Band thinks family before foot fetish

Depeche Mode fans who go to the band's show at the Palms on Saturday will see a toned-down version of a sexy foot fetish video that has played on video screens in earlier DM shows.

Keyboardist Andy Fletcher tells me the band (one of my all-time favorites) debated a lot as to whether the foot fetishism was "OTT," over the top.

"We sort of are quite risqué," he says. "But it's different now. We do have families. Dave (Gahan, the singer) has an 8-year-old daughter. Martin (Gore, the songwriter) has kids.

"In the end we've sort of compromised" and cut the naughtiest bits, Fletcher says.

But wait, he says. The bigger reason for trimming the naughty wasn't "the porn factor" but the ego, I mean, "show factor."

"To be honest, the main reason for the compromise is that during 'Strangelove,' which is the song being played, people were watching the screen and not watching us!

"Don't worry," Fletcher says, "the first two minutes (of the video) is good enough."

RICHARD CHEESE ENDING BAND

While performing in Vegas once, the hip-hop lounge impresario Richard Cheese spotted a beautiful woman sitting at a table full of Midwest-looking men.

"The beautiful girl didn't seem like she belonged to them," Cheese tells me.

So Cheese asked her, "Which one of these guys is the lucky guy?"

"All of them," she said.

Yes, she was a hooker.

Hookers abound in Las Vegas, of course, but this one proudly proclaimed her profession right there in the middle of a Richard Cheese show. That's why Vegas is special.

"You don't get a lot of self-proclaimed hookers in Houston and Bangor, Maine," Cheese says.

By coincidence, Cheese (another of my favorites) is playing at the exact same time as Depeche Mode this Saturday at Green Valley Ranch. Suck.

If you've never heard Lounge, you're not using your ears fully.

Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine play crazy-fun lounge music covers of rock, pop and hip-hop hits. Imagine Dean Martin-type versions of Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back," Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice" and OutKast's "Hey Ya!"

What's worse, this is billed as the band's final tour performance in Vegas, ever. Cheese is calling it quits, for the most part, he tells me, because it's time to try something different after a decade of cutting the Cheese.

He's forming a new Hawaiian music band. He already has commissioned the tailoring of a tuxedo made of grass.

Meanwhile, Cheese (real name: Mark Davis) will continue to be an entrepreneur in Los Angeles.

Since the band formed in 2000, they've performed as the house band on MTV's "Say What? Karaoke" and "Last Call with Carson Daly," plus spruced-up gigs on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and Howard Stern's radio show.

Cheese and the gang played Travis Barker's wedding.

And years back, they played a set in Brian Setzer's Malibu living room for a holiday party where Pat Benatar, the band Devo and about 100 other people partied. The band that Cheese opened for: Setzer's long-broken-up Stray Cats.

Cheese is going out strong by heavily promoting his sites (Facebook.com/markdavis and RichardCheese.com) and sounds (the band's latest live album, "Viva La Vodka," predates next year's album, "OK Bartender," featuring covers of songs by Kanye West, Lady Gaga and others).

"I don't want to be the Platters and the Guess Who, reuniting after 20 years," Cheese says. "We'll still be doing lounge songs. We'll still be doing swanky stuff, but I want to try it with different musicians and a different feel -- and a different tux."

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.