When I lay eyes upon the visage of Miss Mess as she traipses through the foliage, I am not reminded of Alice in her assorted Wonderland, but of Jimmy Swaggart. The televangelist — now at the end of his influence — was once a powerful voice for the minions under heaven. He chastised those of us prone to vice and temptation. He turned his nose at sinners even as he rode the coattails of his cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis, to prominence. He renounced the coitus and demagoguery of rock & roll until his own ruse was uncovered, never once batting an eyelash at condemning it publicly while devouring it privately.
Here, Miss Mess plays the role of Swaggart. She fights temptation at every turn, but is curious to what the other side holds. She finds herself lured by the simplicity of action. She keeps wandering down the rabbit hole until she washes herself with the unclean water. Rather than weep and ask for mercy as Swaggart, she embraces her change from a stripped jester into a rock & roll queen, finally given the key to ultimate freedom. Swaggart’s was a sin of hypocrisy; Thee Open Sex’s only sin is that it took them this long to turn on the rest of us to the hyper-psychedelic cocktail they are serving.
“I Do Not Know What” is the second track off Thee Open Sex’s new Self Titled album on vinyl via Magnetic South Records and on reel via Let’s Pretend Records.
• Thee Open Sex: http://theeopensex.bandcamp.com
• Magnetic Sound Recordings: http://www.magneticsouthrecordings.org
• Let’s Pretend Records: http://letspretendrecords.com
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