Lust in the Dust
Depeche Mode gives it to 'em straight in the Great American Desert
By Cole Coonce
In its 1989 rock-video hit "Personal Jesus," British electro-pop mega-star Depeche Mode cinematically appropriated the bleached black-and-white topography and iconography of the Great American Southwestern Desert as a means of creating a mood of gypsum, rust, and the weird, timeless existentialism that only the desert can intuitively and atavistically summon. To borrow and bend a phrase, the truth is in the stones, and it is also in the playa dust.
To hitch a piece of pop ephemera like "Personal Jesus" to the eternity of the desert was a stroke of inspiration, if not genius. It helped that the song itself had Ennio Morricone-inspired guitar twanging, prairie-junkyard tom-toms, and a jaunty cadence that lent itself to climbing on a pony.
And so they did: And, while riding horses into some generic, dusty border town, D.M. donned de rigueur cowboy hat and chaps, sartorial touches no doubt distilled from Westerns they watched on the telly as lads in Basildon, Essex. And just like William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, and Warren Oates in The Wild Bunch, in the "Personal Jesus" clip, upon arrival in the aforementioned border town, our unshaven, gunslingin' cowpokes climb off their steeds and saunter into a whorehouse, ostensibly to tap into eternity and to contemplate the meaning of it all ... .
I wish I could say something about anything Depeche Mode has done in this millennium, but the bands own lack of accomplishment fails me. Since "Personal Jesus," lead fop David Gahan moved to Los Angeles, got strung out on smack, and attempted to off himself. Lead synth-man Martin Gore fiddle-fucked around and semi-publicly explored his penchant for cross-dressing. All of which is more notable than their musical output since "Personal Jesus."
I think it was Howard Hawks who said that, in his movies about the Old West, action defined the man. And it was somebody else who said that nostalgia is just heroin for old people. And that sums up Depeche Mode's recent comeback to performing at stadiums and polo grounds. In this instance, however, Hawks would say that inaction defines the band and hordes of aging and second- and third-wave goths part with their credit-card information to get their new-wave nostalgia fix.
Yes, Depeche Mode is coming back to the Great American Desert this weekend, this time for a headlining appearance this Saturday at the mother of all alterno-electro-indie music festivals, Coachella.
But between these past and future moments of Depeche Mode appropriating the resources and symbolism of Americana and its blowzy salt flats, there was a time when the Mojave Desert swallowed up Depeche Mode and used these synth-pop superstars for its own end.
It happened like this: It began in a blue, carbureted Ford Crown Victoria. There were three of us, and we were en route to the Nevada Test Site in Mercury, Nevada, on a socio-anthropological mission to see the craters formed from the nuclear explosions detonated by the Defense Department in the 1950s. We had been driving all night, sipping out of a thermos of Armenian espresso and chasing that with Coors tall boys. Hours earlier and sometime after midnight, we had been pulled over in Barstow, but somehow not taken to jail.
We drove all night on back roads, and tempers were frayed. I suggested a shortcut right after the state line, and Askew took it. It was a mistake. We were lost on an undulating, pulverizing washboard road that melded with a salt flat. Patience was short, and there was a literal tug-of-war over the topographic map. We came to a crossroads. Askew asked which way to go. I suggested a right turn. We took it and, a quarter-mile later, came across a smattering of buildings.
"What the hell is that?"
"Gentlemen, that is civilization."
"Meaning what?"
"We have just come across a couple of cat houses."
And so it was. Whorehouses, massage parlors, and strip clubs on a playa in the middle of Bumfuckt, U.S.A. We went inside Sharon's Short Branch Saloon to ask directions on how to get to the Nevada Test Site. It was a Star Wars bar of irradiated hookers in bunny uniforms, one-eyed Indians, and professional semi-tractor trailer truck drivers taking in a little rest and relaxation.
"Personal Jesus" was on the jukebox. A brunette stripper was doing an arpeggiated pole dance, lasciviously straddling the silver totem like the mechanical toy horse children would ride for the price of two bits. Her performance was even more compelling than the rock video I usually associated the song with.
Later, as this same dancer enjoined our party for private lap dances, I asked her what she liked about Depeche Mode.
"I like them because they give it to you straight," she blustered.Published: 04/27/2006
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