New York Times, January 6, 1986

NEW YORK, MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 1986

R. Stevie Moore
Sings at Speakeasy

  R.Stevie Moore, a pop cult figure
and cottage industry, emerged for
live performances Saturday night at
Speakeasy, on Macdougal Street.
Mr. Moore writes and records songs
but bypasses the record business; he
releases most of his songs on cas-
settes ---- of which there are   now
dozens ---- and sells them by mail or-
der. In recent years, he has also made
some independent-label albums.
   Onstage, Mr. Moore acted the part
of an eccentric. Reading lyrics from a
music stand, as he might in a record-
ing studio, he spoke and sang in as-
sorted voices, from a growl upward.
His guitar had a grocery-store adver-
tisement pasted on the front. In a
song he introduced, in falsetto, as
"R. Stevie Moore's Protest Song," he
sang, "I'm not as talented as the
papers say." He is probably the only
singer ever to try a cover version of
Van Dyke Parks's "The All Golden,"
while his finale was a tribute to Ricky
Nelson --- a version of the Nelson hit
"Travelin' Man."
   As he sings about the oddities of
modern life ---- sometimes wistfully,
sometimes cynically --- Mr. Moore re-
spects pop song forms, but gleefully
toys with them. Some of his selections
in Saturday's late set were only
shards, a few lines long; others had
recurring verses and choruses that
expanded or shifted in asymmetrical
designs. There are echoes of Todd
Rundgren's chords, Captain Beef-
heart's abrasiveness and Frank Zap-
pa's sarcasm, yet Mr. Moore's arpeg-
giated melodies and skewed world-
view are purely his own.

Jon Pareles

the SHOW LINK

NEW YORK, MONDAY, MAY 11, 1987

CLICK HERE