Mark Richardson

I'm the editor-in-chief of Pitchfork and I wrote Zaireeka, a book about the Flaming Lips album.

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VS.

In 1984 or 1985, UTFO, somehow, made their way through East Lansing, Michigan. They played a show on the local public access cable station which, for some reason, my best friend at the time and I watched all the time. He taped their performance and since it was the early days of VCRs just having it on tape made it seem special. So we watched it over and over. They played “Roxanne, Roxanne”, of course, and I loved it. I wish I could see that tape now; I wonder if a single copy exists. In any event, here is a video for the song along with Roxanne Shante’s (superior, even though she was only 16 at the time) follow-up. The song that launched the Roxanne Wars.

Posted at 12:11am and tagged with: Roxanne Shante, UTFO,.