Tag: Davey Dreamnation (page 1 of 25)

As a long-term fan of Davey Dreamnation and his ouevre, I accepted the task of writing his authorised biography both willingly and eagerly.

However, the fact that the troubled star has not been seen for several years—and is, in fact, presumed dead—has made my ostensible task that much harder.

How do you write the authorised biography of a person who does not seem to exist?

Dreamnation allegedly disappeared in 2011. He did so right after changing his name to Davves and issuing what would have been his swan-song 7″ single, had he not in fact issued (and then deleted) his actual swan-song, the magnificently barmy The Silence of Untold Sound, in 2010.

Ever since this confusing chain of events, doubts have been cast both on Dreamnation’s masculinity (the 3-second vocal track on the aforementioned Davves single, ‘Pre-Soak’, was clearly recorded under the influence of helium) and his musical abilities (the b-side, ‘Detailed Image Package’ contains no sounds whatsoever, let alone musical notes).

Clearly, as the catalogue entry for ‘Pre-Soak’ makes clear, Dreamnation was under a great deal of mental and physical stress at the time of his disappearance.

In fact, given the extremely poor quality of the whole Davves project, it should not surprise us in the least that he should have chosen to retreat from public life in such a mysterious manner.

If, indeed, Dreamnation did choose to disappear.

And there’s the rub: as a music writer and biographer, I am often placed in exquisitely awkward positions.

To take but one example, during my research for this project I submitted myself to an interview with one of Dreamnation’s artistic accomplices, the alarmingly hirsute Clint Bo Dean.

On entering Bo Dean’s Tribesco lair, I immediately regretted my decision, particularly as he used the occasion of the interview to spruik his personal brand of toiletries, a kind of ‘Panache, by Lentheric’ for men, with a side line in talc.

The awkwardness of this situation should be obvious: having consented to having my own name associated with an ill-fated line of cologne for funerals, my mere presence during the interview itself amounted to some sort of conflict of interest (at the very least, with myself).

However, the jitch I found myself in was also intensely exquisite because by allowing Bo Dean to spray my face with his abominable scent, I came a little closer to understanding the reason why Dreamnation ever consented to associate himself with Bo Dean in the first place—and therefore, to a clearer image of my subject.

As I left the interview, my body caked in Bo Dean’s unspeakable odour, and my ears ringing to the unmistakable strains of Bo Dean’s own swan song single, ‘Clint Bo Dean is Really Cool’, it dawned on me that, in order to capture the spirit of Davey Dreamnation, all I needed to do was carry out a process of triangulation, or perhaps dodecahedration.

Over the following weeks and months, therefore, I sat down and subjected all of Davey’s living pals and record label artists to some of the most gruelling interviews I have ever conducted. While the results are certainly not pretty, they do glancingly attest to the complexity of Davey Dreamnation’s character, and of his chain of friends and influences.

In the following posts some of these friends and influences—including Clint Bo Dean, Stung, Eyna, Christy Burr, Mead, Scaramouche and Captain Sans Tenille—will be given an opportunity to speak, in their own words, about the impact of Davey Dreamnation, and DNRC Records, on their own lives.

I think their words will speak for themselves. Hopefully, however, they’ll also speak Davey Dreamnation back into existence, however fleetingly.

Such is the bittersweet curse of the posthumous biographer.

When I was first approached to write the definitive biography of Davey Dreamnation—an invitation I was, obviously, more than happy to accept—I was given to understand that I would have unfettered access to Dreamnation’s personal archives, including his astonishing collection of unreleased songs; his musings in writing on the parlous state of the music industry; and his unparalleled collection of Cats memorabilia.

All of these priceless items were indeed supplied to me the day after I signed the publishing contract. The unreleased songs were furnished on a huge number of 30-minute cassette tapes without labels; the various attempts at memoir arrived in the mail printed on a pile of Post-It notes; and the wigs, costumes and beer coasters from the set of Cats had been bundled into a large van which was, conveniently, parked outside my Tribesco home.

In short: all well and good.

However, I was not told that a fourth set of objects—if, indeed, we can call them that—would be provided for my perusal: namely, a grand total of 101 audio recordings (including 7-inch singles, extended-play and long-play albums, and picture discs) released and then deleted by Dreamnation’s fabled record label, which he pompously, if also ridiculously, christened Davey’s New Record Company Records (or DNRC Records for short).

Indeed, even had I been told that these records, which turned up unannounced on my front doorstep, were products of a long-term yet secret endeavour to revolutionise the music business, I would have responded with disbelief.

To say that the existence of DNRC Records is a rumour that has flitted through the music industry like a curious butterfly in the months and years since Dreamnation’s disappearance would be an overstatement. Not many of Dreamnation’s fans were even aware of its existence during the all-too-brief period between his astonishing rise and inevitable fall—a fact that perhaps says more about Dreamnation’s popularity than these fans’ actual knowledge of his life and works.

Nevertheless, there had been whisperings. As one of the most passionate defenders of Dreamnation’s musical ouevre on the public stage, I had of course heard most of them. There were rumours that there was one complete DNRC Records catalogue still in existence; that the recordings themselves had been launched into space and were freely available on the International Space Station; and that the incidental music in Cats, when played backwards, was in fact a medley of some of the more brilliant DNRC Records tracks.

Being a seasoned music journalist, I took a non-committal stance on such idle gossip while secretly hoping that, one day, the mystery of the recordings themselves would be solved.

Now, I am happy to state that, after months of laborious investigations, many hours wasted listening to and repairing cassette tapes, and comprehensive interviews with some of the key players in Davey Dreamnation’s life—including Christy Burr, Clint Bo Dean, Mead, Moss, Pixel Mouse, Scaramouche and Stung—I have finally managed to piece together a definitive catalogue of all extant DNRC Records releases. This despite the fact that all said releases were supposedly deleted the instant they were first issued, and despite the supposed non-existence of both the label and its roster of artists.

Cynics might presume that what follows is a barely-factual account of my own fantasy DNRC Records, to which I reply: not so.

Those who know me well will vouch for my extreme professionalism, good taste and mental aptitude. I am no charlatan, no pretender. Let Dreamnation’s enemies seethe in anger at the collective brilliance of DNRC Records that shall soon be unleashed on the listening public in the form of a blistering volume of raw power entitled The Rise and Fall of DNRC Records.

In short: let the jitches begin.