Published Feb 28, 2007 For a man that has proclaimed himself as the possible Antichrist, Bobby Conn is doing a terrible job of inflicting pain and suffering on the world. His makeup-smeared flamboyance and life-affirming rock shows have made the man a hero to anyone willing to listen to his barmy messages. Clearly bonkers, hes a visionary like no other, and with King For A Day the Chicagoan may just have created the madcap masterpiece hes always threatened to unleash on our vulnerable ears. Described as 'a desperate attempt to lose myself in a candy-coloured fantasyland of freaks and fairies, Conn has amassed a cast of 14 bodies to realise his concept. In keeping with the spirit to his body of work the album is brash in its unwillingness to commit to any one style, a common trait of his that has rubbed many the wrong way. He kicks it off with an eight-minute number that moves from harmless bossa swing to a scorching psych eruption, complete with lyrics that youll need your high school Latin to translate.
From there it gets weirder. The title track calmly tells a story of the band getting their toes sucked on tour in the UK and 'Sinking Ship demonstrates how tight the amateurish band are with a gonzo instrumental that schools just about any prog rock jam Rick Wakeman could dream up these days. Then theres the misleading yet feel-good orchestral pop of 'Love Let Me Down and the convincing sales pitch of 'Punch the Sky!, which has me thinking that this little dude in the pink, tight-ass hip huggers is my new demigod. If you can dig it, I imagine youll feel the same way.
Self-delusion is the American dream. Bobby Conn has given us songs for and; King for a Day is Bobbys ode to self-delusion. It is the definitive Bobby Conn record. And it’s all based on true stories. A Q&A with Bobby Conn: What’s the new record about? It’s about my desperate attempt to lose myself in a candy-colored fantasyland of freaks and fairies.
Feb 22, 2007 The impish Bobby Conn's latest concept album is a homage to the cult of celebrity. Conceived as a soundtrack, it's like. Find a Bobby Conn - King For A Day first pressing or reissue. Complete your Bobby Conn collection. Kenmore Style Master 909873 Repair Manual. Shop Vinyl and CDs. Dec 01, 2006 'king for a day' music video music by bobby conn video by usama alshaibi produced by artvamp.
It’s an urge that I think lots of us share, especially these days as the real world is getting increasingly grim. This record is kind of my “Don Quixote.” I conceived the whole record as a soundtrack for grainy, blurry movie along the lines of Kenneth Anger or Jodorovsky (or perhaps a bad VHS tape dub of these films). The album starts with an 8-minute epic with strings, a choir singing in Latin, a blinding, atonal guitar solo and birds singing before the dawn. There are psychedelic interludes and instrumental passages between more conventional “pop” songs, and the album ends with a triumphant/tragic piano ballad. I see the poppier songs as movie musical numbers, and the others as incidental music for ritual and montage, and soon the record will be the soundtrack to it’s own movie. What’s all this about a movie?
I am producing a full-length song-by-song video to accompany the record. The look of the video is inspired by 70’s era soap operas; we are using a very old tube video camera and shooting everything on very simple theatrical sets. It’s directed by Usama Alshaibi, an Iraqi-American filmmaker who has just completed Nice Bombs, a documentary about his return to Iraq in 2004 during the U.S. Occupation and the beginnings of the civil war there. But most of his work isn’t so topical or political; he is more of an experimental filmmaker who focuses on sexuality. He made the video for “Angels” from The Golden Age, and even with some editing and blocking, it was still too raw and spicy for most broadcasts. We are making multiple versions of each song.
Three videos will be included as a bonus feature on the King for a Day CD, and others will be made available in serial fashion on a monthly basis on the internet (YouTube, MySpace, www.bobbyconn.com, etc.). Are the stories all taken from your personal experience? No, not all of them.
I’m also interested in how the desire for fantasy and drama plays out in the media and our culture at large. The song “Anybody” is written from the perspective of a well-known celebrity who follows a bizarre, science fiction based religion and is celebrating the pregnancy of his partner publicly in tandem with the promotion of a multi-million dollar movie. As Monica BouBou and I were expecting our second child at the same time, I felt some kinship with this particular story and wrote a song about how weird it is when the most personal aspects of your life are amplified by the media, and what kind of personality problems it leads to. I pushed it to a tasteless extreme, naturally. The title track (“King For A Day”) deals with some events from our last tour of the UK. We played a show in Manchester that ended with several of the band getting shrimped (toe-sucking) by members of the audience.