Madonna almost certainly dated Michael Gira of Swans, did a public AOL chat with Anthony Kiedis, and turned down giving Peter Hook a lap dance
My five favorite arcane little stories from Madonna month
Happy Friday. Bandsplain’s Madonna month (which was actually six weeks long my bad) has finally come to a close with a beautiful mailbag episode featuring the two most important gay men in my life, my mother and Patrik Sandberg. I have emerged, bleary eyed and insane, back into the world, which due to my algorithm and personal tastes, is still about 75% Madonna content. And I do like it that way.
Because even though the doors are wide open, I cannot leave Madonna jail. Here for your pleasure, are my five favorite arcane little stories that emerged from my weeks and weeks of Madonna research:
1. Madonna (most likely) dated Michael Gira of Swans
And I’m going to prove it here! Let’s get into it:
Thurston More told The Guardian in 2018: “We were neighbours. We knew each other, by sight. She would say hi to me and I would say hi to her. She was dating a friend of mine for a millisecond, so we were introduced that way and then, through the years, when we’d cross paths on the street, we’d nod heads and smile.”
Per Thurston Moore in this article: Madonna was briefly in the Spinal Root Gang with Dan and Josh Braun who were in a band called Circus Mort with Michael Gira (Dan Braun would go on to play in Swans) “Nobody really knows about that part of her history; she was in a pre-Swans no wave band!”
“There was a building called the Music Building and our band Circus Mort rehearsed there…we were in 901 and the the band in 906 that moved in was called Emmy with a singer named Madonna. She came and knocked on our door one day…everyone immediately had a crush on her And she suddenly became a friend of ours…you know, another kindred spirit musician.”
He goes onto talk about how they realize after a bit that she is randomly living with his dad Saul Braun (at 270 Riverside Drive) in the room he and his twin brother grew up in. (Her manager at the time Camille Barbone knew Saul Braun and had put Madonna there).
The Spinal Root Gang was actually a Braun family band, in which Saul Braun played sax, and with Madonna now in their lives, he wanted to start it up again with her as the singer. Madonna and Dan Braun had written two songs together, and they recorded one as a demo while Saul was out of town.
The song "We Live in a House", written by Josh Braun, Janis Galloway and Madonna in 1982, was sent for US copyright registration (# PAu-1-843-482 if you need the receipts). That’s a misspelling of Janice Galloway, who was Madonna’s friend and maybe briefly her roommate? In Mary Gabriel’s book she is mentioned as the friend who Madonna arranged for her brother Christopher to stay with when he first came to NY. Anyway apparently Madonna had asked if Janice could be in the band too, hence the writing credit.
Sample lyric: "We live in a house, and people just don't care. We live in a house, they don't go anywhere." Madonna screams at one point: "You can't come into my house." This demo existed but is completely lost as far as I know. They never recorded the second song because Madonna got signed to Sire.
In 2018, Jonathan Tessler, percussionist for Swans in 1982, was interviewed for the book Sacrifice And Transcendence: The Oral History of Swans by Nick Soulsby, and he mentions Gira and Madonna’s relationship (as well as his insane-sounding apartment):
“Mike’s apartment had been a Spanish Iglesias, which the local Puerto Rican or Dominican immigrants used for Sunday services and Bible meetings… When Mike took it over it was stripped of furniture – the only things left were lighting, power sockets, then all four walls were covered in shipping blankets and large old commercial egg cartons for soundproofing… When he was dating Madonna I remember the two of them, for at least a couple of weeks, living in that part of the space – there was a bedroom alcove made by the addition of a hanging curtain.”
In 2019, Gira was interviewed and asked about Madonna: