Nick Of All Trades

An interdisciplinary artist finds a new voice, or 12.

by A.D. Amorosi

Since 1981, Nick Currie has focused on crises of all kinds: the heart, the conscience, the libido. Sung in a curious baritone, his literarily licentious lyrics have finally found their musical match in the new album Joemus — a mix of dark folk, Shibuya-Kei and princely pop.

But Currie (or Momus, as he calls himself) is more than a musician. He's also an actor and novelist, which makes it difficult to tell which guy you'll get on any given day. When he performs this Monday, though, you need not wonder: He'll do at least one song from each of his 20 albums, read from his books and enact a dozen of his characters.

City Paper: "A Special Three-Hour Evening with Momus" — isn't that the sort of thing Bruce Springsteen would do?

Nick Currie: A few things came together to form this plan — the "Momuthon," as I'm calling it. Firstly, there's never been a show where I do songs from all of my 20 albums. Secondly, some of my best-known songs are ones I never play live. Thirdly, I made a show in Berlin of songs I'd written as a teenager, and liked some of the new backing.

CP: How is living in Berlin affecting what you're producing?

NC: It's made me more experimental. Less commercial. Anglo-Saxon pop music can emphasize the commercial too much. That's fine — that's what pop music is — but I like strange, disturbing, experimental pop music.

CP: Your newest record Joemus fits that bill. It seems to be more character-driven than past efforts.

NC: Joemus is definitely a record where I become different characters: Widow Twanky, the pantomime dame; Mr. Proctor, the strange cabaret singer; the Jamaican glam rocker. This is partly because I learned how to tweak the electronic processing of the voice. That encouraged me to try out new styles, and each style encouraged a persona. I find myself doing the same thing in my performance art show. I guess writing books over the last couple of years has developed this persona-related side of my imagination.

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CP: So then, do you think of yourself as a writer or a musician first?

NC: I'm a storyteller, whatever medium I'm involved in. I like the story of Scheherazade — the Persian queen whose husband had killed all his previous lovers, but who managed to stave her own execution by telling him stories. I have this feeling that the audience will kill me or die of boredom if I don't tell them stories.

CP: Do you think creating a trio of somewhat danceable pop records — Poison Boyfriend, Tender Pervert, Don’t Stop the Night — sets listeners up for a career filled with that, and that you perhaps derived joy from turning them away afterwards?

NC: I’ve never really understood this idea of the “danceable.” All my records have rhythms in them, and really you could dance rhythmically to any one of them, or none of them. Words are rhythms. Silence, as The Slits once sang, is a rhythm too.

CP: Indeed. Whenever you perform songs from Stars Forever live, do you secretly wish one of its patrons will give you money? And what do you think of other patronage deals from Patrick Wolf to Prince?

NC: The Stars Forever patrons did pay money — $1,000 each — which gets them the song and performances of the song and, theoretically, world fame forever. I couldn’t possibly charge them any more than that. I think patronage in general is a good system. It gets us away from the mass manufacturing model of music production, and toward something like the courtly system that existed before the 19th century, or something like the art world as we know it today, where collectors collect unique works from artists and artisans. There’s no reason everybody has to charge exactly $20 or whatever for an album or a concert ticket. People who sell fewer copies, but make something unique and customized should be able to charge more. There should be a sliding scale, and means testing. Maybe richer fans could contribute more than poorer fans, and so on. Maybe — as with Patrick Wolf — different fees could get different services. Why not?

CP: You have two books coming out this season, do you not? What do they do and say?

NC: The first is The Book of Scotlands, and it’s a series of parallel-world investigations of possible Scotlands. You know, we may become an independent country soon, and I want the discourse about what we could become to be a bit more delirious. The way politicians think is fairly limited. The other book, due in September from Dalkey, is called The Book of Jokes. It’s a novel telling the story of a totally dysfunctional family whose lives are a series of bad and dirty jokes. The idea is that we’re all doomed to enact a series of “jokes,” but that we can gain a little freedom by telling them our own way, slowing them down, adding lyrical details.

CP: I saw something not long ago about how your pre-Sony/Creation deal wasn’t even inscribed on paper and that right now, you’re putting them online to get them heard. Is this true?

NC: Yes, I had a verbal contract with Creation, and the albums — which I think are pretty good records — have been out of print since Creation went bust in the late ’90s. So I just put them out as mp3s through the excellent culture Web site ubu.com. I think the record business is pretty much over, but live concerts and things continue because people want to get out of the digital domain and see other people from time to time. So records become a way to get people to live shows. You give the music away, but continue to charge for tickets.

CP: Since you are charging for tickets, what should we expect from a three-hour session with you — musically and psychologically?

NC: In one sense it’s insultingly simple: A man will stand in front of you, singing the songs of his lifetime with an iPod providing the backing. In another sense, you’ll see something extraordinary — a series of characters being enacted on stage, a three-hour play full of twisted plotlines, strangeness tangled up with familiar refrains. It’ll be like reading 27 novels without turning the page.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

Momus | Mon., May 25, 9 p.m., $12, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com