Sonic Youth - Superstar [Carpenters Cover] from If I Were a Carpenter (1994, A&M).

Can we talk about me for a second? I just had a truly unforgettable weekend, wherein I had a new friend over to my place before we were to go to what I believe was Konono No. 1's first live show in the US. Well, we got to chatting (La' Chat-ting, strictly speaking) and were having such a good time that we completely missed the show. Instead we watched an 8th-generation VHS bootleg of the brilliantly dark film by Todd Haynes called Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

If you don't know about it, I'll let you do a little more reading about it. The short version is that Haynes created a 45-minute film detailing the rise and fall of Karen Carpenter, from her weirdo parents to her anorexia nervosa. The sets are finely constructed in a fairly authentic way. The "actors," for obvious[?] reasons are all modified Barbie dolls. That's right: Barbies. You'd think that somehow this would get in the way of the storytelling, but Jesus—I thought I was watching real people performing real actions. The voice overs are somewhat melodramatic. OK. A lot melodramatic, but fuck it—I like opera, so…

There are—among other things—spanking of Karen's bare adult Barbie butt, mini packages of laxatives, and holocaust footage. It is truly awesome and awful. While the storyline skews for sympathy towards Karen and her condition, it is done genuinely and without mockery. That said, the use of the Carpenters' actual songs (and very likely the portrayal) prompted Richard Carpenter and A&M Records to file a suit pulling it from the festival circuit it had been on for about a year. Mattel probably would've done something similar if it hadn't been banned so quickly.

My new friend introduced me to a lot of new music this weekend, too. But he mentioned Kim Gordon over and over. He seems to be enthralled with Sonic Youth and noise bands in general. How nice, then, that there might be a recording of Sonic Youth covering a Carpenters song. And fuck me hard—the title is "Superstar." [Nevermind that the track comes from a Carpenters tribute album featuring crap from folks like the Cranberries and Sheryl Crow.]

Anyway, enjoy some screen caps. Can't you almost taste the diet pills???