Cruella De Ville was a band from Northern Ireland that presented a mixture of post-punk and gothic rock from 1982 to 1984. Their members consisted of Colum Muinzer on vocals, guitar, and violin; his twin sister, Philomena Muinzer, known as "Phil" or "Mena", who won awards for her creative writing, on vocals and keyboard, James Clenaghan on bass guitar and backing vocals, and Mike Edgar on drums and backing vocals. They released a number of singles, but their album was never released after Edgar absconded with the recordings. Their best-known song is "Those Two Dreadful Children", which has appeared on The Dr. Demento Show and was included on a Basement Tapes members-only compilation. The name of the band is taken from an altered spelling of villain of the same name from the book and movie The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Their other songs include "Drunken Uncle John", "Hong Kong Swing", "Blues, Blues, Blues", "Gypsy Girl", "I'll Do The Talking", "Oceans", and "Who's at the Door?". "Drunken Uncle John" and "Oceans" have a similar dark comic flavour to that found in "Those Two Dreadful Children" — the latter being an absurdist satire on drug dealing. "Hong Kong Swing" is a send-up of Ugly AmericanNaval officers' mangling pan-Asia into a cartoonish red-light concept. There are three versions: the first recorded was the "Manic Mix", with breakdancing cues, which was followed by the regular version. The last, "Hollywood Hong Kong Swing" is a new recording that adds three new introductions: a string soundalike to Alfred Newman's 20th Century Fox Fanfare, a long guitar solo, and a new verse introducing the song as if being featured in a Hollywood revue. "I'll Do the Talking" is a serious song of sibling devotion. The Muinzers, usually individually, did all the group's songwriting. In addition to television performances, the group cut a music video for "Gypsy Girl" that UK television was not allowed to show before 10 pm because it depicted a bonfire. A more simple video was made for the song that simply depicts the band performing was used for daytime showings. Phil and Colum cite their major influences as coming from their father's old record collection, artists like Spike Jones, Danny Kaye, and Pete Seeger. Colin in particular modelled his guitar playing on Brian May of Queen. When EMI signed the band, Queen heard Colum perform "Gypsy Girl" solo, and he reported that May really liked it. The original demo of "Who's at the Door?" has recently been transferred to digital and cleaned by Colum Muinzer. A pre-FM copy of aBBC Radio 1 session has recently been rediscovered, a copy of which has been passed on to Colum and Philomena.
Drummers
played drums on "Hong Kong Swing" and Stephen Mulholland played them on "Those Two Dreadful Children." A drum machine was used on "Drunken Uncle John," with Mike Edgar overdubbing the bass drum; and a drum loop used on "Gypsy Girl," again with Edgar doing a few overdubs. All the drums on the unreleased album were played by Wood.
In the absence of an official release, a fan based CD has been compiled with the following songs: 1 "Hong Kong Swing"
2 "Gypsy Girl"
3 "Blues, Blues, Blues"
4 "I'll Do The Talking"
5 "Hollywood Hong Kong Swing"
6 "Who's At The Door"
7 "Oceans"
8 "Those Two Dreadful Children"
9 "Drunken Uncle John"
10 Hong Kong Swing" Most songs have been restored from a vinyl source, others have been donated by Philomena and Colum, who encouraged the fan to sell the discs for a profit because he had put so much work into it.
The GOT 16 single; "Those Two Dreadful Children"/ "Drunken Uncle John", has been turned into a CD single by the same fan. Using a copy of the original Polydor master tape – artwork for this CD has been reworked from a scan of the original poster cover.
Videos
The following video clips of CDV are known to exist
