A DOLL NAMED DALE BOZZIO

Dale Bozzio was a blurb in time, an American fairy tale of a Bostonian bad girl stepping into magical glass stilettos of '80s Hollywood glamour. A sexpot harnessing the power of dynomite-w/-a-lazer-beam, Dale had the get-up of a girl who should be pole-dancing the polar shifts of the universe, slutting it up on the irridescent rings of Saturn, using the Milky Way for her eye make-up. Initially this is why I liked her: she was part Jem and the Holograms pop star, part glam rock space cadet, part Los Angeles big hair metal streetwalker.
Her outfits were fashioned from aluminum foil, plastic wrap... her bleachy blonde electrocution hair further made her look like a Barbie rising out of a trash heap in outer space. You mix David Bowie and a Playboy bunny and you get a polished California space punkette selling out in a purple & green glitter limousine.

As with a lot of babelicious hotties in the wake of Disco orgies and art house punks on drugs, Dale got her start in the sex industry, posing for Hustler and eventually crowned as 1976's Playboy Bunny of the year. A coupla years later, Dale met Terry Bozzio through lifelong friend, Frank Zappa. Terry and Dale married after both working with Zappa on Joe's Garage. Eventually Dale became the lead singer for a much underrated (though once very popular) new wave outfit called Missing Persons, co-founded with drummer/husband, Terry. Missing Persons were catchy, fun but also emotive, and backed up by great instrumentation. By name, they were easily forgotten once an array of surfer/skater chic and flannel blew up. However, their songs are played all the time. And it's not uncommon for someone to think "oh, one hit wonder from the eighties", though they had more than a few hits.

"Destination Unknown" is probably the most popular Missing Persons song. It's easily an '80s CLASSSSSSIC! Def one of those songs you hear when you are in Trader Joe's and you are bobbing your head along somewhere in between Prince's "Little Red Corvette" and Thompson Twins' "Doctor Doctor", drinking sample coffee and buying frozen penne arrabiatta. The song spent 13 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and has remained a staple on many New Wave comps forward. It was the first hit on Mission Persons' debut record, Spring Session M.

"Words" was another popular song on Spring Session M (white sheets everywhere made up a video in those days I guess?). Where "Destination Unknown" was about the surreal nature of a life without security in our paths in life, "Words" followed a similar tone of disillusionment except with more grit and anger. Her previous nursery rhyme hiccups are traded for sonic beams of "DO YOU HEAR ME? DO YOU CARE?", sassing along in quick-witted verses with Valley Girl eye rolling and punk adolescent anger masquerading as apathy. "Walking in LA" was another popular Spring Session M tune, musically heavier & still themed on society+disillusionment. Some songs even border on being math-y ("US Drag" highlights Terry's insane drumming talent). Quieter songs like "Windows" (a New Wave Virginia Woolf "Room of One's Own") were infectiously poppy.

Many female frontwomen sing about love, but Dale does only sometimes and usually from a Leslie Gore's "You Don't Own Me" stance (mirrored in Spring Session M's "It Ain't None of Your Business"). Overall Spring Session M is a great album start to finish. It leans on the fiesty side of the street, "Bad Streets" specifically (underrated pop/rock diamond), Dale declaring confidently that she is one bad ass guarded babe not to be fucked with:

I'll tell you right now I'm committed to myself
I'll use you
I'll put it to you
No one will ever play chess with my life
I'm for certain- A free person
It's only real when it's real for me
I'm tryin'... not cryin'
Seven chances means seven times changed
No waiting.. no debating

I'm kicking down bad streets
Just look at what i'm becoming
I'm dancing to my beat
Just look at the game i'm running
I'm kicking down bad streets
I'm dancing to my beat ..

No one ever gets too close to me
I'm selfish - stand-offish
You'll never guess what i'm gonna do next
I'm impulsive ... compulsive
I'll get over if it's the last thing i do
I'll make it.. i won't fake it
You can tag along if you've got nothing better to do
I'll show you... i won't slow you

I'm just kicking down bad streets
I'm having fun just looking out for number one
I'm just dancing to my beat
Look at me go i know a lot of things that you don't know

Two years after Spring Session M, the softer more experimental Rhyme and Reason released in 1984. Artist Peter Max collaborated on the video for the yearning wistful "Surrender Your Heart", however, they would not have any memorable hits after their debut LP. Dale began expressing more romantic conflict in her lyrics, shifting between the wishful "give when you have nothing left to give" to the frustrated "closer that you get the harder that it seems". Perhaps it was a mirror of what was going on internally with Missing Persons. Soon enough, Dale and Terry would be divorced and Missing Persons disbanded. Guitarist Warren Currurollo would go on to replace Andy Taylor in Duran Duran for a record. Ironically Terry would play drums on Andy Taylor's solo record. Terry Bozzio continued his drum career performing with heavier acts like Korn and Fantomas. Dale didn't have the same luck. After some brief unsuccessful solo work, Dale sadly faded into obscurity (aside from an animal neglect case that resulted in arrest).

Regardless, Dale left her stamp. She was great eye candy with substance and Missing Persons was a colorful pop breakfast for the '80s MTV generation. I consider Missing Persons to be one of the handfuls of gems in commercial eighties pop, contributing a lot of it to Miss Bozzio's rad as hell vocalist stylizings. Can you not hear Dale in Ida No of Glass Candy or Gwen Stefani? And her fashion was out of control. One particular pop star of today that DALE HAD THE MOST OBVIOUS INFLUENCE ON WAS ON LADY GAGA. Not only do they have a Northeast gaudy girl goes to L.A. peroxide blonde, they both uphold the whole I'm-so-alienated-I'm-alien pop star move. Lady Gaga owes so much to Dale Bozzio.