ABOUT EXTRAVAGANT BACHELOR
Born in 1971, Extravagant Bachelor is the last descendant of the disgraced House of Bachelor from Wales. As the legend goes, his great-grandmother, the notorious Dutchess of Bachelor, brought shame upon the family crest when she was caught in bed with the triplet daughters of a neighbor’s negro slave in 1843. The family was excommunicated from the church and royal order as a result, and eventually migrated to the fledgling United States, where they could start anew with anonymity. Bachelor was given his peculiar first name by his young hippie mother, who was serving in the Loyal Order of Oppofordism at the time of her out-of-wedlock delivery (E.B. says he doesn’t know who his father is). Perhaps she sensed a return to greatness for the Bachelor name and her son’s future in the entertainment business when giving him his unusual moniker. We’ll never know, because the idealistic young woman died shortly after E.B.’s birth in a horrible storm off the coast of the Pacific island of Caraui, en route to the fabled island on an anthropological expedition. The infant E.B. was also on the boat and miraculously floated to the Carauian shore, clutching his mother’s didgeridoo, the sole survivor. He was soon discovered by Carauian natives who raised him for two years before being rescued by a group of vagabond surfers on a quest for the perfect wave. The Californian boys recognized E.B.’s young face because of the intense publicity his ship’s tragic wreck received. They also recalled the reward offered for any information about the boy, and the money they claimed from the R.O.O. for delivering the boy financed their quest for an additional three years. Though only a small toddler, the surfers told stories of how the boy played enchanting music for them using little more than his voice, a few rubber plant leaves, and a cocoanut. The reclusive artist has released his music sporadically since meeting AVLRC’s Clarence Credence in the Himalayas that fateful fall of 2001, with four EP-length releases and one full-length CD (Den of Inequity).
DISCOGRAPHY
AVLRC EP-014 Unconfirmed!
AVLRC EP-015 Percy
AVLRC EP-024 Defender of Positions Untenable
AVLRC EP-036 Take Life (A Little Easier)
AVLRC LP-047 Den of Inequity
CLARENCE CREDENCE ON EXTRAVAGANT BACHELOR
The Extravagant Bachelor’s recording history begins in the Himalayas, near Kathmandu, in a remote village to the east accessible only by rented Humvee, en route from Bangladesh. In the only bar in the village, this was the night I met him for the first time.
He was preparing for a spiritual quest that would test every bit of mental and physical energy in him. He sought a legendary master of the mystic arts known only as something roughly translated as “Ancient One.†It wouldn’t be easy: a season of hard bachelorhood had left our new friend in a less than ideal state for scaling the world’s most dangerous peaks, and the Ancient One’s exact location amongst the icy peaks of Ragnaroth was a mystery. But the way E.B. looked at it, he wouldn’t have need to go if he had been in an ideal state. So, until the moment you reach enlightenment, you might as well revel in chosen moments of unenlightenment. In the morning, he would embark solo up the nearest peak as if it were a Stratocaster and he were Jimi Hendrix’s fingers. But in the evening… well, I think it was the vodka that went first.
We found a commonality in our respective musical situations and love for Nepalese Rum. By this point, E.B. had already recorded the songs that would comprise his debut LP, Unconfirmed, though he had no intention of a commercial release for them. He played these tunes for us on the iPod we brought. I was taken with E.B.’s quiet confidence with melody.
Drawing up a contract on the back of a flyer for the Kathmandu gig, I made my first signing for AVLRC, and the rest in history. E.B., unsure whether he would ever return from his quest, left the master tapes for Unconfirmed in our hands to release posthumously, if necessary. We went our separate ways, and the next morning, if not for those tapes in my briefcase, I might have thought E.B. to be nothing more than a figment of the Nepalese Rum and oxygen deprivation. We finished the tour and upon return home, set to work on the release of Unconfirmed.
Oh, and yes, E.B. did find his own enlightenment in the choking air of those bitter cliffs, my dear friends. But it was not in the form of a tiny bearded sage. No one knows exactly what happened in those mountains. But some six months later, E.B. showed up in Seattle to deliver Percy, a collection of 13 new songs that had reverberated through his soul and those mountains. And here we are, four EPs and some seven years later and we finally get the first full-length release from EB in late-2007, Den of Inequity. The path may seem particularly arduous and a potentially disastrous recipe for tragic self-importance, but have a listen and you will hear otherwise. E.B. is goofing around, goofing on you, and goofing on himself. His work is, quite frankly, ripe for criticism in its nonchalance, with little attention to arrangements or production or lyrics that stretch beyond a verse or two. But I am proud to have kick-started his career, defiant even, because in his hands, absurdity and primitivity are virtues that can teach us all something about ourselves.
— Clarence Credence, A Very Limited Record Company, Ltd.
