bemused. geek. nz.

Precipitate Flood

This evening I teleported over to The Ark to see what D’Ashe was going to fill my slot with.

The bastard did a bunk, after I had covered for him!

Anyway, I simply decided not to bother and simply yanked the wheel hither and yon across genres, but ended up stuck on Wesley Willis.

I’ll let magp explain.

Now, for those of you who don’t recognize the name, Wesley was a 350-lb. homeless schizophrenic brother from Chicago. He had a bigass permanent bruise right in the middle of his forehead because his preferred method of greeting was a head butt. What he would do is bumble around the city, selling cityscape posters he’d drawn with Magic Markers, and singing his songs on the corner for change.

The first time I actually remember hearing anything about him was when I heard someone (don’t remember who) telling a story about how the recording studio’s bathroom didn’t work, so Wesley went outside and took a dump on a patch of grass just off the sidewalk. The most amusing point of the story was the “eeeh, eeeeeh, eeeeeeh!” noises relayed during the tale.

Now, Wesley’s music had a pretty standard format, so here’s how you’ll recognize him if you ever hear it. All of his music was written on a cheap-ass keyboard he bought at K-Mart in the early 80s (until he bought a new one in the late 90s at some point, but it was just a newer version of the same thing) — the kind that has the “auto-accompaniment”, so you just tell the synth to play “Rock” or “Salsa”, then the synth produces guitar, bass, drums, and synth playing a basic riff based on that style, in the key of whichever note you just played. The ‘board also has buttons for beginning a song, adding a fill, and finishing a song, so most of his songs all start and end exactly the same way, with the same fills being periodically thrown in. So the synth begins playing the song, and Wesley would shout out a verse consisting of a few lines describing whatever it is that he’s singing about, followed by a chorus consisting of him warbling the title of the song at least 4 times in a register that’s almost too high for him, sometimes with weird effects on his voice; now comes the solo, which consists of going through some standard key changes and throwing in a liberal amount of fills (or sound effects), followed by another verse and chorus. Each song finishes off with his catch-phrase, “Rock over London! Rock on, Chicago!”, followed by a repetition of a commercial tagline, such as, “Wheaties! The Breakfast of Champions!”

For a short while, he was backed by a punk band, The Wesley Willis Fiasco, who disbanded because his schizophrenia often rendered him impossible to deal with. He did have a contract with Alternative Tentacles (I believe), Jello Biafra’s label, as well as releasing a number of albums on his own, and his catalogue included no less than 400 individual songs.

I almost hate to admit it, but I actually find his stuff pretty amusing. These songs sound like they were written by a foul-mouthed 8-year-old. Someone saner wouldn’t even bother performing them publicly. Truth be known, the routine I would do with Inebriation Station wasn’t too much different. At the very least, he had a good grasp of “standard” chord progressions and song structure. No topic was taboo, from monsters to fights with superheroes to his favorite celebrities, and his lyrics had an honesty to them that only someone who was just a little removed from modern-day sanity could express. For instance, you can really hear his frustration on the songs about his psychosis. He had a number of songs about concerts he attended, most of which say the same things, “The rock and roll was perfect! The concert was a jam!” but on one particular song (don’t remember which one), he is sure to mention, “The lead singer was not a nice guy at all! He was a stupid jerk!” That’s the honesty one would expect from a child, and I have to admit (as cliche as it sounds) there’s something refreshing about that. Another number describes the time that someone beat him up he was attacked by a drug-crazed thug with box cutters, and the way he sings the chorus, “He’s spendin’ time in jail!” fully expresses the jubilation anyone would feel knowing that the asshole who beat him up is getting his due.

He passed away just a couple of years ago, but left a distinct legacy. If nothing else, you don’t need to be completely there to create.

[Corrections courtesy John Stulgate.]

I first found out about Wesley through an upload to alt.binaries.slack, then the tribute album Loved Like a Milkshake: A Tribute to Wesley Willis.

Anyway this evening I swerved into his domain again, and so I’ve been looking for more of his peculiar works.