The very first time I ever heard Culture Club was when they performed on an awards show – it was either the Grammys or the American Music Awards. I was looking down and heard this great male singing voice. Then I looked up to see someone dressed up like a woman and I was mighty confused.

It was my first introduction to the concept of cross-dressing!

However, being young I sort of tilted my head to one side, asked my mother if it was a man or a woman, then shrugged and enjoyed the song. After that, I was hooked and shortly afterwards I owned their album. Besides, I was always too distracted by the hot drummer to really care much about what Boy George was wearing anyway.

(Though I think he was actually involved with the drummer, wasn’t he? Ah well, it’s not the first time I’ve been attracted to a celebrity only to find out he’s gay.)

To this day, “Karma Chameleon” is still my favorite of all their songs and I still enjoy listening to it – and it takes a lot more than a little cross-dressing to startle me these days!

I loved The Bangles big time. “Walk Like An Egyptian” was irresistible and “Manic Monday”, while about work, was still a theme song for high school kids everywhere. And “Eternal Flame”, that song was on several of my mixed tapes.

At this point in my life I have never ever done karaoke (other than by myself in the living room). But I’ve long told myself that if I am ever drunk enough brave enough to get up on a stage in a bar full of other drunk brave people to sing karaoke, one of the songs I would want to do is “In Your Room”.

There was something amazing to me, even back in those young days when I didn’t know anything about feminism and disagreements about what women can and can’t do, about a band made up completely of women, women who played guitar and bass and drums.

I miss Susanna Hoffs. She was so beautiful and I wanted to look like her with the long, curly hair and the traffic-stopping eyes. She also had a really recognizable, strong but breathy kind of voice. And oh, the good old snare drums of the 80s, gotta love them!