A legitimate yet largely unrecognized inventor of many minor rock genres, Kim Fowley was a musical genius more unique than rare, almost impossible to categorize within musical genres.
At the same time, Fowley is the case of a bourgeois from a well-respected family who, fascinated by the orgiastic rituals of the underworld, turned his career into a continuous hymn to perversion and degeneration. He was, in practice, the first decadent musician.
Kim Fowley, grandson of Rudolf Friml (one of Broadway’s greatest operetta composers) and son of a western actor, had Hollywood as his home, but preferred to make a living on the city streets as a singer, dancer, and disc jockey. His musical career began in 1957, when he played in a band with Sandy Nelson on drums and Phil Spector on guitar.
In 1959 he got his first production gig and did not let the opportunity slip by. Within four years he would launch: the Hollywood Argyles with Alley Oop (1960), the Stingers with Nutrocker (1962), the Rivingtons with Papa-oom-mow-mow (1962), and the Murmaids with Popsicles And Icicles (1964). The bands vanished into nothingness, but he remained. Their songs belonged to the "novelty" genre, of funny and eccentric songs, of which Fowley remains one of the greatest geniuses.
Fowley spent 1965 in England, where he supported some geniuses in their early days (including the Soft Machine). Returning to California, he helped organize the San Francisco "love-ins" and lent his vocals to Frank Zappa's debut album. Established both as a producer and songwriter, in 1967 he was finally able to record a full album of his own, Love Is Alive And Well (Tower, 1967), even though for some years strange 45s in his name, with the most obtuse little songs, had already been circulating. His final touch of class came in 1975 when he launched the fashion for all-female bands on the Sunset Strip with the Runaways (as a parody of adolescent perversion).
His first album,
Love Is Alive And Well (Tower, 1967), is torn between psychedelic sounds and facile melodies. On one hand we hear the
deranged syncopated funk-blues shuffle Flower Drum Drum and some
roaring garage-rock a` la Standells like Reincarnation and This Planet Love (with the melody stolen from Bo Diddley);
and on the other hand we are mildly entertained by some
satirical pop muzak like
the polka-like musichall skit Love Is Alive And Well ,
the romantic march-tempo catchy ditty Flowers and
Flower City, which totally steals the melody from Beethoven's ninth symphony.
His second album, Born To Be Wild (Imperial, 1968), was simply a
collection of covers of other people's hits turned into instrumentals with the
melody "sung" by the electronic organ.
The only original song is his sleepy and jazzy Space Odyssey,
which sounds like Frank Zappa's orchestral music sampling popular melodies.
His third album, Outrageous (1968), is a work overflowing with
sadistic-faustian nightmares, from the perverted and narcissistic lust of
Animal Man to the werewolf-like spasms of Nightrider,
via the dissonant free-form blues-jazz jams of Wildfire and Inner Space Discovery,
while coexisting with unholy refrains derived from parodies of blues
(Bubblegum) and country
(Barefoot Country Boy), proof that there is a line connecting his
art with the music-hall.
The peak of the album is the psychedelic, orgiastic, infernal suite
that begins with the demented babbling of
Up, explodes in the libido-fueled chaos of
Caught In The Middle and plunges into the orgasmic and lysergic aberrations
of Down, a satori of sick pornography and of demonic slavery.
Delirious from beginning to end, obsessed with the themes of sex, drugs and
death, with this suite
Fowley componed a sort of luxuriant and abominable Virgin Forest
(the Fugs' masterpiece).
Good Clean Fun (Imperial, 1969) is mostly devoted to spoken-work pieces,
but also contains the brief cacophonous instrumental Energy,
the folkish lullaby Baby Rocked Her Dolly , the
Captain Beefheart-ian blues number Kangaroo and the
pop ballad I'm Not Young Anymore.
The music of the early albums is as messy as it is fierce and sarcastic. Fowley retired to Sweden, where he recorded The Day The Earth Stood Still (MNW, 1970), one of his most chaotic and satirical works, rooted in 1960s garage rock and hippie ideals.
Next to
Cadillac (halway between rockabilly and swamp blues),
Night Of The Hunter (with echoes of the Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild)
The Man Without A Country (with echoes of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love and of the Rolling Stones),
you hear
The Frail Ocean (a ragtime in the style of the 1920s),
Visions Of Motorcycles (yet another pop ditty),
Prisoner Of War (in the style of a square dance of country music),
and
The Day The Earth Stood Still (a tender whispered serenade).
The album ends with the eight-minute
Is America Dead?, in the vein of Frank Zappa's operettas.
In the 1970s his music became slightly more accessible.
I'm Bad (Capitol, 1972) and International Heroes (Capitol, 1973)
feel like more "normal" records.
I'm Bad begins in the vein of Captain Beefheart (Forbidden Love and Queen Of Stars) but the blues turns towards the Rolling Stones and Free in Human Being Blues and California Gypsy Man, and again imitates Steppenwolf in the anthem I'm Bad.
Gotta Get Close To You is a fit of organ-enhanced garage-rock.
The album closes with the most authentic blues atmosphere of the album:
Let It Loose.
International Heroes contains International Heroes,
halfway between Lou Reed and
Bob Dylan,
and the anthemic soul-rock of Dancing All Night with Rolling Stones-esque riffs (and female backup singers)
He can't resist to muddle the waters with a
music-hall skit like Ugly Stories About Rock Stars And The War
and a country-pop singalong like Something New,
and even two poppy Dylan imitations
(King Of Love and World Wide Love).
Living In The Streets (Sonet, 1977) is a compilation of singles and rarities:
the rockabilly Big Bad Cadillac (1970),
the bluesy Born to Make You Cry (1970)
the catchy glam-rock ditty Motor Boat (1973),
the psychedelic poppy California Summertime (1974),
etc.
Visions Of Future (Capitol, 1978) is another compilation.
Its main song, Vision Of The Future, was not written by Fowley.
Sunset Boulevard (Illegal, 1978) is perhaps the most linear of his albums, with little of his histrionics. Alas, the quality of the songs is inferior, to say the least. It occasionally
sounds like music improvised by high-school kids in someone's living room.
It boasts the Dylan-esque In My Garage, an energetic rock'n'roll number
like Teenage Death Girl and the
Bruce Springsteen-esque emphasis of Love Is A Game, but no real highlight.
Fowley concludes his bitter visions of Hollywood's decadence with the line:
"I saw Jesus Christ walking down Sunset Boulevard. and he said 'Your name is Adam and your name is Eve" (in the spoken-word piece
Sunset Boulevard).
In 1979 he even released a concept album, Snake Document Masquerade (Island, 1979), about the following decade, which is apocalyptic, infested with disco, reggae, funk, punk, rap (1985: Physical Lies) and erotic techno-pop (1988: Searching For A Human).
Automatic (Secret, 1988) is another compilation
that largely duplicates Visions Of Future. It contains
the relaxed, Hawaiian shuffled Blue Blue Sky
and the soul hymn Save Love For A Rainy Day.
During the years of punk-rock and new wave, Kim Fowley released very little.
Perhaps he felt that the new generation, by elaborating on his intuitions,
had made him obsolete.
Vampires From Outer Space (Bomp, 1980),
Hollywood Confidential (Island, 1980)
and
the delicious Son of Frankenstein (Moxie, 1981)
were the last albums before a long silence.
Animal God Of The Streets (Sky God, 1974) and
Hotel Insomnia (Marilyn, 1992) collect unreleased tracks.
Fowley returned with
White Negroes in Deutschland (Marilyn, 1993),
Kings Of Saturday Night (Sector 2, 1995), a collaboration con Ben Vaughn,
Bad News From The Underworld (Marilyn, 1995), mainly spoken-word pieces,
Worm Culture (Marilyn, 1996), which contains a
Franz Zappa-ian operetta (Rubbertown Freak),
Let the Madness In (Receiver, 1995), with another rock operetta
(Lipstick Lesbians).
Mondo Hollywood - Kim Fowley's Phantom Jukebox Vol 1 (1996)
sounds like a summary of rock music from the 1960s.
Hidden Agenda (1997) is a live album with the BMX Bandits.
Outlaw Superman (Bacchus, 1997) is a compilation of obscure singles.
With
The Trip Of A Lifetime (Resurgence, 1998), the first new album in four
years, Fowley ventured into dub, drum'n'bass, techno, etc.
Underground Animal (Bacchus, 1999) is another anthology of rarities.
Fowley's next venture into music was Sand, a collaboration with
Roy Swedeen, that debuted with The West Is The Best (Zip, 2003),
the usual hodgepodge of Sixties' styles and sardonic social commentary.
Impossible But True (Ace, 2003) is an anthology of the 1959-69 period.
In his masterpiece Outrageous,
there's a moment when, after vomiting all sorts of
obscene and arrogant blasphemies, the music stops and in what feels like
absolute emptiness
a gasping Fowley, sounding like
Jim Morrison, asks: "Is this hell?" For a second he seems to reveal very
profound angst, but after a few seconds another question,
"Is there a drummer somewhere in hell right now?", clarifies
that he is only concerned about continuing the show.
Kim Fowley died in 2015 at the age of 75.
