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Scrapbook: Tickle Torture Flips Through His Old Photo Albums

Minneapolis-sex-funk god Tickle Torture takes us to the furthest reaches of his sartorial, musical, and romantic past.

Love for

Tickle Torture

is pretty much boundless at Noisey’s HQ. As I mentioned when we premiered his video for

“Would I Love You,”

my first encounter with Tickle Torture was incredibly memorable, and I’m not saying that because I saw his penis before he said a full sentence (FYI he was onstage, jeez don't be so dirty). Here are a bunch of reasons why you should let TT tickle you—in the sonic sense, that is. Although I’m sure if you asked him to tickle you in reality he would probably oblige.

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1. His music is deliciously funked up, sleazy-sexy take on pop. You can find evidence of this on his EP, Spectrophilia, out this week. Spectrophilia showcases five songs that not only demonstrate Tickle Torture’s musical prowess, but also his exceptional talent for titling tunes, including leading zingers like “Fuck Me with the Lights On,” “Maybe I Need to Go Home,” and the hypnotic electro incantation “She’s In My Blood,” which clocks in at a loose-limbed eight minutes without so much as eliciting a snore. (Listen to the whole EP below.)

2. He’s not afraid to gender bend and do so while sprayed in silver. Is he gay? Is he straight? Is he merely a hedonistic voyeur? Watch the shimmery video for “You’re Gonna Be My Baby” (above), enjoy that sly bassline, and draw your own conclusions.

3. This EP might sound spangly and freakified but it’s full of genuine musings on love, disintegrating relationships, and how memories can cast a bewitching spell that perverts the truth.

4. He’s the only man I’ve ever met who spent time gluing diamanté to a decapitated antelope head.

5. Back in the day, to make money Tickle Torture spent some time as a children’s entertainer called Googly Guy. No joke. Read on for pictorial evidence.

6. Tickle Torture was born Elliott Kozel and Elliott used to be in a jangly indie band called [](https://sleepingintheaviary.bandcamp.com ) Sleeping in the Aviary. I’m happy to say that at last the bling-bedazzled falsetto god with a penchant for diamond-studded jock straps that’s been trapped inside him for all these years has now escaped and he is running riot.

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tickle torture

Photos by Sam Spafford taken at a recent Tickle Torture show. Hell YES.

In celebration of Tickle Torture’s EP and in light of his sartorial flamboyance I decided he’d be the ideal candidate to take part in Scrapbook, where artists pillage their old photo albums to chart their music and style evolution, and oh boy did Tickle deliver. Bravo for including so much of your romantical history, Tickle, because let's face it, the threads are sweet and what you were listening to is important, but most of music is based on love, or what you thought was love, and this is an illiuminating window into Tickle's world.

Here I am, at about five or six, hanging out in style at my grandparents’ house in Geneva, Illinois. The lovely lady on my left is my cousin Jess, who I had one of those confusing cousin crushes on at the time. Walking sticks have been reimagined as “style batons,” as it seems like we are putting on some kind of show. There’s a 90% chance that Kriss Kross’ Totally Krossed Out cassette is blasting from a boombox somewhere off camera.

Eighth grade graduation: I’m looking pretty dapper in a nice brown 70s leisure suit purchased by my mom from a vintage store in Milwaukee, WI. (Also note the cool shell necklace.) I hadn’t yet tried smoking pot, but this would be the summer I would take my first bong rip with my best friend Andrew Stringer pictured in the far upper right corner. That vixen under my wing is Ashley, the quintessential girl next door. She lived across the street from me and I had a major crush on her from 6th through 8th grade. She was also, coincidentally, the girl I would lose my virginity to. I’m pretty sure she knows that.

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Here I’m about 20 years old, living in some shithole in Madison, WI. If you can’t tell from the blurry photograph, this is the beginning of “Elliott’s Punk Rock Years.” I had a thing for paisley for a while. I still have that Stratocaster to this day and I have no idea how it got into my possession, my best guess is a junkie left it at our house. Note the duct tape. It’s covering up a piece of shit anarchy symbol some asshole carved into the pick guard.

Me and my first serious girlfriend, Lindsay. We’re around 25 or 26 here. Thought it was true love. This picture was taken as a Christmas present for my dad. I thought it was funny as hell that he would have to hang this ugly thing up. I’d moved to Minneapolis a few months prior and was still living in a six by three foot closet in a dumpster diving hippy commune type house. I’m 100% positive those overalls and the backdrop came from the free box by our front door. I still have dreams about this girl. I wrote “Would I Love You” from the new Tickle Torture Spectrophilia EP about her. I sent it to her the day I finished it. No response.

A beautiful Minneapolis summer’s day. I’m 27 or so, and this is me and an awesome garage rock band I was in for a couple years called Teenage Moods. I have something against wearing shorts even on the hottest days, I can go through an entire summer without wearing shorts once. I think it makes me feel vulnerable. I was dating Jillian, the girl in the middle at the time. I had a feeling this one was gonna work out. I wrote Desire from the Spiritual Machete EP about her a few weeks after we started dating. I don’t think she knows that.

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Me and Jillian broke up. There was no such thing as love. It was time to enter full on “I don’t give a fuck” beard mode. This is me and Phil in Wichita, Kansas on Brian and Ash’s porch, nearing the end of grueling four month tour for my former band, Sleeping in the Aviary. I’m wearing a shirt purchased with $20 in band money that should have been spent on food. I got it from a gas station in Alabama or some shit and it reads “Tequila Makes My Clothes Fall Off.”

This is around the same time. In between tours with my band, I needed a way to make money, so I hot-glued a few hundred googly eyes to a beat up suit from Ragstock, started cold calling daycare centers in and around Minneapolis calling myself Googly Guy trying to convince people I was a children’s singer. It fucking worked. Pretty soon I was gigging around town singing songs about dinosaurs and shit. (Unsurprisingly, a lot of the tricks I used on the three-year-olds, such as bubble machines and streamers, work just as well on 22-year-olds peaking on molly at Tickle Torture shows.)

This is me roundabouts 28? I’m here with Elayna, the girl that I eventually shaved off the “I don’t give a fuck” beard for. We are at a Ramada Inn in Bloomington, Minnesota, attending Mars Con. If you can’t tell, we are on the party floor. We had just watched Gandolf destroy “I Will Survive” in the karaoke room hosted by a half naked guy standing on a towel dressed like George of the Jungle. Me and Elayna just threw some shit on and created sci-fi characters for ourselves, made to sound so obscure that none of the wasted sci-fi nerds would have the nerve to question us. One hundred percent chance that blue jumpsuit is a remnant from the dumpster diving hippie commune house. My first few months with Elayna inspired “You’re Gonna Be My Baby” from Spectrophilia. I sent it to her after we broke up. She said she liked it.

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I was in the wilderness again. I had a major crush on this girl Max for a while. She was the driving force behind my first team of backup dancers for Tickle Torture. Although our relationship never went beyond a good friendship, I wrote the song “Fuck Me with the Lights On” from the new EP about her. I don’t think she knows that.

Skip ahead to last week. Somewhere between 27 and 29 I realized I should stop wearing things out of free boxes and actually go out a buy things I liked. I picked up this awesome shirt from the women’s section at Saver’s. It’s me and my pal Yasmin, the cover model from Spectrophila. She inspired a lot of the fashion and style ideas that went into that cover shoot, as well as the “You’re Gonna Be My Baby” music video. I was crushin’ hard. We once had a very special dinner at Applebee’s. She had the sampler platter and I had the steak. When nothing came of all the longing, I wrote “She’s in My Blood.” I sent it to her a couple months ago. No response.

After that cover photoshoot I entered my “gold period.” I’m still there. All gold everything. It makes fashion decisions way simpler. Here I am on a public television set in St. Paul. The gold crown is from Bangkok. The antelope head I got off of eBay. I don’t know why I love it so much, but I think it symbolizes my masculine and feminine sides melding together as one creature.

Here's one of me and my antelope head and at a recent show.

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Me and my golden boys. I go through a lot of gold body paint. When I first got that mesh shirt I was worried that I looked like a corny 90s MTV VJ. Then I realized that was an awesome thing.

Tickle Torture may or may not have sent Kim a half mast chocolate cast of his penis on a stick, in the mail. She loves getting stuff in the mail and she's also on Twitter - @theKTB

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