Kate Fagan – I Don’t Wanna Be Too Cool // Waiting For The Crisis (Disturbed Records) 1980. Not to be confused with a current folk singer of the same name, Kate Fagan released this awesome 7inch in 1980 in Chicago. At the time she was a backup singer for the local ska band Heavy Manners but I guess she just wasn’t able to fully realize her promise in that capacity. So she recorded these two tracks of wacky, new wave goodness and then like so many other things on this site, she just faded into obscurity. The A Side of this doesn’t sound too different from New Wave pop of the era like Josie Cotton or The Flirts. It sounds like the kind of music that may have been on the Valley Girl soundtrack or something. The B-Side is a little weirder and I personally like it even more. The lyrics are oddly still relevant today and Kate’s deadpan Midwestern delivery just makes it all the more enjoyable. There is a whole world of cool one-off Chicago singles and bands from before the advent of the mid-80s Chicago sound like Algebra Suicide or Immune System that are all but forgotten today. Kate belongs with that group. If you can listen to this 7inch without cracking a grin, I feel sorry for you.
Hardcore Podcasts
September of 2010 I put together eight Hardcore Podcasts. You can check them out here if you are interested. For more insight into how I came up with the years 78-90 for the First Wave you can read about The Hardcore Superiorty Myth.
i never got into the new wave/art punk thing. to me punk isn’t art. thanks but this doesn’t do to much for me.
What a fantastic single – thanks so much for this one!
Awesome cover too – I don’t s’pose you’ve got a bigger scan of it? Y’know, just for my pointless archive of cool stuff in jpg form…
First heard of this on Fatty Jubbo’s blog, where we learn that she sometimes still plays with Heavy Manners:
http://cakeandpolka.blogspot.com/2006/05/kate-fagan.html#comments
Is this an edited version…the version i had mentioned in the lyrics….”I dont shop at Wax Trax…..”…….was there two versions put out???
@Chicago new wave – I am suprised to hear there may be multiple versions of this track pressed. Weird.
I dig it. Also, Josie Cotton is a fan of The 75s. Seriously.
hi joe,
long time ago since the last comment i left you in this your amazing blog. recently i was a little bit ‘disconnected’ from LDME, but i see you keep posting top notch stuff – kudos for that. by the way, it is really nice to see the kate fagan single posted in your blog!
as for punk not being considered art, i would like to say i do believe just the opposite. to me, punk is ART in capital letters: only to think of people playing in their garages/bedrooms/basements making noises while not caring about if they are enough experienced to play an instrument, while having fun, singing about anything they really want to, and trying to find a way of expressing themselves through complete freedom, that is, to me, the meaning of art. plus the power this has on people should not be underestimated. but it’s just my opinion…
keep doing so ace blog.
all the best,
edu
punk for me is about destruction of music. it’s a form of antimusic just like grindcore was and noisecore (real noisecore not the cybergrind shit) is. okay maybe that is art. but i don’t like new wave. i like old punk and hc.
okay now that i’ve listened to it again it’s pretty good. i was wrong.
It is on the same label as the great MEATY BUYS 7″ and the many C*NTS records (which is that bands´own label,I guess).
What a great find. I never knew Kate did anything outside of Heavy Manners. I’m really impressed with this. Thanks so much!!
Your website is GREAT! Just added it to my blogroll….
There are 2 versions of the single with different cover art. Kate Fagan was not a back up singer, she was the lead singer. She currently is living in a small town in Indiana and has on several occasions played with her other band mates as the Heavy Manners.
I don’t want to be to cool was a great 45. I still smile to myself when I think of some of the lyrics-I don’t go to Neo, I don’t go to Park West, I don’t smoke the good stuff, I’m just not impressed. I smile because after becoming the primary singer of Heavy Manners she turned heads in all of these clubs whenever we played them ….. and she could have smoked all the good stuff she wanted if she wanted to.
Hey, I am Kate and find it interesting this is ditty is timeless. The flipside is more true than ever…in fact just this week Obama was selling arms in India to offset the deficit. Heavy Manners is back. Check out our last single Fight the Good Fight on itune and see us live at Beat Kitchen on Nov. 26.