Klaus Nomi: Berlins Baroque Hipster
Mike Marino

Look..up on the stage..it's a bird...it's a plane...is it a gay diva from Mars? Is it Devo? It's Klaus Nomi! Yes, Klaus Nomi, strange Bavarian being..faster than a speeding falsetto...stronger than Led Zeppelin who can bend a high note in his bare hands, and who disguised as Maria Callas in Nureyev's body complete with ballet bulge fought a never ending battle for art...pop music...the Nomi way!!!! (By the way..the photo is Klaus and Bowie on SNL)

Take a Simple Man with an operatic rock and roll voice sporting a Brian Setzer goes outspace hair-do that looks like he just stepped out of flamboyant flying saucer cabaret with a cadre of gay aliens and bi-sexual bi-pods and you have a one hell of a flaming bizarre Bavarian version of the the Mikado meets Hermann Goering in eyeliner in a Berlin Bunker. It's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" with Major Tom screaming at ground control as lightning strikes Lesley Gore. It's Queer Eye for the Space Guy!

World War Two had not quite ended yet in 1944 but the Germans in a last minute attempt at world conquest famous for their use of rockets and on the verge of unleashing the atomic horror were in a fascist frenzy. So in January of that year...Klaus Nomi was born..coincidence? I think not..he eventally did rule the underground world of New York music with a blend of operatic vocalizations that consumated with deep low talking leadins to eruptions of stylizations that blended beautifully with crashing crescendos with synth-pop eruptions. He took the "classics" and gave them a mince and a gait that would appeal to and appease the queens and other Boys in the Band types. Lou Christies "Lightning Strikes" is thunderous in it's penetrating presentation and Vaseline is not needed nor necessary to achieve access to a good mental fucking. He also does one hell of a twisted version of the "Twist" and goddamned if he doesn't perform cunningulus on Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me" or in this case.."You Don't Nomi"

In the madcap West Berlin of the Cold War Sixties, Nomi worked at the Deutsche Opera and would perform numbers for the employees after the curtain closed and the paying customers left the auditorium. If they would have stayed they would have seen history in the pop culture making and gotten more bang for their Deutschemark. In time he began singing at a gay disco in Berlin doing aria's with his amazing voice that was penetrating and growing in strength. Eventually he moved to everybodys favorite underground city, NYC in '72 and got immediately immersed in the underground art movement that was flourishing in the city like little sperms on a rampage looking for eggs to fertilize.

He also camped up the amps in the a production of Wagner's "Das Rheingold" at a place called, appropriately, the Ridiculous Theater Company. ...he was of course the Rheinmaiden and the Wood Bird, not to be confused with Woody Woodpecker. In time his flouncing around on stage in costume he joined the New Wave Vaudeville wearing ass hugging spacesuits, capes and sang 19th Century operatic tunes. The big kick finish to a Nomi show on stage in those days was a collison of strobelights, smoke bombs and electro-synth-sound effects. His reputation was now intact and in place and he was in demand and ready to go where no Nomi had gone before. His five year mission..to record albums and take the NYC scene by the balls...literally!.

It was during this period Nomi met Kristian Hoffman who wrote songs for a local group and they formed a partner ship with Hoffman acting as Nomi's musical director and put together a band to back Nomi. All musicians were from assorted New Wave Vaudeville bands so the eclectic mixture was like adding nitrous oxide to a dragster..no pun intended. Drag Queens always like a little boost in their fuel pumps and Nomi was fuel injected!

At first they tackled Lou Christie's "Lightning Strikes" which is one of my favorites..by Nomi..not Christie, and anytime a guy does a Lesley Gore song it warms me heart. It is bizarre true, but then life is short and bizarre is merely a detour from boredom and predictability. Then along came signature songs..Simple Man...The Nomi Song...Total Eclipse..and After the Fall..to sing Simple Man you have to let it roll out of your mouth thus...Sim......pull.....(emphatic) MAN!

When Klaus and the boys the band played at CBGB's in the Bowrey...and took to the stage of this club more used to seeing the Ramones and Flaming Groovies..nobody knew what to expect. Leather Jackets and punks took one look and silence fell...what..a brawl next...a gang bang of a stage act of epic proportions...Nomi let loose his voice...it rose above the crowd and they were held in rapt attention. Nomi had proven he was a songbird...a mockingbird, and everyone knows..it's a sin to kill a mockingbird! he knocked 'em dead and although the Ramones weren't there..Nomi was Judy the Punkrocker from Outer Space!

It was around this time that Ground Control contacted Major Tom who contacted his alter ego..David Bowie who came to see this persona he had been hearing so much about with stage props that included large pink toy poodles...hey...it was the Seventies afterall..Bowie then hired Nomi as a backup singer for an upcoming appearance on SNL.

His career continued to expand in the nether world of industrial pop music...an underground favorite he soon came out of the pop music closet and openly admitted...that he enjoyed opera more and started wearing more baroque costumes. He began to decline..not in popularity, but his health faltered as he began descending into the nightmare quagmire of AIDS and in 1983...Lightning in the form of death did strike and Klaus Nomi was cremated and his ashes scattered over NYC. The Town That Never Sleeps...and The Town Loved Klaus Nomi.

He was not a commercial success...but his cult following is legendary..as was he. If he did have an epitaph it would probabl be "Now..you Nomi....but you don't own me"