Curiosity Killed The Cat, "Misfit (Extended Version)" (1987)

I used to -- read this slowly and carefully -- doodle. Now, not so much.

For this state of affairs, I blame...well, growing up. But part of it is due to bands no longer having good logos. They no longer have logos, period. It's seen as too uncool, probably with good reason. It's like TV theme songs, which have gone from the delightfully nebbish "you take the good you take the bad and there you have the facts of life!" to something so minimalist as to be non-existent, like "Eee-ooo-eee-ooo" (that's from Lost, in case you're wondering).

Band logos are an equally lost art (see what I did there, etc.), although many heavy metal groups still have them. Their fans need something to tattoo on their asses, I guess. But in pop, nowadays this is what passes for a band logo:


Come on. My cat shat a better one last week, and I don't even have a cat.

But speaking of cats: the late 80s saw an influx of whiteboy soul bands into the UK charts. Living In A Box! Wet Wet Wet! Johnny Hates Jazz! Curiosity Killed The Cat! Each of them may have had one or two good singles, but for the most part they were a little bland, and sometimes downright crap.

Jean, my musical partner-in-crime at that time, counted herself a fan of the last group (who, by the way, was signed by Simon Cowell. How mildly interesting). I'm not sure why. Maybe she just liked imagining taking as her last name "Volpeliere-Pierrot" should she be so lucky to one day marry frontman Ben. (I kid. I think she liked one of the others better. Mig, or maybe it was Ju. Do you really care?) Aside from his last name, Voluptuous-Parrot-Lulu-Shazaam-Suzuki was mostly famous for wearing a Greek fisherman's cap backwards (apparently no one in pop wore one before him, nor in that way; you remember how useful it is to not have the beak of a cap be in the way when you're down on your knees...well, you know). His other claim to fame, if I didn't hallucinate this, came from knowing how to roll up the cuffs of his trouser legs in a way that made them taper more than usual. Don't look at me that way. I swear there was even a feature in Smash Hits in which Ben demonstrated this fashion trick. After which I'm sure he had to fend Mensa off.

Anyway, despite all her efforts, Jean couldn't get me interested in those four boys. Okay, "Misfit" and "Down To Earth" had some charms, and years later , seeing a copy of their debut album in a used CD store, I even had a "bloody 'ell!" moment and bought it. (Your gain, too: surely you would love the extended version of "Misfit," no? Anyone?).

However, my fancy was grabbed by the band's logo. In other words, the band proved to be less interesting to me than their two-dimensional artwork. Jean had a T-shirt she sent away for (I told you she was a fan), on which the word "Curiosity" was stylishly arranged to form -- oh my god, a man's face! She and I therefore spend hours aping and doodling the design, which we would then pass back and forth to each other in class. 1987 was a slow year.

Given that, you would think that I can recreate said doodle, eh? Well, let's see. I think it went something like...


And...I'm out. I'm pretty sure the "c" and the "u" formed the man's hair. But then the other letters are a bit of crapshoot, and I can't for the life of me figure out how the "-ity" fit in. Twist them to form a neck? Mmm.

I can't find any evidence online of this logo's existence, and even the CD sleeve doesn't feature it. It was probably less of a logo than some one-off thing for that T-shirt. But now it's gonna bug me, so, for the love of God, if you have evidence to show that I'm not insane -- if you remember the logo, if you can find a pic of it online, or, holy mother of all grails, have the actual T-shirt -- then satisfy, you know, my curiosity.