Album Details

• Artist: Gigolo Aunts
• Album: Where I Find My Heaven: The Singles Album
• Label: Nectar Masters
• Year of Release: 1996
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: charlesmartel on 2012-05-05

Although the Gigolo Aunts have been around a fair while, for some reason, the band never quite took off but remained a cross between American college rock and Britpop. I have recently come back to this after a long lay off when I pretty much ignored it, and have given it some serious time on the iPod. As a result, I have upgrading my rating of it to something which reflects a greater appreciation of the album as a whole than of one track. That one track was the reason I have this album - I bought it solely on the strength of that.

That one track, "Where I Find My Heaven" is probably the band's most well-known song. Those of us who live in the UK may remember it as the theme tune to the alternative comedy series "Game On" which did the rounds in the mid- to late-nineties. This was an absurd sit-com about three people who shared a house - one was an arrogant, opinionated son of a bitch who owned it; another was a ginger haired geek who pined for a relationship; and the third was a really attractive woman who seemed to have all the men she wanted and did not want either of the two she shared a house with. I loved that series, and also loved the theme tune. In the days before downloads the only was to get it was to go out and buy it, hence my purchase of this compilation. For a long time, I would skip the CD to that track and then take it off again. A couple of times I listened to the whole thing, but then I wasn't really listening, but using the music as a background to something else.

And so when I actually sat down and listened to it, it was like hearing an entirely new album, not one I had had in my collection for over twelve years. What I discovered was tight outfit playing guitar based music, short songs, catchy and infectious pop. Tracks such as "Mrs Washington" and "Cope" stood out as better than anything I recalled on first listen - "Cope" even rivals the excellence of "Where I Find My Heaven". Even slower numbers, such as "Winsor Dam" proved memorable.

Indeed the more I listened to it the more I began to appreciate what a cracking little album it was and wondered why I hadn't bothered to check it out in depth before. But then I realised. This album was bought pretty much at the tail end of my musical hiatus. It was one of only a dozen CD's I had bought during the nineties and most of those I had given only the most cursory of listens. Thankfully, my musical hiatus was coming to an (abrupt) end!

I guess the moral of this story is - don't overlook what is already in your collection. There are likely to be hidden gems in there which you did not appreciate first time round. The fault with a CD is that you can skip tracks. Most of us do. Occasionally, don't do it. You may find something which is actually worth listening to a lot more. I did, but now I have reversed that circumstance as regards this CD at least.

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