[porkmarras]

............Momus





Momus



Nick Currie (born February 11, 1960 in Paisley, Scotland), more popularly known under the artist name Momus (after the Greek god of mockery), is a songwriter, blogger and a journalist for Wired. Most of his songs are self-referential or postmodern.
For more than twenty years he has been releasing, to only marginal commercial and critical success, playful and transgressive albums on labels in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. In his lyrics and his other writing he makes, seemingly random, use of decontextualized pieces of continental, mostly French, philosophy, and has built up a personal world he says is "dominated by values like diversity, orientalism, and a respect for otherness." He is also known in certain circles outside the U.S. as a producer. He is fascinated by identity, Japan, the avant-garde, time travel and sex. He also wears a patch over his right eye because he lost use of it from contracting acanthamoeba keratitis from a contact lense case washed with Greek tap water.
Contents


Career

He began by recording post-punk material with various ex-members of Josef K in a group called The Happy Family in the early '80s, and was associated with the musicians around Postcard Records (although he never recorded for that label). His debut solo album "Circus Maximus" explored biblical themes in dark, almost gothic acoustic style, and his debt to the influence of Gallic pop was clear from a subsequent, sardonically self-referencing cover of Jacques Brel's "Jackie" and portraits of himself in the style of early 60s Serge Gainsbourg. In 1987, by which time he lived in London, he signed to Creation Records, and began to record the hyper-literate, quirky pop songs for which he is best known. A trio of albums, "The Poision Boyfriend", "Tender Pervert" and "Don't Stop The Night" blended accessible dance-pop with such heavy lyrical themes as paedophilia, necrophilia and adultery. The latter album almost yielded a hit in the UK with "The Hairstyle of the Devil". Subsequent albums on Creation included "Hippopotamomus", a scatalogical tribute to Gainsbourg, as Momus continued to push boundaries of acceptabability within accessible pop structures. By 1994, however, when Creation signed Oasis, his music started to sound out of place on the newer, more 'laddish' and commercial sounds Creation then started to produce, and he moved to Paris and signed to Cherry Red records. Since then he has lived in various countries and, whilst less popular in Britain, has had a reasonable level of commercial success in a number of countries, especially Japan, where he wrote and produced records for singer Kahimi Karie, including the hit single "Good Morning World".
He has been sued by Michelin UK, for the song "Michelin Man", which compared the mascot to a blow-up doll, on Hippopotamomus (1991); and by Wendy Carlos for the song "Walter Carlos" on The Little Red Songbook (1998). In response to the debt incurred from Carlos's lawsuit, which was settled by withdrawal of the song, agreement not to use Carlos's name for any purpose whatsoever and payment of damages and attorney's fees to Carlos, Momus wrote thirty songs about every person or group who commissioned a song at the price of $1,000, compiling Stars Forever (1999). Patrons include artist Jeff Koons, Japanese musician Cornelius, and three-year-old animator/superhero Noah Brill. Stars Forever also features the winners of a karaoke contest started on The Little Red Songbook (1998).
Other Momus activities include writing for Wired.com [1], Vice Magazine [2], Index Magazine [3], AIGA Voice [4], and Design Observer [5]. Momus has also been a kind of guest instructor working on sound-art projects with students first at Future University [6] in Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan during the early months of 2005, and then again in September at Fabrica [7], the Benetton "research centre" near Venice, Italy. In 2006 he was a featured artist in the Whitney Biennial [8] in New York City, serving as an "unreliable tour guide" to visitors of the exhibition.
The Fotolog.Book [9] with texts by Momus on photoblogging published in April 2006 by British publishers Thames & Hudson [10].
He is a cousin of musician Justin Currie, the lead singer and songwriter of Del Amitri, although Momus has been critical of his musical output at times.
[edit]

[porkmarras]

 

[Pookie]

I thought you might be.

[Pookie]

I never real heard much of his stuff. Otherwise
I would gladly reminisce with you.

[Savage Clone]

He's a little "clever" for my taste, but that song he wrote about his penis was pretty funny.

[Pookie]

I think I preferred Creation when it was a bit twee. I didn't buy many band's records, but had a pile of their sampler LP's. I did buy the Biff Bang Pow album though. Quite nice. Good cover:

 

[Pookie]

http://imomus.livejournal.com/

http://www.imomus.com/

[porkmarras]

Thanks Spookie!