All those nights spent getting arthritis of the hands checking out potential dates on Tinder must be getting to Pikes.
I just read in Tinder’s PR that they’ve made 55 billion matches to date. There are only eight billion of us on the planet and half are infants and young children, pensioners or incarcerated for one reason or another so Tinder’s doing pretty well to rack up that result.
But Pikes (Christoffer Ling) isn’t one of them. His latest song, ‘Restless Lover’ is about app-dating generally and the fear of being alone. I assume that by ‘alone’ he means fear of not being able to find someone or of no-one responding to him as the initiator. Perhaps a loveless wrestler; they are both singing from the same hymn sheet.
He says, “I feel like some people confuse physical love for emotional love and the act of love and sex becomes a substitute and a proof of self worth and they get stuck in a hamster wheel of dating. Because there’s always the possibility that they might get a better looking date or one with a better job.”
Or just anyone, I suppose. Desperate means to desperate ends for Billy No Mates. Oh bring back the days when we met in the dance halls on a Saturday night and you could buy yourself a pint of bitter, and a white wine for the lady, and still receive enough change from a 10-bob note to get yourself a packet of Woodbines and a pack of rubbers from the machine in the bogs in case your luck changed. Am I showing my age or what?
I reckon Pikes hits the nail right on the head with this song.
A recall a similar one from Alex Rex here in the UK, an avowed Tinder swipe basher down on his luck, but that was in his inimitable faux-miserable, off the wall style.
But in Pikes’ case, as usual he’s found a tune yet again and straight out of the starting gate. This one isn’t quite as immediately catchy as some of his earlier songs, the synth melody hangs just below the main theme and has to be sought out like the low-hanging fruit that it is.
But once you’ve plucked it you’ll be hooked.
No sign of his usual influences here, the likes of Gabriel/Genesis (especially), also Zappa and Bush. This is pure, unadulterated 1980s new wave. Love it.
‘Restless Lover’ is out in 1st March on the ART:ERY label.
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PIKESondemand/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeofPIKES/
