Adding acid to oompah
Dec. 8th, 2005 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus"Happiness is happening, the dragons have been bled". I've known the song "Fill Your Heart" since I was a kid, and sung along with it gleefully (David Bowie's "Hunky Dory" is my favourite singalong album) without really stopping to think who wrote it. I vaguely knew it was a cover version, and that Bowie 
was singing it with half his tongue in his cheek. I vaguely assumed its composer was some acid-fried freak who'd sung it sincerely. Then last week someone told me that another Bowie song, "Buzz The Fuzz"—which I thought sounded like Belle and Sebastian's "Sukie in the Graveyard"—was also a Biff Rose cover. (You can hear both Bowie covers, performed live, here, scroll down.)
So I went to the Barnes and Noble site and listened to all the soundclips of Biff Rose's 1968 and 1969 albums "Thorn in Mrs Rose Side" and "Children of Light", and damn it, this sounds like an essential artist, some combination of David Ackles, Tom Lehrer, Dory Previn, Jonathan Richman, Randy Newman, even Sondheim, with moments of McDermott and Ragni's satirical hippy opera "Hair". There are even echoes of electronic eccentric Bruce Haack, since Van Dyke Parks can be heard on some of these songs playing (very early) Moog synthesiser. And of course figures like Neil Young (minus the cloying sincerity) and Tiny Tim are in there too (it was Tiny Tim who first covered "Fill Your Heart", even before its author released it himself).
"A vaudeville entertainer reincarnated as a spacy hippie" is how All Music Guide describes Rose, "with an arch and whimsical tone that both reflected and mocked the counterculture. When he sang about flowery love and idyllic free living, there were sarcastic and ironic undercurrents that made him hard to take seriously; at the same time, the words were too far out for him to get accepted by Broadway or the easy-listening pop market." Rose could almost be Adam Green's hippy grandad. He's so uncool he's cool, hip yet square, a balladeer of oddly infectious positivity, a kind of Sergeant Pepper figure, adding acid to oompah. On songs like "Communist Sympathizer" and "Ballad of Cliches" he's almost Tom Lehrer, but on the gorgeous-sounding "Gentle People", "The Stars", "Paradise Almost Lost", "Ain't No Great Day", "Children of Light" and "Sun in Moon" he couldn't be anybody but himself.
"It's a Santa Claus world where everyone dines on gluttonous steaks and champagnes and wines", goes "American Waltz", a kind of deranged Gilbert O'Sullivan lurch in 3/4 time. People, I must have this album immediately, by fair means or foul! Does anybody out there have it? Fill your heart with love today! (I'm momasu at gmail.) I'd order it online, but something tells me that my own record (currently dallying with absurdist torch, in songs with titles like "Nervous Heartbeat") must collide with this one immediately.
I really ought to buy it, though, and give Biff some royalties. Rose is still around, a charming, lecherous, damaged old man who drags wheeled pianos around the streets of New Orleans and plays for the black kids. He was apparently displaced from his home by Hurricane Katrina, and made a rap about it. He makes a better loopy hippy balladeer than a rapper, that's for sure... but what on earth is The Ballad of Max's Kansas City about? And what's this about a "an inter-racial sex manual for twelve year olds" called "A Tablespoon Of Sperm"?
was singing it with half his tongue in his cheek. I vaguely assumed its composer was some acid-fried freak who'd sung it sincerely. Then last week someone told me that another Bowie song, "Buzz The Fuzz"—which I thought sounded like Belle and Sebastian's "Sukie in the Graveyard"—was also a Biff Rose cover. (You can hear both Bowie covers, performed live, here, scroll down.)So I went to the Barnes and Noble site and listened to all the soundclips of Biff Rose's 1968 and 1969 albums "Thorn in Mrs Rose Side" and "Children of Light", and damn it, this sounds like an essential artist, some combination of David Ackles, Tom Lehrer, Dory Previn, Jonathan Richman, Randy Newman, even Sondheim, with moments of McDermott and Ragni's satirical hippy opera "Hair". There are even echoes of electronic eccentric Bruce Haack, since Van Dyke Parks can be heard on some of these songs playing (very early) Moog synthesiser. And of course figures like Neil Young (minus the cloying sincerity) and Tiny Tim are in there too (it was Tiny Tim who first covered "Fill Your Heart", even before its author released it himself).
"A vaudeville entertainer reincarnated as a spacy hippie" is how All Music Guide describes Rose, "with an arch and whimsical tone that both reflected and mocked the counterculture. When he sang about flowery love and idyllic free living, there were sarcastic and ironic undercurrents that made him hard to take seriously; at the same time, the words were too far out for him to get accepted by Broadway or the easy-listening pop market." Rose could almost be Adam Green's hippy grandad. He's so uncool he's cool, hip yet square, a balladeer of oddly infectious positivity, a kind of Sergeant Pepper figure, adding acid to oompah. On songs like "Communist Sympathizer" and "Ballad of Cliches" he's almost Tom Lehrer, but on the gorgeous-sounding "Gentle People", "The Stars", "Paradise Almost Lost", "Ain't No Great Day", "Children of Light" and "Sun in Moon" he couldn't be anybody but himself."It's a Santa Claus world where everyone dines on gluttonous steaks and champagnes and wines", goes "American Waltz", a kind of deranged Gilbert O'Sullivan lurch in 3/4 time. People, I must have this album immediately, by fair means or foul! Does anybody out there have it? Fill your heart with love today! (I'm momasu at gmail.) I'd order it online, but something tells me that my own record (currently dallying with absurdist torch, in songs with titles like "Nervous Heartbeat") must collide with this one immediately.
I really ought to buy it, though, and give Biff some royalties. Rose is still around, a charming, lecherous, damaged old man who drags wheeled pianos around the streets of New Orleans and plays for the black kids. He was apparently displaced from his home by Hurricane Katrina, and made a rap about it. He makes a better loopy hippy balladeer than a rapper, that's for sure... but what on earth is The Ballad of Max's Kansas City about? And what's this about a "an inter-racial sex manual for twelve year olds" called "A Tablespoon Of Sperm"?
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 11:10 am (UTC)I have to say that your post of yesterday was pretty absurd. Hip hop is the most influential youth culture in the entire world right now - you could walk down the streets of Sydney or Rio or Dakar or probably any small South Pacific island and find the same thing. If anything, Japan has been a bit behind the curve.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 11:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 11:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 11:42 am (UTC)Isn't Bowie's "Be My Wife" intro a non-mental version of The Ballad of's? Which came first, though?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 11:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 11:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 12:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 12:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 12:42 pm (UTC)Ask you now to compile
a list of the names
of all the people you slight;
And I, no doubt, will be missed;
I will be the oversight
In your cut dead-list!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 01:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 01:57 pm (UTC)Sounds right up your alley, Mr. Belvedere... depending on which races are in question...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 02:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 02:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 02:14 pm (UTC)he recently passed on according to his website
all language was the same as Greek thus Greek originated
Date: 2005-12-08 02:37 pm (UTC)The first song that caught my attention was 'It's Happenin,' which I've listened to a couple hundred times. But lately, I've kept 'Evolution,' 'Communist Sympathizer,' and 'Color Blind Blues' on repeat. And 'Paradise Almost Lost' is always good for laugh. Have you listened to his self-titled album? He came out with after Children of Light and the Thorn in Mrs. Rose's Side. It's worth listening to as well.
I'm in Berlin for the time. I can always make you a copy...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 02:57 pm (UTC)Conversely, Borges would argue that, actually, I had written your original; "A Complete History Of Sexual Jealousy (Parts 17-24)" is mine; and I think that said lyrics are up there with my very best; and the name of the person Momus ignores the most is Momus.
See ya at the Kempi ...
Re: all language was the same as Greek thus Greek originated
Date: 2005-12-08 02:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 03:18 pm (UTC)Did you check through all of his sites, .biz, .com, .net?
I see him blurring lines, but he's doing it so heavily that I can't even see which lines they were. Cleverly Subversive or Intentionally Deceptive?
Side Note: Need best place to buy Momus CD's, figured you'd be the best person to ask. What source will earn you the most money, or get you the most recognition? What source benefits you the most? Cui prodest celus?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 03:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 03:25 pm (UTC)Otherwise, all the usual online record stores (and even some brick and mortar ones) will have some CDs. Thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 03:48 pm (UTC)I'm glad to hear he is still kickn'
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 04:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 04:53 pm (UTC)"Love is so sensational, when you fall in love with eyes dilatational
Now they're taking pills and shots and Buzz is not afraid of Watts
He and Alice D have shown the way of where the fuzz might be some day
Buzz is still a cop of course, he's the pusher on the force
He's protecting you and me from evil women like miss Alice D"
The odd thing is I've never really known the songs you mentioned to be David Bowie songs. I have vague memories of listening to the original versions and feeling some kind of unease at the Bowie covers.
Alas, I've only managed to find his albums on vinyl. Bleeker Bob's in New York had about two albums that I was tempted to get, but in the end couldn't afford it. Are there any cd's available of his works?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 05:48 pm (UTC)Anyone who followed the link above and got this stuff, and wants to give Biff some dough, there's a Paypal donate button at Jewmanity (http://www.jewmanity.com/).
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 07:26 pm (UTC)Thanks again, sir.
Panda Bear
Date: 2005-12-08 08:12 pm (UTC)i'n not/comfy in nautica
PRETTY PLEASE put a link up or email acorncoral@hotmail.com
PRETTY PLEASE
i really would like to hear it
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 10:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 10:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 10:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-09 01:15 am (UTC)And I STILL find it jarring that the moment I start looking up Biff Rose you make a post about him...
Biff Bang Pow
Date: 2005-12-09 01:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-09 02:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-09 05:03 am (UTC)No Pun Nintendo
Date: 2005-12-09 01:57 pm (UTC)I interviewed him for our last issue (http://bbgun.org/index2.htm) and his responses were pure Rosian poetry, very hip trippy, pun-filled with comic fluidity.
Devendra Banhart is very aware of Biff's music, too.
Re: No Pun Nintendo
Date: 2005-12-10 06:28 am (UTC)