John Gavanti is a No Wave “operetta” conceived of by Sumner Crane of Mars and realized—as sort of a “free jazz” improvisation with Crane calling the shots—by his fellow members of Mars, Mark Cunningham and China Burg (aka Don Burg aka Constance AKA Lucy Hamilton) and DNA’s Ikue Mori and Arto Lindsay. Also along for the ride, Lindsay’s brother Duncan (who’d later form Don King with China Burg). The whole thing was recorded in an all vacuum tube studio, Sear Sound, that Sonic Youth would later use to record their Sister album and came out on Mark Cunningham’s Hyrax label in 1980.

If you’ve never heard of John Gavanti, you’re not alone. They only pressed up 3000 copies and that’s about how many entries you can find for it on Google, most of them just record dealer listings. The YouTube clip of the entire album posted below has only had a few hundred plays. It’s obscure all right. AllMusic.com has a listing for it, but as yet, no one has deigned to review it. I probably never would have heard of it myself, but as it happened, I had a friend in the 80s, a guy named Randy Fairbanks, who was a sort of the John the Baptist of this well peculiar project, singing the praises of John Gavanti to anyone who’d listen to him or it. He was really into artists like Henry Cow and Fred Frith and was a devoted WFMU listener. I could always get Randy to go see like, Lydia Lunch or Laibach or something extremely extreme with me and he turned me on to quite a few good things over the years with his fabulously demented mixed tapes.

He also turned me on to John Gavanti. Frankly although it would be stretching it a bit to call this album “good” it is absolutely hilarious and playfully obnoxious, even as it is almost tuneless and utterly chaotic. Actually chaotic is totally the wrong word here, as it has a storyline, a sort of Alfred Jarry-esque take on Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” sung in a cartoony Cookie Monster-ish voice mostly by Crane, who wrote the libretto, and they rehearsed this for a long time (apparently). In it, to the accompaniment of an untuned, carelessly plucked guitar, bleating bass clarinet, flatulating tuba, incompetent piano and sparse percussion, John Gavanti wakes up in a volcano; drinks some fresh squeezed lava; goes to St. Mark’s Place; fucks a lot of women; he fucks a lioness; he “makes no distinctions” (because those who make distinctions “are gross and how gauche”); he gets into a bloody fight and ends up living happily ever after, sailing off into the sunset with a granny he seduced. At least I think that’s how it goes.

Here’s a sample lyric:

“Oh Ancient Ocean!/You are nothing!/Vast you may be!/Next to me what are you?/I am beautiful pink and you are stinky green!”

There is one context that might be lost on listeners today (admittedly I never, ever would have realized this myself, except that I read it yesterday on Piero Scarfutti’s website) but the libretto is apparently somewhat parodying the boastful, world traveller lothario raps of Kid Creole and the Coconuts associate Coati Mundi (who would have had a song like “Que Pasa/Me No Popeye” playing incessantly in New York nightclubs at that time. But you don’t really need to be armed with that information to “enjoy” John Gavanti‘s singular charms.
 

 
Here’s what Mark Cunningham had to say about the project on his website:

“John Gavanti was, in a sense, a band, as we spent over a year developing and rehearsing the work. It consisted of Sumner Crane, the author of the libretto and songs, Don Burg, altar ego of China Burg, and myself as well as Ikue Mori from DNA. In the recording sessions we also used Arto Lindsay and his brother Duncan on garbage lid percussion for a samba takeoff. Sumner played guitar and piano, Don bass clarinet and I managed to get in trumpet, trombone, baritone horn and tuba. Ikue played the viola and cello. Neither she nor Lucy had ever touched those instruments before. Sumner called the shots generally but the arrangements were collective improvs. We recorded it in NY at Sear Sound, an all vacuum tube studio later popularized by Sonic Youth. It was released on my own label Hyrax in 1980, and sold over the years almost all the 3000 vinyl copies printed. In the early eighties, some crazy Italian fans made a video of the whole opera which was really quite amazing; we figured the only way to represent it would be a big budget film, but they did it with no budget, an all male cast and lots of energy and humor. Unfortunately finding a copy is probably next to impossible.”

John Gavanti is not for everyone—that’s for certain. It’s been called “unlistenable,” but I think that was meant in a good way. If you like dada hijinks in your avant garde music, John Gavanti is where these two great tastes, taste great together. Or something. Hey, who knows, it might be your new favorite thing. It’s still more tuneful than either Metal Machine Music or a Jandek album, right?

If you can’t take the overture, skip ahead to the second number, “I Awake.”