Cosmo kitsch replays

At one time or another, just about everybody dances around in front of a mirror and dreams about being an old-school pop star. That's as far as most people ever get, but the Cosmopolitans came closer than most with 1980's "(How to Keep Your) Husband Happy."

One of the most gloriously goofy slices of cheese the new-wave era produced, "Husband" was based on an exercise record by Debbie Drake, the late-'50s queen of televised fitness. It's perfect tongue-in-cheek kitsch right down to the chanted chorus of, "Shake up, firm up, tone up with Debbie!"

The duo of Asheville native Jamie K. Sims and Wilmington native Nel Moore Nichols began as a postmodern performance-art group. Sims and Nichols both went to UNC-Chapel Hill and then formed the Cosmopolitans in New York City, where they would pop up onstage alongside transplanted Winston-Salem group the dB's to add some deadpan modern-dance gyrations.

Encouraged by audience response to their own songs, the Cosmopolitans recorded "Husband" with Mitch Easter at his Drive-In studio. It should have made the duo as big as the B-52's, but it didn't. The group disappeared not long after that.

Still, "(How to Keep Your) Husband Happy" never entirely went away and eventually came to be regarded as a seminal new-wave classic. Now it's back in circulation on a new album, "Wild Moose Party" (Bacchus Archives/Dionysus Records). Subtitled "New Wave Pom Pom Girls Gone Go-Go, NYC 1980-1981," the album collects the three songs from the original "Husband" single plus unreleased studio and live tracks. It even has some fuzzy video footage of Sims and Nichols bouncing around to "Husband."

With contributions from Easter and dB's principals Chris Stamey and Will Rigby, it's a key footnote in North Carolina music history. For Sims and Nichols, however, it's more like a trip down amnesia lane.

"It's very much like looking at your old high school yearbooks," says Nichols. "But it's neat. Enough time has passed so that you revisit it with a whole different perspective. I'd forgotten about a lot of this, and hearing it again brought back a lot of real pleasant memories."

Nowadays, Nichols lives in Wilmington and plays harmonica in a blues band called Tommy B. & the Stingers. Sims lives in Richmond, Va., where she has returned to her original style of music, classical. Sims studied composition at UNC, but with an unconventional streak. For her senior recital, she planted several people in the audience (including Stamey, a classmate) to yell, "Encore!"

"You don't usually do encores at recitals," Sims says. "I had worked up this Noel Coward song, 'Mad About the Boy,' with my drama-major roommate. He had several break-away dresses and wigs, and people didn't know whether or not to laugh at his transformation. Then at the end, somebody rode a motorcycle down the middle of the concert hall, he jumped on the back and they drove out the side.

"So that was my, uh, 'classical' stuff," she concludes with a laugh. "It was the '70s and everything was fairly experimental. I write fairly traditional music now, but at that point it was a lot of multi-media and throwing balls and modern dances through the audience. So going back to the Cosmopolitans stuff was fun, getting back to that part of myself."

While nothing is firm yet, the Cosmopolitans are talking about extending this revival to the stage with some live performances. And since both Easter and the dB's are working on new albums for the first time in decades, they might even have the chance to play with some of their old collaborators from back in the day.

"That depends on Jamie," says Nichols. "I'm playing in a band right now. So if she says the word, I'm ready to go."

Prime-time profile

Chapel Hill's Hotel Lights will get some high-watt exposure Sunday on "Grey's Anatomy," the ABC hit series. The episode will conclude with a montage set to "Follow Through," a song from Hotel Lights' 2004 self-titled debut album (which Bar-None Records released nationwide in March).

"Grey's Anatomy" airs at 10 p.m. Sunday on ABC. You can also hear "Follow Through" on the "Music" link at www.hotellights.net, and you can see Hotel Lights live at Kings in Raleigh on May 12 (www.kings barcade.com).