The 1981 Listening Post - The Deep Freeze Mice - Teenage Head in My Refrigerator

The Deep Freeze Mice - Teenage Head in My Refrigerator 

1981 Housekeeping

The Deep Freeze Mice

Teenage Head in My Refrigerator

Genre: New Wave

2.75 out of 5

Highlight:

Teenage Head in My Refrigerator

Is the title a play on the band Teenage Head? Did they put their Teenage Head album in the refrigerator? Are they getting head from a teen whilst resting in a refrigerator? Is there a severed head of a teenager in their refrigerator. 

I need answers.

The Deep Freeze Mice was a project that lasted about 10 years. One of the members, Mike Bunnage, would go on to become a successful cartoonist and magazine editor. I don’t know what happened to the others. I like to imagine that at least one of them spent the remaining years woking in a cubicle selling toner. But that’s only because I recall that a member of The Alarm ended up working in some cubicle thanks to Bands Reunited. 

Man I miss THAT show. They never got around to Deep Freeze Mice cuz, why the fuck would they?

This stuff is all mostly retro-paisley garage psychedelia that reflects the ramblings of the song writers. It’s not meant to be popular. I don’t think the intent was to sell records. And that puts me in the conundrum of thinking about music as commerce vs music as art. 

As my mother used to say about Rothko’s “White on White”: “Anyone wanna buy a canvas??”

This is more inventive than a blank canvas. But there’s little to hold on to. I do find myself simultaneously loving and loathing Sherree Lawrence’s incessant organ playing on “My Geraniums are Bulletproof”. And the singer sounds like he’s about to throw up roughly 75% of the time. If Bob Geldof had a constant stomach virus he would sound like Alan Jenkins. 

Its as though they all drew straws on who would sing cuz they were all awful and Alan drew the short one. 

It’s at the end that we learn that the singer is a murdering Dr. Frankenstein and his victim is a head of a teenager that he keeps in the fridge. He’s sexually frustrated. He’s probably an Incel. He’s the very thing every father of a daughter lives in fear of. 

So, extra point for that track, which plays out like a leftover tune from Rocky Horror. 

Missed?: Nah. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/teenage-head-in-my-refrigerator/263005148