Member Since: 1/28/2006
Band Website: kristianhoffman.com
Band Members: Kristian has been lucky enough to play with a wide variety of wonderful musicians. But the regular members of his backing band, The Rock Gods, who are all artists in their own right and members of myriad other scintillating projects, are: Joe Berardi (drums), William Bongiovanni (bass), Dave Bongiovanni (guitar) and Jonathan Lea (guitar).
Influences: Here a Bowie, there a Bowie, everywhere a Bowie Bowie! Yes his attempts at ever portraying a single genuine human emotion are unconvincing, but who can argue with that back catalog! "In The Heat of the Morning" - genius! I wish Leonard Cohen were an influence but I'm not that rarified (yet). I can dream, can't I?
I'm a village elder so I must include: MONKEES, Beatles, Small Faces, Bowie, MOVE, Kinks, Bowie, Sunshine Company, Michel Polnareff (cannot be underestimated - my sister gave me his first LP when I was 12 - a tender age!), Mamas and Papas, Bowie, LEFT BANKE, Byrds, IDLE RACE (How I longed for the chutzpa to steal Alan Betrock's copy of "Knocking Nails In My House" when I apartment sat for him in Jackson Heights - but thank God I didn't!); the Moles, THE COWSILLS, and Bowie; The Merry-Go-Round, Love, Tim Buckley, THE NEW YORK DOLLS; more recently Geranium Pond, Blossom Toes and Bowie; then of course Television, Cramps, Sex Pistols, CRAMPS, Siouxie, Cramps, Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Beirut Slump, and Bowie.
Echo and the Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs and Bowie: I loved the New Wave! Feel free to ask me about my Thompson Twins 12"s. Cyndi Lauper ("I Drove All Night"), Bananarama ("Rough Justice")- the ridiculously synthetic 80's was the second wave of a goofball high on studio trickery that translates into psychedelia as far as I'm concerned!
YES to Eno "Here Come The Warm Jets". YES to Portsmouth Sinfonia. NO to Eno worldbeatairports pussyfootingdavidbyrne shit. But YES to Eno/Bowie! Yes to Roxy Music for that matter!
Joni Mitchell's first LP, and to a lesser extent "Blue" and "For The Roses", DONOVAN, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Judy Collins (well - on Wildflowers at least), Sandy Denny, "Fire Fleet and Candlelight" by Buffy Sainte Marie (my mom was a huge folkie so we heard these records over and over and OVER, but when "Lyke Wake Dirge" came on, my ears really perked up: those Strings! - I'm DYING to have Peter Schikele arrange a song for me!) and Bowie (I'm still MAD Nirvana covered "Man Who Sold The World" before I did. Petulant? Delusional? Wait, you're both right!).
JO ANNE CAMPBELL, and CANDY JOHNSON (Bryan Gregory of the Cramps gave me her Methedrine-a-go-go version of "Fever" and I never recovered - how many Swinging Madisons songs were stolen from that bass line?) which reminds me Glen Campbell, oh yeah THE ZOMBIES (I would listen on my Sears portable stereo at night with the lights turned out and mist up at "The Butchers Tale").
Did I, could I forget - Sparks, Sparks, Sparks, Sparks, Sparks, Alice Cooper, and Bowie, Bobby Rydell, Louis Prima, Frances Faye and Bowie - TINY TIM!!! God Bless Tiny Tim is classic OSP (Other Sgt. Pepper) material.
MRS. MILLER! The Munsters (the band), Stone Poneys (I actually illustrated their lyrics to make a home-made Beardsley-lite booklet like the one that came with "Gift From A Flower To A Garden" - you should see the picture for "New Hard Times". Cringefest blackmail!) and Bowie.
THE MOON (given to me by Miki Zone of the Fast circa 1975, along with the lesser but still pleasurable Paper Garden - I loved the Moon album SO MUCH that whenever I found one I'd buy it to win converts for them, and I'm proud to say that when I gave human musical encyclopaedia Andrew Sandoval his copy he didn't know them. That has NEVER happened again. But he actually didn't have the Grapefruit LP til I gave it to him either. I guess that's payment enough for him giving me a lovely pristine copy of the Millennium!).
THE BEE GEES, JOBRIATH, Hayley Mills (Early Mumps considered doing her classic "Cobbler Cobbler" Buzzcocks style, with the proto-punky line "The boy I love is killing my feet", and I have a lobby card for the spooky, beautiful but SLOOOOOOOOW "Whistle Down The Wind"), Twiggy, and Bowie (It's really time to revisit "Never Let Me Down" - that LP is full of fantastic pop stuff!).
Unashamed: first three Procol Harum LPs.
And I LIKE the Doors, unlike some self-styled revisionist creeps pretending to have personality. At least the pre-3-B's Doors (-Boogie, - Beer belly, - Beard).
BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD. Neil Young's first LP, and most of "After the Gold Rush" plus "A Man Needs A Maid". The Sex Pistols -again- they're worth it!
And OK I give: We listened to the Stooges' first two LPs ad nauseam just like every other wannabe in NYC circa 1977, but we DID do it when they were NEW, 8 years or so BP (Before Punque), and I know "Loaded" and "White Light/White Heat" note for note, I went to Altamont (!) to see the Stones, and to MSG to see Led Zeppelin (although the tickets were comps).
AND, MOST OF ALL, LANCE LOUD!
Record Label: Various, and hopefully more to come!
Type of Label: None