Sure you’ve heard the hype (“These Bond girls put the ass back into classical music”) and wondered, “Are these ELO bimbos for real?” Or are they the brainchild of some marketing whiz who walked into Decca, said, “Charlie’s Angels with violas,” and got three albums of Hooked on Classics made? I’ll admit I approached this with the same cynicism I’d reserve for a can opener circumcision, so was I relieved to learn that Haylie, Ecker, Tania and Gay-Yee are indeed classically trained and have sawed away behind such certified longhairs as Sting and Bryan Adams. So you can forget about any kind of C&C Factory scam where it turns out it wasn’t the girls playing but some octogenarian refugees from 101 Strings. Bond is genuine with a capital G-string and here are nine more reasons why you should hand your soul over to them tout suite!
1) Not since Mantovani held his baton below his waist has classical music had a sex symbol of note. So what would you rather see on an album cover — a Venetian in tails or four tails in tandem, simulating Wolfgang on one another?
2) Faster than you can say “Rock Me Amadeus,” this urgent music will motivate you to do something Herculean and stupid like clean out the garage. Imagine Ecker coming home from a tour and threatening to stomp you with her gamely gams if you don’t do something about the shelf paper right now.
3) Finally, after years of complaining, we have a group of girls who can not only play the string parts of “Fly Robin Fly” note-for-note but also sing it with the same commitment to human emotion that the girls from Silver Convention displayed. Man, I can’t wait for the Salsoul Orchestra tribute album! Booo-gie!
4) They play the sheerest instruments, like a cello in the shape of an eel’s spine, the better to see their navel from any seat in the concert hall.
5) Bond got kicked off the UK Classical charts for using disco beats and showing too much knee while Yanni and John Tesh use the same disco beats and show too much forehead but are allowed to stay.
6) Everyone loves the classics but hates the pretentious titles like “Minuet in G,” “A Fifth of Beethoven” and “Stars on 45.” Bond has the same disregard for public domain as Barney the dinosaur and renamed “Sabre Dance” something far catchier like “High Strung.” Because when Khachaturian wrote it, he was probably thinking about his girlfriend’s cranky menstruation anyway.
7) Bond yells out like flamenco dancers during some numbers to remind you classical music is sexy, in the same way a grandmother might slip you the tongue to remind you to buy more cream corn.
8) Bond CDs include originals that sound like incidental music in a James Bond movie. If I had my druthers, Track 8 would be called “Music to Sneak on an Oil Tanker and Blow it to Smithereens By.”
9) I smell a concept album that has something to do with Wagner and belly rings.
Serene Dominic writes about music for Metro Times. Send comments to [email protected].
