The Galaxy Discotheque
Gary Wilson—And Then I Kissed Your Lips (1977 / Outsider Funk)
Hello internet pals of music. Today we’re thinking about success with an incredibly strange musician.
To quote blues guitarist Junior Kimbrough: most things haven’t worked out.
Here, I’m referring to creative things. As in projects that I’ve come up with, gotten super excited about and then have been left to ponder when they’ve failed to take flight the way I expected. Below is a list of doomed ventures, my wingless birds:
— Musik Klub: a music video screening / deejay night that I started at a scrappy art gallery. The first time I drew about twenty-five people and we had a blast. By the fifth time, it was two people and we did not have a blast.
— Freedompuncher: In the early 2000s, I was making gig posters. I was heavily involved in “the scene” and I saw a lot of friends make great careers from it. This was the name of my little venture. My posters didn’t sell very well and I wasn’t able to build it into what I wanted so I dropped it and went to art school.
— My art career: I had a solo show of drawings and a huge wall installation in 2014. It was at an alternative space: a neighborhood home outside of the city. I don’t think more than twenty people saw it during its four week run. I haven’t really made work since then, but I want to.
— Sermons!: You are my most successful audience to date. Not going to lie, there have been numerous times where I’ve written this off as a failure too; four years on and its still just an obscure little blog where I’ve watched so many other music newsletters pop up and grow a much wider audience in less than half the time I’ve been trying to find reasons to keep this up.
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There was also a night called Galaxy Discotheque. I did that with my long-time artist friend that I’ll call PL. Our first attempt at hanging out was in high school, when he was supposed to give me a ride to see P-Funk Allstars. He forgot to pick me up. I got mad. Years later he moved into a house I was living in and I got him a job at the video store where I worked and that’s when we really connected. Galaxy Discotheque was an early attempt at a type of curatorial program—we wanted to share our new fascination with 1960s & 70s European arthouse trash films and scores. There was a half-hour program of film trailers followed by a deejay set. I played soundtracks and library music compilations I’d been picking up and we ran the PA through a chain of reverb and delay that PL tweaked and modulated and made everything sound generally spacey. We also ran film clips from a variety of fine films such as Camille 2000, Vampyros Lesbos, and Emmanuelle Goes to America. I think five people showed up.
PL and I have had a lot of ideas and plans over the nearly thirty years of our friendship. We’ve also shared a lot of music with each other. At some point around the millennium, he introduced me to the Gary Wilson album You Think You Really Know Me.
Like the Doug Hream Blunt album below, You Think You Really Know Me is a strange, forgotten album that found a second life thanks to influential music collectors—Beck is a huge Wilson fan, and would sometimes cover the song “6.4 = Makeout” in his live shows. If you want a deeper dive into the “mystery” of Gary Wilson, here’s an article on Record Collector Magazine’s website by the wonderfully named Dutch musician Freek Kinkelaar.
Of all the songs on the album, the closer “And Then I Kissed Your Lips” is my favourite. Musically it feels the most progressive, closer to new wave than the rest of the album, which leans a lot more towards lounge music funk. The creepy underpinnings of songs like “6.4 = Makeout” are absent as well, and his weirdo James Brown yips and heys are most charming here as they almost overwhelm the track. His sound is unique.
I was thinking about musicians like Gary Wilson and Doug Hream Blunt as I was thinking about my own life of creative attempts. Did either of them look back on these albums, or their careers, as failures? What actually defines failure? Why should I look back at my own work as failure? And more so, why should anyone look at anything they’ve attempted to do as failure? You either did the thing or you didn’t.
Gary Wilson should give all of us hope. His only failure was in finding the right audience, and he didn’t even fail in that. It just took a bit longer than he expected.
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Musik Klub: “Everythang’s Workin”
I appreciate and respect your honesty as you preface this post about your own artistic career. Except for those who won the art lottery, such as Picasso, Stephen King, Radiohead, and even Substack's superstar, Mr. Ted Gioia—I believe every artist wrestles with self-doubt repeatedly. Many of us are simply on a quest to dig, explore, experiment, create, and share while life goes on without us.
For the vast majority of us, our art will remain ignored, underappreciated, and unseen.
Lately, I've also noticed a steady stream of posts on Notes where people are celebrating reaching subscriber or paid subscriber milestones in the hundreds or even thousands. In contrast, many of us are writing for free or have enough paid subscribers that you can count them on one hand (or one finger).
But we still create—because we have to.
You have a burning desire to share music with us because you want to (and passionately *have* to). And we are both in agreement—why write about yet another article on the genius of Jimi Hendrix? We all know he was a genius. What more can anyone bring to the table that hasn't already been said in six decades of spilt ink proclaiming his genius? However, very little is written about the creative oddballs Doug Hream Blunt and Gary Wilson. Yet, these artists deserve to be championed because if just one person listens and discovers their work, it will be a triumph for the arts.
I've only heard Blunt's "Whiskey Man" and "Gentle Persuasion," but Gary Wilson is a new one to me. Blunt's weird, almost garage-rock approach to his soulful funk has no equal that I know of. It brings to mind obscure bands like The Remains mixed with Damn Sam and The Miracle Man. His sound is totally unexpected, out of left field, and pulls from so many diverse influences, yet it somehow works!
The Wilson song is totally bonkers, and I totally get why you adore it. The fuzzed-out, weirdo guitar solo at the end is worth the price of admission alone. It also almost sounds like he is tapping into that De:Evolution sound that Devo were pioneering while also channeling the earlier, edgier vibe of The Talking Heads.
BTW, do you know an obscure psych album by a band called 'Afterglow?' If not, check it out... I think you will dig it, and this Wilson song also made me think of it.
Your closing thought really resonated with me, highlighting how many of the artists we both adore yet were largely ignored during their era, only to gain recognition long after, like Loop, Spacemen 3, Cold Sun, Rikki Ililonga, Lijadu Sisters, Betty Davis, Nick Drake, Afterglow, Relatively Clean Rivers, obscuro Turkish psych, and even Frida Kahlo (who was only moderately successful in her lifetime). What’s more significant, however, is their profound and lasting impact on countless musicians and artists years or decades later. There will always be someone, somewhere, discovering their art and inspired to create something new and something fresh.
Thank you for sharing your words and Blunt and Wilson with us, Jamie.
Sorry for the ramble. Your post seemed to warrant it.
Keep on keepin' on!