. Four years ago, when he began writing his debut novel Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance<\/em>,<\/em> about a grifter with a penchant for stealing luggage, Anna Delvey was not yet the viral magazine story and Netflix sensation she is today. Marsha Sprinkle, his rather despicable protagonist, wasn\u2019t ripped straight from the headlines, but was based on a stranger-than-fiction story he once heard from a friend. \u201cHe discovered some suitcases in his attic and found out his girlfriend had stolen them from the airport,\u201d the legendary director says via the landline in his Baltimore office. \u201cI took this one little fact and turned it into 250 pages of insanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liarmouth<\/em> is as crazy as anything the 76-year-old self-proclaimed \u201cfilth elder\u201d has ever put to film\u2014and, as anyone who\u2019s seen Pink Flamingos<\/em> knows, that\u2019s saying something. This deliciously trashy novel has everything: adult trampoline enthusiasts, doggy butt lifts, a talking bisexual phallus, and ear masturbation. The last topic, which relates to the novel\u2019s climax, was inspired by an instructional book titled Ear Masturbation<\/em>, by the writer Michael Goldstein. Though Waters mentions the book, which mysteriously made its way onto his bookshelf (\u201cI think a fan sent it to me, maybe it was him?\u201d), it doesn\u2019t pop up even after an exhaustive Google search, save for a mention in the acknowledgements of his novel.<\/p>\n

If he was putting me on, it was hard to tell\u2014then again, Waters, more than most, is likely to boast an obscure collection of the arcanely profane. And throughout his nearly 60-year career, he\u2019s left people wondering how seriously they should take his boundary-pushing work. Despite this reputation\u2014or, perhaps, because of it\u2014Waters has become the leading purveyor of politically incorrect, sexually experimental kitsch that appeals to those with a strong gag reflex. \u201cI\u2019m just amazed that I\u2019m still doing the same thing,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that is because of all the wonderful people that have liked what I do and have been vocal about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He does, however, worry that there are some who might be offended by Liarmouth<\/em>\u2014namely, the Jonas Brothers, as one particularly horrific lie told by Marsha involves the band dying in a gruesome tour bus accident. \u201cI just thought that would be the meanest thing she could tell a child,\u201d he says, sounding a bit guilty. \u201cI\u2019m a fan of the Jonas Brothers. I hope they\u2019re not mad at me.\u201d Waters didn\u2019t reveal his favorite JoBros song, but he did talk about the music he\u2019s been listening to as he prepares for his own tour.<\/p>\n

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Orville Peck: \u201cThe Curse of the Blackened Eye\u201d (2022)<\/h2>\n
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John Waters: This is my favorite song on his new album, Bronco<\/em>\u2014I love, in the beginning, when he goes \u201cuh-huh.\u201d It\u2019s so sexy. Then when he goes into that falsetto in the middle of the song, it\u2019s like the joy of Brokeback Mountain,<\/em> squashing out the angst of The Power of the Dog<\/em>.<\/em> He never makes fun of country music, but he has fun with it. I\u2019m just a big fan of his and I root for him. I remember when he got the deal with Columbia Records. I called him up and said, \u201cOh my god, you\u2019re on Johnny Mathis\u2019 label!\u201d<\/p>\n

I was a fan before I ever met him, but I think we\u2019re friends now. I\u2019m the voice on the radio in his video for \u201cLegends Never Die.\u201d I don\u2019t know that I have the perfect radio voice, but he just asked me to do it and I said yes. I didn\u2019t even have to go [film it], which I was disappointed about; I wanted to be on the set with Shania Twain. I also opened for him at his big show at Red Rocks last summer\u2014I had to do 20 minutes of standup on country music, in front of 7 or 8,000 people. It was a really good night. I want to do a duet with him where I sing like the Chipmunks did on their country album. Orville could do his beautiful Righteous Brothers voice and I could be Alvin. I think we could make that happen; I think he trusts me. Well, I know he does because he once sent me a picture of him without the mask. I\u2019ve never shown it to one person, not one.<\/p>\n

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Mink Stole: \u201cFemale Trouble\u201d (2013)<\/h2>\n
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Mink Stole is someone very close to me that you might not even know as a singer\u2014she\u2019s appeared in all of my films and is a very dear friend. She released an album, Do Re MINK<\/em>,<\/em> where she sings a very slow, jazzy version of the title song from [my 1974 movie] Female Trouble,<\/em> which Divine sings in the film. It\u2019s Divine\u2019s song, but I think Mink did it beautifully. She does a great Julie London job on it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Josie Cotton also did a version of \u201cFemale Trouble\u201d and Jake Shears sang a version of it at my birthday party in Detroit one year that ripped the house down. I love to see this song have a second life, but Mink did it in a way that\u2019s so very surprising because it\u2019s not screamy, it\u2019s more subdued. It\u2019s a really beautiful version that I chose not because she\u2019s my friend\u2014I have friends in the music business that I don\u2019t like their albums all that much. [Laughs<\/em>] I chose Mink because I really, really, really do like her music.<\/p>\n

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Beach House: \u201cOnce Twice Melody\u201d (2022)<\/h2>\n
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They\u2019re my good friends. We go out to dinner, we do karaoke. Well, I don\u2019t do karaoke. I go with them to the Italian restaurant where they do karaoke. It used to be by a scary redneck bar that is no longer there. My favorite song on their new album is the title one because it\u2019s just plain catchy. Victoria [Legrand] reminds me of Nico put together with those children singers Patience and Prudence, who sang the first song I ever bought, \u201cTonight You Belong to Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019ve started taking LSD again, I can listen to trippy music with a better understanding. Maybe even a better appreciation. Beach House created a genre that is widely imitated; I think they\u2019re the most imitated group of any out there today. They\u2019re incredibly talented and I loved that they stayed in Baltimore just like I did. I really love seeing them perform. I especially love it when Victoria spits on stage, which she does more than Evan Hansen. [Laughs<\/em>] It\u2019s aggressive in a great, unladylike way. Her voice can be so beautiful and her actions can be so raw\u2014it\u2019s a beautiful combination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/thepitch\/what-john-waters-is-listening-to\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Columns What John Waters Is Listening To The Pope of Trash talks ear masturbation, karaoke with Beach House, and Orville Peck without his mask By Shannon Carlin May 26, 2022 Graphic by Callum Abbott, photo by Robin Marchant\/Getty Images John Waters wants you to know that he was way ahead of the scammer trend. Four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-1052292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1052292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1052292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1052292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1052292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}