The Dark Bob

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Meet The Dark Bob:The LA Times calls him "witty and often riveting”, “a true pioneer of multi-media”, The San Francisco Chronicle declares, “A Sinatra from Mars”, The LA Weekly poses, “Prophet, poet or performance artist? One of the brightest lights … shines through an artist who calls himself The Dark Bob.”And what does The Dark Bob have to say for himself?“I don’t want to be restricted by the confines of any tradition. This isn’t rock and roll, it’s not theater, it’s not stand up comedy, it’s something else, it’s more like painting the Sistine Chapel with the Pope watching,” he explains of his brand of performance art, an arena where the personal meets the political.“I’m a populist artist but I’m a weird populist,” he says. “I like heartfelt stuff. I’m not crazy about artsy stuff!”Which brings us to Stoked!, The Dark Bob’s latest musical venture and unintentional concept album, a collection of 13 moody surf tinged songs that is perhaps his most heartfelt project yet.Exploring love in its various incarnations (father to son, woman to man and man to hometown) and set to some wild surf-style sounds, The Dark Bob is backed by a small cast of local friends and musicians like drummer DJ Bonebrake (of “X”) and Peter Case (who sits in on harmonica on “Dogtown”) and comedy actor Andy Dick. Bassist Sheldon Gomberg, guitarists Glenn Nishida and Pete Snell and percussionist Danny Frankel form the core band while Jamie Cohen & the Butternotes and Rachael Paschall chip-in on vocals.Throughout Stoked!, The Dark Bob uses his best croon to tell his stories of love and redemption in a world gone wrong. “In my head, I’m Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis rolled into one - a half century later.” Other influences include artist Robert Rauschenberg, the Amazing Spiderman, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Thomas Edison and Cleopatra.Echoes of Brian Wilson’s brand of surf and sand are given The Dark Bob treatment throughout Stoked!, as on the day-dreamy “No Other Way,” the epic paean to old Santa Monica, “Dogtown” and the heart-on-its-sleeve, string-arranged “You.”The Dark Bob’s duet with Andy Dick, the similarly pretty and primal “Father,” was an outtake from Dick’s 2006 feature film, Danny Roane: First Time Director (The Dark Bob also contributed soundtrack music).“Andy’s a performer who blurs the line between art and entertainment and I think I do that too,” says The Dark Bob. The pair collaborated on a collection of outrageous dialogues, Andy Dick & The Dark Bob.Since 1975 The Dark Bob has worked as a solo and collaborative artist. As one half of the multi-media art team Bob & Bob, he is regarded as a pioneer of the LA performance art scene. The pair's early work was represented in the major exhibition catalog Los Angeles: 1955-1985 at the Pompidou Museum in Paris, France in 2006.“It made me feel like Carl Perkins to be remembered. I know I’m not Elvis! I guess Mike Kelley is Elvis.”But he’s definitely The Dark Bob, a multi-faceted artworld superhero in his own right: Combining song, dance, film, storytelling, live painting and comedy, his one-man, multi-media shows, his paintings and sculpture have shown in museums and galleries throughout the world. A collection of his Middle Eastern music-infused recordings, Intifadadavida will see reissue this year. He has collaborated with renowned Middle Eastern Maestro John Bilezikjian, influential performance artist Rachel Rosenthal and poet Lewis MacAdams, the latter with whom he is releasing Dear Oxygen in early 2007. “It’s words and music, sound stories, voice essays, poems, letters and songs – matters of life and death,” says MacAdams of the project. Clearly, after 30 years of making art, The Dark Bob remains inspired and inspiring.“Because of my classification as a performance artist, I can’t have expectations. It’s a tiny world—even smaller than poetry—and it’s nice to be part of a lineage. But at the same time, I rebel against that…art is built on rebellion and revolution,” he says. “Whether I’m doing a painting, a film, a record…I’m compelled to work outside the lines hoping to discover some new beauty.”Stoked! is available now at iTunes and CD Baby.Please also see: www.thedarkbob.com www.myspace.com/officialthedarkbob www.badgerpublicity.com www.myspace.com/badgering