DIY MESSIAH R. Stevie Moore
Jul 07, 2011
Wrapping up a U.S. tour this week, the creator of some 400-odd albums - and subject of a looming documentary - reflects on his decades-long trip.
BY MIKE SHANLEY
After serving as the poster boy (and man) for bedroom recording over several decades, R. Stevie Moore has finally left his room and begun performing live with a full band. Some of his more devoted fans have been rejoicing, sometimes right in front of the object of their affection. The reaction might not quite be the same size as when the Beatles hit our shores, but it's big enough to overwhelm a guy who has rarely performed live initially because of stage fright. "These days I need a bodyguard, are you kidding," Moore said last month between tour dates. "Because there are just so many, and they're screaming. Fan boys and fan girls. ‘Oh my god, R. Stevie Moore!'"
There are plenty of reasons that Moore has cultivated a devoted following. For one thing, he has recorded the equivalent of 400 albums, all of them available directly from the man himself, mostly on either cassettes or CD-Rs. (Several labels have released albums too, including his 1976 vinyl debut #Phonography#, which was reissued by Sundazed last year.) When ordering any of these releases directly from the source (www.rsteviemoore.com), it's not unusual to get a picture drawn on the envelope and a note from the man himself.
Then there's the music: Sometimes he evokes the Beatles; on his new disc #Advanced#, the first available through iTunes, he borrows from the Brian Wilson school of pop hooks; in person he transforms the lo-fi Beefheartian blues of "Carmen is Coming" into a psychedelic metal freakout. And despite all the name-dropping, Moore still comes across like someone who channels his influences into something original.
On the phone, Moore doesn't come across as an aloof, reclusive artist or someone with an ego to match the size of his exhaustive catalog. Instead, he sounds like a 59-year old record collector with an extensive knowledge of music that continues to grow (a description that fits the former WFMU-FM deejay to a tee). While he's probably entitled to some level of arrogance, he has a good handle on his work, and why he's getting the reaction from fans. "There's something to be said about being that hermit guy. Nobody really knows what's happening," he says, in a voice that's much more gravelly than the high tenor on many of his recordings. "Now at this age, people just can't believe it. They've heard my music or read my name for so many years. Here I am suddenly in front of their eyes. Besides the fun of just bringing great music to the stage, it's an event."
Moore's full-blown return to the stage (he played a handful of on-off shows since the '70s) can be attributed largely to the efforts of a film student at Columbia University. Jon Demiglio became fascinated with Moore after seeing a 1980 video of the artist performing "Conflict of Interest" on New Jersey mainstay #The Uncle Floyd Show#. "The song itself was incredibly catchy and it seemed so far ahead of its time, but the performance aspect too was intriguing on multiple levels," Demiglio says. "From watching it, you can tell he's a really complex character. What really draws me to [the video] is the economy. He just has one camera and he sets it up in a stable position and he does so much, playing with the frame, coming in and out of it."
Demiglio, 28, became fascinated and spent two hours watching some of the numerous Moore videos on YouTube. When he moved to New York for school last year, he contacted Moore with the intention of making more videos for him. But after he heard about several failed attempts at making a documentary about the songwriter, Demiglio changed his tune, despite never having made anything more than music videos for friends. (Watch the documentary trailer below)
TRAILER– Phonography: The R. Stevie Moore Story from jon demiglio on Vimeo.
They filmed several hours of interviews, before Moore suddenly picked up and moved back to Nashville last December after living in New Jersey for over 30 years. The move proved to be fortuitous, though. Soon after relocating, Moore received money from the online funding platform KickStarter.com that he put towards recording #Advanced#, and he played a show, opening a show for Deerhoof.
Demiglio visited him during spring break and offered to help Moore set up a tour. "He felt like he really couldn't do too much. He didn't feel very adventurous," Demiglio says. "He needed someone to be there for him to do all these opportunities. In the spring I felt like I was in the position to do that, so I acted on it."
Backed by the New York band Tropical Ooze (drummer Sam Levin, guitarist/keyboardist Wilson Novitzki, guitarist JR Thomason), Moore hits the stage playing bass in a set of about a dozen songs that have been carefully chosen and worked out. "It's not that easy. It has to be written down," Moore says. "Even I have to go back and learn my own songs. Are you kidding? They're itching to learn even more songs and I've having to kind of put it stop to it. You've got to prioritize. The running joke is, ‘Man this would be a good one to do live.'"
The U.S tour began officially back in June, and wraps up July 9. One week later, the group heads to Europe where they'll travel for nearly a month before coming back and wrapping up with a few more West Coast dates.
For his part, Moore still seems to be coming to grips with getting a level of attention for which he's yearned over several decades. "There's this [long pause] tsunami of interest that I never could've predicted," he says. "The struggle has been long and painful, but everything is falling into place. It's overwhelming for me to deal with. Celebrity."
The generation gap between him and his followers is a little disarming too. "How do I deal with the age issue? It's heavy on my mind and my heart - having to worry that I look like goddam Santa Claus, grandpa, whatever. It's hilarious. But still I wonder, why wasn't all this interest happening 20 years ago? And then I throw all that out the window and think, ‘I can't control that.'"
Another thing he's never controlled is the creative flow. Moore started making his first recordings in the late '60s and to this day he says he always has a tape recorder nearby. "My whole thing is that everything I've ever done is released by me and available to anyone whoever wants to buy it," he says. "And I have compilations, edited Best Ofs or there's all different ways of dealing with my music. But when there's 400 albums, that includes everything I've ever recorded. In other words, nothing on the cutting room floor and no outtakes."
The effect can overwhelming, but Moore would rather do that than curb his muse. "I'm a diarist of sound," he admits. "I've often had the dilemma of [whether] I'm shooting myself in the foot, confusing people and offering too much information and available music. Why hide it? It's been a long byline. People say this man needs an editor and I'm the first to agree. But that's not what I'm about." His work ethic has inspired numerous musicians involved in the DIY approach, from prolific Guided by Voices leader Robert Pollard to Ariel Pink, the latter an avowed Moore supporter who has talked him up and played shows with him.
Demiglio intends to complete his documentary - tentatively titled #Phonography - The R. Stevie Moore Story# - within the next year. (He has received funding from a fellow student in the film department at Columbia.) While he has assembled a trailer for the film he says the project has taken a different direction since it began. "I initially thought I'd bring in other musicians and have them give their take on Stevie's story and his music and what it's meant to them," he says. "I've kind of abandoned that. I'm going to let Stevie's story speak for itself."
The trailer offers more of a teaser of the true artist: vintage footage of Moore hamming it up, looking like quite the eccentric musician, interspersed with accolades. It doesn't reach the serious quality behind the personality. But the man himself probably doesn't mind.
"A lot of people are looking up to me like I'm this messiah of DIY, you know. And I guess they're right, but I'm also just a guy," he says.
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