Photo: Austin Young; Make-up: Travis Pates

Usually when we get requests for Kickstarter, we have to say no because this entire blog would just be Kickstarter links, but Ann Magnuson’s “The Jobriath Medley: A Glam Rock Fairy Tale” project is different because they’ve actually already done most of the thing they want to raise money for, so you can just go online and buy it basically.

For years now, Ann has done a loving musical/spoken word tribute in her live cabaret shows to obscure 70s glam rocker Jobriath Boone (rock’s first out and out “fairy”) and recently she and longtime collaborator Kristian Hoffman have recorded it, with a small orchestra. The new project “combines good old-fashioned storytelling with extraordinarily pretty songs from Jobriath’s phantasmagoric catalogue. Think Mother Goose on LSD!”

Ann writes:

Kristian Hoffman and I both bought the Jobriath albums when they first came out in the early 1880s. Uh, I mean early 1970s. Me as a baby glam rock hillbilly hippie back in West Virginia, Kristian in his suburban enclave in Santa Barbara – where he would sometimes appear along with his best friend Lance Loud on the first TV reality show, AN AMERICAN FAMILY. (FYI: Lance also appears as a character in a pivotal TRUE story told in our glam rock fairy tale!). Oh, and Morrissey also bought the Jobriath albums when he was also a teenage glam-rock-groupie-budding-music-critic-future-rock-star in Manchester England England! (That’s a HAIR reference, by the way. Did you know Jobriath played “Woof” in the original L.A. production? You will when you hear The Jobriath Medley!) Morrissey would later reissue select songs from Jobriath’s two solo albums on the CD “Lonely Planet Boy”. But when we created The Jobriath Medley in 1996 we were unaware of the Morrissey connection (until that Japanese import showed up with the photo of The Moz holding the original Jobriath LP under his arm. A culturally significant moment that was quickly integrated into the text performed at the next live performance of The Jobriath Medley.)

“Grandma, tell me more about the 70s…”

Don’t worry kids, you’ll learn all about that decade of debauchery when you hear The Jobriath Medley! But suffice it to say that back in the early 1970’s everyone was blow, blow, blowing away in platform shoes, glitter eye make up, downing Quaaludes and red wine while being insanely & dangerously promiscuous as we dressed up in glad rags we found in thrift stores so we could emulate the movie stars of the 1930s and 1940s that we watched on The Late Late Show on TV. We were making like Liza Minnelli in CABARET (“divine decadence darling!”) and all we wanted to do was live our lives like we were in a Ken Russell movie!

Jobriath, just like David Bowie and Marc Bolan and Alice Cooper and the New York Dolls among many others, was one of those flaming creatures in the glam rock 70s who didn’t care what other people thought about them. Maybe they really were spacemen from Mars or androgynous aliens or strangers in a strange land OR just glorified hippies dressed up like Christmas trees…

With Kieran Turner’s fab documentary Jobriath A.D. (I loved it) turning a new generation of music fans on to Jobriath, there seems little doubt that Jobriath Boone will be “the Klaus Nomi” of 2012/2013, so jump on the bandwagon NOW and support Ann and Kristian’s DIY tribute to the lonely planet boy.

The Kickstarter page for “The Jobriath Medley” has a number of really great packages for any budget, from a digital download or CD all the way up to one of a kind paintings (Ann is quite expert in painting “fake Basquiats”—I mean to say that she’s fucking genius at it—and one of the packages offers a Basquiat-glam rock themed original artwork).

Dangeorus Minds readers will appreciate knowing that Sparks’ Russell Mael has contributed backing vocals to Ann and Kristian’s cover of Jobriath’s “I’maman.”

Read more about it on Kickstarter.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Lonely Planet Boy: An interview with ‘Jobriath A.D.’ director Kieran Turner

Jobriath: Rock’s Fairy Godmother

Bongwater: The Power of Pussy

Below, Ann talks Jobriath:
 

Photo by Rocky Schenck

Dangerous Minds pal Ann Magnuson will be performing in Los Angeles this weekend, with a brand new show at The Steve Allen Theater featuring an appropriate theme for 2012: The end of the world!

Because the Mayan calendar promises that the world shall end in late 2012, Ann Magnuson has decided to celebrate early. And, like Cher and Streisand before her, she shall begin the first of many ‘farewell’ tours to prepare for the aforementioned Apocalypse.

But because she wants to go out with neither a bang nor a whimper, she has chosen the route of Gentility: partly because of age but mostly because, in an increasingly vulgar world, it’s the most radical thing to do.

A mashing up of ‘end of the world’ songs, appropriately themed spoken word stories and bona-fide poetry will be presented as a contemporary twist on the “Victorian Drawing Room Entertainment”.

With original songs by Ann Magnuson and Kristian Hoffman including material from the albums Pretty Songs & Ugly Stories, The Luv Show as well as golden nuggets from Ms. Magnuson’s former psycho-sexual-psychedelic alt-cult band, Bongwater.

Ms. Magnuson’s drawing room guests may also hear new variations on songs written by Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill, Bessie Smith, David Bowie, Skeeter Davis, The Rolling Stones and the Doors (in a special Tribute to the Occupy Wall Street Movement).

In keeping with Victorian Drawing Room tradition, Ms. Magnuson shall recite poetry both classical (by Percy Bysshe Shelley-woven into The Rolling Stones classic GIMME SHELTER) and contemporary (by California’s own bard, The Lizard King himself, Jim Morrison).

With musical director Mr. Kristian Hoffman on grande pianoforte and Mr. Joseph Berardi demonstrating a variety of exotic primitive percussive instruments from cultures occidental, oriental, and accidental.

Celebrate the beginning of the end in true style!

I am told there will also be a tribute to Ann’s friend, the late artist Mike Kelley, who at one time was part of Ann’s art world “super group” backing band, Super Session, circa 1996,

Tickets on sale here.

Below, a seldom-seen video for Bongwater’s (amazing!) cover of The Monkees’ “Porpoise Song.” So seldom-seen that this morning was the first time I’ve seen it myself and I am truly a Bongwater super-fan.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Bongwater: The Power of Pussy

Photo by Steve Lombardi
 
Celebrated fop-about-Tinsel Town, Mr. Kristian Hoffman, is an artistic and musical sophisticate, a multi-multi-multi-hyphenate in a city full of, at best, just plain old multi-multi-hyphenates...

In the mid-1970s, Kristian was an active participant in New York’s CBGBs punk scene with his band The Mumps. He was involved with “No Wave,” and has performed with legends like Klaus Nomi, Lydia Lunch, Mink Stole, Rufus Wainwright, Jane Wiedlin, Ann Magnuson, El Vez the Mexican Elvis and even Pee-wee Herman. He’s also responsible for the “Bendover Girl” artwork found in the original edition of the New York Dolls’ first album. And he is a very snappy dresser.

Tomorrow night, he’ll be performing in Los Angeles:

A Sensational Technicolor Night of Local Pop Talent! Come trip with Kristian Hoffman’s Paisley Pop Cavalcade: An Evening of Pop Psych and Outlandish Auteurs…

With the cream of Los Angeles singers interpreting their own material, and classic but obscure pop psych classics!

This musical extravaganza will take place at the Rhino Records Pop Up Store. The legendary Westwood record store that provided music lovers with a place to commune, find great deals, and hear rising music stars from 1973 to 2005, is “popping up” again just blocks away from the original location to raise funds for The Recording Academy’s popular music community charity MusiCares. The schedule for the rest of the Rhino Records pop up event can be found here. Still to come, Martha Davis and the Motels and Brother Wayne Kramer from the MC5.

Rhino Records Pop Up Store, 10952 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles

There is suggested donation of $5-15 for each show, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Below, the video for “Hey Little Jesus, Get Out of That Hole” featuring Prince Poppycock of America’s Got Talent fame as the savior. Directed by Stephen Moramarco :
 

 
Watch a FREE video stream of The Nomi Song, Andrew Horn’s excellent 2004 documentary about New Wave opera diva from outer-space, Klaus Nomi. Follows the rise of Nomi’s unlikely career until his death in 1983 from AIDS complications. With Kristian Hoffman, Kenny Scharf, Ann Magnuson, Tony Frere, Page Wood, David McDermott and in a great performance clip, David Bowie and Joey Arias. Oddly sponsored by American Express.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: