TRAILER– Phonography: The R. Stevie Moore Story from jon demiglio on Vimeo.

“RSM the consummate creative character is now rapidly growing old back home in Tennessee and yet still absolutely bleeding with overdrive creative ambition, unfocused idealism, blind exploration of the unknown, and incorrect gorgeo pop musica conkret. My goddamn uncontrolled ego is swallowing me WHOLE.” - R. Stevie Moore

R. Stevie Moore is playing Magmafest. This is a big deal. 

On March 4th at the Vera Project, accompanied by Kristin Allen-Zito, Tender Forever, Pwrfl Power, and SPURM, R. Stevie Moore, legendary self taught recording pioneer, video innovator, wordsmith and all around musical genius can be seen playing live for the first time ever outside of his hometown, via streaming internet video. He’d be here in person, but due to financial hard times, we get the next best thing, a live show from the bedroom of the king of bedroom recording.

I remember before my boyfriend and I started dating, I asked him what kind of music he was into, and he made me a mix cd of R. Stevie Moore songs. I was surprised that I’d never heard of of someone so prolific. Since then I’ve learned a ton about R. Stevie Moore’s career, am a huge fan of his work, and my band Butts even got the opportunity to play a show with him in NY last fall. His live shows are unparallelled, engaging theatrical performances. It was the best.

Mixtapes are R. Stevie Moore’s bread and butter. Never having the ability to tour, he’s gained fans, one by one, via handmade compilations. Since his birth in Nashville in 1952, R. Stevie Moore has self recorded over 2000 songs on hundreds of albums, which, he individually dubbed and hand sent, one by one, to his mail order cassette club. He was DIY before there was acronym for it, and many hail him as one of the founding fathers of the movement.  

In the past decade or so, Moore transitioned his cassette club to the internet, which allowed him to continue independently producing and distributing his works,  cataloging his audio and video releases on his comprehensive website, interacting daily with fans on Facebook, and recording and posting hundreds of homemade apartment-filmed music videos to Youtube.

“B4 the webnets, I was floating globally via the almighty postal system. And so now it is cyber,” says Moore, in a recent email interview. “Old news, no? By now, I rarely think about it, but oh hells yeah my DIY cottage industry is totally 100% enraptured & dependent in how we now communicate on our personal waptops. I loathe doing telephone calls, but instead now I am in instant touch with the old&new fans and compadres daily from around the world. Interact is what I was borned to do. Romance, retail, nudgeing my peeps & buds, promosexual superhype, transferring brandnew audiofiles & imagery, newbies boobies, youtubies, fakebook fanclub mirth…. it’s ALL there for me 24/7.”

Yet despite his lifetime of innovative work, for the majority of his career he has remained relatively unknown by the general public. For one, he’s never toured, and touring is hands-down the best way to gain new fans. Moore said, “Careering RSM has never really played live performances a lot at all, at least until the 2000’s. Then the special NYC gigs increased annually until suddenly I was sorta all over the local circuit 08-09. Never have I actually “toured” across the land. Offers now do pour in, but I am forever rather immobile yo. Besides NJ/York, I’ve only ever done 1 other show in another state, a lowkey solo set right in my hometown of Nashville while down on vacation, May 1999. Why not? Can’t get nowhere by walkin’!” Suffice to say he has never been to Seattle, virtually or otherwise.

Secondly, sorting through a catalogue of 2000 songs can be overwhelming to the uninitiated, and his work is the definition of lo-fi.  “Most people listen to stuff they are comfortable with already instead of spending time warming up to anything that is truly interesting, says T.V. Coahran, owner of Seattle label ggnzla RECORDS. “ Also, a lot of his early home-recording techniques were very low-fidelity and experimental.”

Yet what R. Stevie Moore has is more important than fame, he’s inspired a new generation of musicians, like Ariel Pink, and is flooded with show requests (just last week he opened for Deerhoof in Nashville).  A documentary on him is in the works, and a request for fans to cover his songs led to an 8-volume tribute album (free download here), with hundreds of artists covering decades of material. 



Labels like Seattle’s ggnzla RECORDS have started reissuing and compiling his works. “He is the self proclaimed “greatest songwriter of all time”.  I proclaim it also,” says Coahran. “On our compilation we wanted to dig a little and find some trax that less obsessive rsm fans mightve not heard yet.”

And if 2000 songs weren’t enough, Moore’s starting a new project, and this time, instead of doing it himself, he’s doing it with his fans help. When I asked him why he decided to make his newest album a kickstarter project he replied, “Poverty. And why not? I gotta ride the waves. RSM the Beggar Man. Shame I have to resort to such eternal charity strife. Do you know a better way?”

Seeing him in the flesh would be best but live in the internet is a close second, and Hollow Earth Radio’s Magmafest is the perfect venue for it (R. Stevie Moore’s no stranger to community radio, Moore was a pioneering DJ on free form New Jersey radio station WFMU, and, says Garrett Kelly, General Manager of Hollow Earth Radio, “He fits the the general aesthetic of HER by simply by having that ‘bedroom recording’ spirit.” ).

You can read more about Magmafest here: http://hollowearthradio.org/home/magma

You can check out the trailer for his upcoming documentary here: http://www.rsteviemoorefilm.com/Home.html

And you can download one of his songs here: 

Download: U.R .True  

Show Details
The Vera Project

March 4th $10 8pm

kristin allen-zito

tender forever

r. stevie moore

spurm

pwrfl power