I've wanted to see R.STEVIE MOORE live since about 1984 when I first discovered him via the Trouser Press Presents Americas Underground on R.O.I.R. but it seemed like he never toured and although he has over the years managed to spearhead the D.I.Y. community and put out over 400 albums mainly on cassette and in recent years cd-r or download he never seemed to tour.
Well until now, this his first ever world tour, that is brought to us by crowd sourced financing! So that at 59 years old R.Stevie Moore has embarked on a lengthy string of gigs and this will be his first London show ever. I'm very happy to say he had a very large merch table that I got a very hefty Best of 36 albums containing 922 mp3's on one dvd and his recent album Shrigley Field with David Shrigley the cartoonist. I have a limited edition of 20 copies cover by David Shrigley.
I got into the Lexington and was worried at the stream of people coming down the stairs as I went up, but soon found out the reason was they were fleeing from the opening act FLORIS VAN HOOF. He was one man and a box of tricks sitting on his lap and he sat there pulling leads out and pushing in plugs, playing with an effect pedal or twiddling knobs to make sounds somewhere between E.A.R. and the Clangers soundtrack on bad acid.
It was sort of okay until the moment he got up and left the stage, had the lights turned down and went and started to play two old school projectors that he set up loops on and then used them to manipulate the sound from his box of tricks. It would have been okay for maybe 2 or 3 minutes but the longer it went on, the emptier the room became. By the time he finished the same 8 bars had seemingly repeated for eternity or more likely 15 minutes that had become like a Bagram torture mantra. Not a lot of fun.
Next on were TROPICAL OOZE who had Joined up with R. Stevie for the tour and doubled up as his backing band. They were a 3 piece lo-fi indie band who at least held everyones' interest and soon filled the room up to close to capacity. They seemed genuinely surprised that they were actually out on tour and playing in London and that this was the last date on the European leg of the tour. Well they were pretty entertaining with a slight paisley edge to some of the songs and thankfully there was plenty of variety on show so that when the singer broke his D-string, the bass player and drummer just jammed and noodled till he was ready to carry on and they seemd pretty cool.
Then finally with the Lexington rammed to capacity it was time for the Legendary outsider artist and son of Elvis Presleys Bass player Scotty Moore to hit the stage. He was wearing what looked like a paedriatrics scrub suit in bright red. The top was covered in what appeared to be Tasmanian devils and the trousers were Mickey Mouse ones, he has a true mad professor beard and he ambled onto the stage and strapped on his bass guitar and they tuned a bit.
They then opened with I Think I'd Like To Play Myself Some Music and they sounded great. Stevie was obviously skewed and his voice sounds not unlike Wesley Willis in a lot of ways croseed with Daniel Johnston and Ariel Pink, all of whom are influenced by him. He then shouted "1980" and the second song was upon us and sounding nicely odd before going off on a few tangents both musically and lyrically. He then went into Close Shave which is about having a close shave. There are a lot of very literal lyrics doing down here.
Later, he told us how happy he was to be here and took a few barbs at the acts that have become famous making similar music to him like Ariel Pink and Daniel Johnston. They continued with Irony and it sounded fairly Ironic and at the same time a little caustic but damn it sounded good. He then said that there was a curfew and that was all there was time for so Goodnight and off he walked.
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The place erupted and made so much noise there was no doubt he was not going to play only 4 songs tonight. Even if the previous show in Manchester had been rioted off so that after a few minutes R. Stevie re-emerged solo onto the stage and picked up a guitar and started the second set almost as a different persona to the first.
This time the songs were very literal with him telling us that he Don't Think About That and exactly what that might be, very funny and sardonic, as were the ingredients list that he read out for Seafood Platter: a song that got lots of people laughing and had some quite odd noises going along with the guitar playing. Then it was time for some proper cartoon style music on Popeye with some spinach recipes from R. Stevie. Before long he had a Theorum that was as bonkers as anything else he came up with.It was great and everyone I could see was smiling, as part two ended and he closed it with an outro type announcement from WXRT.
Part three found him back with the band and some help from his computer so he could tell us all about his Mason Jar. I was wondering if he was using it to smoke weed with as I did a few times. The beefheartian guitar scrambling coming from the Tropical Ooze guy only took us further out, as R. Stevie carried on his radio show skit as he introduced The Winner to us and it was a winner of a tune, with nicely warped lyrics that worked real well. Soon enough he was going bonkers on You're A Rotten So and So: the music and the lyrics were full of bile and odd asides as to why you're a rotten so and so. Part three then closed with I've Begun To Fall In Love which was both tender and sweet and off at several odd tangents lyrically and musically all at the same time. The Tropical Ooze guys really were very inventive on it.
Part 4 was the first encore proper I think and was solo with him doing Carmen: a very different sounding song to what had already gone with Stevie shifting into another caracter who was still with us for Trade My Heart. That again brought jibes at Ariel Pink and Daniel Johnston and all sorts of other stuff before he ambled off again.
He came back out for one more song dressed like he was ready to riot, hood up and ready to rumble and so was the band as they attacked Manic Depression head on. It was like it was a song written for him, a brilliant choice of song to finish the European leg of his first world tour with. He still has the west coast USA tour to go, so if you are out there make sure you take the rare chance to see this original American Outsider live.
All the dates and how to get some of his 400 odd albums are over at:
R.Stevie Moore online
**I only caught the end of the radio interview he did with James Tregaskis over at www.resonancefm.com but if you search hard enough I'm sure a podcast of it will appear shortly.
Resonance FM website
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