MAY/JUNE 2005
(Miles Davis cover - the Photography issue, #30)
HEAVILY FOCUSED

by Alex Wagner

PHOTOGRAPHY MICHAEL SCHMELLING

loomfield, New Jersey has a low skyline of aluminum siding and suburban disrepair that is punctuated by the tower of a neo-Tudor castle, home to an exiled prince named R. Stevie Moore. Lately namechecked by Ariel Pink, who cited RSM as a great influencer that the rest of humanity happened to be sleeping on, Moore gigged with Pink wearing two hats and a muu muu, while talking into a pack of cigarettes as if it was a cell phone–Moore says, "My life and music is about a juxtaposition of incongruities." These days the maestro is burrowed away in the castle's ground floor apartment, working as the full time manager, producer, and top-selling artist of RSM Records, a bedroom label selling the back catalogue of his 400 albums. The son of famed Nashville session musician Bob Moore (Roy Orbison, Elvis), Moore bucked his country roots and began sifting through the musical explosion of the '60s and '70s, pasting together a sound that culled equally from the Shaggs, Rundgren, Zappa, Bad Finger, XTC and above all else, the Beatles, though his favorite group of all time is Killing Joke–and Bacharach and Brian Wilson were also highly influential. Sigh. What you really need to know is this: "My favorite stuff," Moore says, "is the stuff you find in the garbage can, like a tape a little girl made at her birthday party."

the battle of r. stevie moore is not just a footnote
marston moore

His sound reflects this: innumerable self-produced home recordings that find acid Chipmunks vocals and noisy industria at home with genuine pop harmonies––these aren't albums, but diaries of sound that are in constant, fluid production. "The album's done when the CD runs out," says Moore. In the late '70s, his uncle, Harry Palmer saw the flame in the embers and released Moore's albums Phonography and Delicate Tension; in the mid- eighties, French label New Rose produced vinyl of his cassette tape compilations. Press followed, but little––except for a couple hundred more recordings––came afterwards. Moore credits (or discredits) himself. He didn't wait for "that Magic Phone Call," he refused to harass people ("I am not a social animal. I am not outdoorsy."), and he avoided the club circuit saying, "I'm an acquired taste, very directionless and without focus." Maybe that last part held water in the era of Conway Twitty or mid-career Madonna, but cut to the present day and see our Redwood in the forest of lo-fi beardo saplings; sure, Ariel Pink is linked to Moore's magic, but what about Animal Collective? "I e-mailed Paw Tracks and they never got back to me." Devendra Banhart? "Who's that?" Oh, something seems so wrong here––buried amongst stacks of vintage vinyl, a forgotten bag of Cheez Doodles, an inbox filled with internet orders and a lifetime of conflicting interests, Moore says, "I want to make music that matters––but I'm always looking for some bit of celebrity. Or at least enough money to pay the bills." R. Stevie Moore still tells people "Steal my music!" Think better: go buy it.                                          ALEX WAGNER www.rsteviemoore.com