No 1
14 September 1985
Interview by Stuart Husband
GO WEST YOUNG WOMAN
Yeeee-hawwww!! Hoist up your holsters! Eat lots of baked beans! Saddle up your.. (That’s enough now Stuart).
Those polka-dotted, pistol-packin’ popstars, Strawberry Switchblade are set to blaze a trail up the nearest chart with their fab new waxing, a version of Dolly Parton‘s Country & Western classic ‘Jolene‘.
Which is as good an excuse as any to assemble loads of cowboy props, ask tons of terribly meaningful ‘Wild West’-type questions, and generally pretend we’re all in a re-run of Bonanza for a day. All together now: “Whip crack away, whip crack away…” Or was that Calamity Jane?
Why did you do ‘Jolene’?
Rose: “‘Cos it’s a good song”.
Jill: “And Dolly Parton’s our heroine. We’d like to look like her”.
Rose: “We want to emulate her. I tried wearing a blonde wig but it didn’t look right. The bicycle pump didn’t do much either”.
Who would you most like to shoot?
Rose: “Margaret Thatcher”.
Jill: “I’d like to as well, but I think it might all backfire…people would start feeling sorry for her, and all the Tories would get really patriotic”.
Rose: “I’d shoot God if i could, but he is already dead”.
Jill: “I’d shoot Rose!”
Rose: “I don’t think you should shoot anyone unless you really want to”.
What are the similarities betwen Glasgow and the Wild West?
Jill: “They’re both in the West!”
Rose: “And they’re both full of cowboys!”
Jill: “And there’s alot of chibbing going on.”
What’s ‘chibbing’?
Jill: “People stabbing people. They don’t have guns in Glasgow, but they make up for it with other weapons”.
Rose: “Some have guns!”
Jill: “There’s more cowboys in Glasgow then in the Wild West. They don’t look quite as daffy, though”.
Rose: “They don’t wear the hats, but they’re tougher”.
Would you ever wear gingham?
Rose: “I’ve got a blue gingham dress but it’s much more Alice In Wonderland than Wild West”
Jill: “It’s really tight and it looks kinky”.
Rose: “Are you calling me kinky?”
Who is your favorite western star?
Rose: “Apart from Dolly Parton? Has Cary Grant ever been in a Western?”
Jill: “I love Gregory Peck”.
Rose: “Oh, I love that one from the Spaghetti Westerns who’s not so famous… whats his name? Rod Steiger! He’s really good!”
How about the women?
Jill: “Oh God! The only way Westerns are bearable is when there’re women in them. The men are so boring and horrible…”
Rose: “I like Doris Day”.
Jill: “I like Mae West cos she’s got a bit of pizzazz,. And Marilyn Monroe”.
What would you sing around a camp fire?
Rose: “‘I Wish I was A Spaceman’ – the Fireball XL5 theme tune”.
Jill: “Things like ‘Ging Gang Goolie’-jolly tunes to cheer myself up”.
Rose: “I’d sing ‘I Wish These Bloody Mosquitoes Would Piss Off”.
Can you ride a horse?
Jill: “I couldn’t even sit in the saddle for a photosession we did. At one point I could feel myself slipping, I thought, ‘this is it! Death!'”
Rose: “I can ride a horse – a rocking horse”.
Would you rather be a cowgirl or an Indian squaw?
Jill: I’d be a saloon girl”.
Rose: “I’d definitely be an Indian. They have much more fun, and they’re much freer. They get to put paint all over their faces and they’re much less rigid”.
They do tend to get shot a lot through.
Rose: “So! They get to use a bow and arrow and a dagger. If you’re a cowboy you only shoot once, but if you’re an Indian you can stab,stab,stab. What’s the pleasure in killing someone quickly when you can scratch at them really slowly, until they’re raw?”
Jill: (horrified) “Ugh! This is horrible. If I was living in Cowboy-land I’d ban guns”.
What would you have instead – flowers?
Jill: “Don’t be a plank! I’d make them fight with their fists, like real men”.
You’re both vegetarians, but if you lived in the Wild West you’d have to eat beef and buffalo hide.
Rose: “No you wouldn’t! You could eat grass!”
There’s no grass in the desert!
Jill: “Look, what do cowboys eat? Baked beans! All the time! That’d be OK”.
Rose: “I would eat cacti”.
Jill: “And watermelons! Deputy Dawg’s always falling into the watermelon patch”.
Rose: “I’d take a big supply of instant mash”.
You’d never last.
Rose: “We would! its really good for you!”
Do you yearn for the days when men were men, like in the Westerns?
Rose: “When they used to beat women up, you mean?
Jill: “Ugh, no. I like wimpy men. Macho men are horrid, horrid, horrid”.
Do you lust after Clint Eastwood?
Jill: “Certainly not. He’s too cool and he doesn’t open his mouth wide enough when he talks”.
Can you hum the tune to the Good, The Bad, And The Ugly?
Rose: (bellows) “Uh-a-uh-a-uh, hummm hummm hummm! Oh yeah! That was one of the first records I ever bought. Great film too. I love those violent Spaghetti Westerns”.
Who’d you pick to be in your posse?
Jill: “I thought that was an Australian animal”.
No. Not a possum, your posse – your gang. At least five people.
Jill: I’d have Dame Edna Everage dressed up as a cowgirl – that’d be funny. And Kenneth Williams!”
Rose: “God! You’d never get away from that posse!”
Who else? Boy George?
Jill: “Oh no – the horse would buckle under his weight! Oh no, I didn’t mean that!”
Madonna?
Jill: “Oh no – she’d take the attention away from everyone else”.
Meryl Streep?
Jill: “Nah – she’s boring. I’d have Michael Palin from Monty Python dressed as a woman and speaking in a high voice”.
Rose: “I’d have Micha Bergese (weird dancer and werewolf from Company Of Wolves), Bee (androgynous pop person who looks like Toyah), and John Hurt. I think all these people would look great in warpaint”. (Indians aren’t usually in posses, may we point out.)
Did you cry when Paul Newman and Robert Redford got killed in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid?
Rose: “I cry at the end of adverts! (avoiding the answer) Like when that wee puppy gets all wrapped up in a toilet roll”.
Jill: “I cry at the Milton Keynes advert”.
Rose: ” I’d really like to go to Milton Keynes”.
Are you frightened of rattlesnakes?
Rose: “Yeah. I like rattlesnake stew, though. My cousin had it when he was in America. It tastes like gone-off fish”.
So finally how do you feel about the Wild West? (probing, analytic question here)
Rose: “I don’t really like it ‘cos it’s full of beasties that bite you. And you can’t bite them back”.
Jill: “When you see Westerns they’re really glamourised. The place is dirty, dusty, and grimy- imagine what it really used to be like- all filthy and gruesome”.
Rose: “Basically, I don’t like the Wild West at all!”
Fair enough!