Mikey Georgeson
Encyclopedia
Mikey Georgeson is an artist, working in various media. He is a painter and illustrator, who regularly exhibits his work at Sartorial Contemporary Art
and other galleries. As ‘the Vessel’, he is songwriter and singer of the cult art-rock band, David Devant and his Spirit Wife. Side projects included Carfax
, a collaboration with Jyoti Mishra, and Glam Chops, a Glam Rock
band formed with Eddie Argos
of Art Brut. Georgeson also performs on his own, as Mr Solo, and in This Happy Band.
and Horsham, Mikey Georgeson attended Worthing College of Art (1985–86) and Chelsea School of Art (1986–1989), where he studied illustration when it was a figurative painting course. In 1989, he moved to Brighton, for a postgraduate illustration degree at Brighton University (1989–91). As an illustrator, he published a series of quirky screenprinted booklets, which he sold in Brighton gallery shops. A Shady Tale (1993) contained a series of unlikely shadowgraphy images. The Hat He Mistook for His Wife (1993), reversing the title of Oliver Sacks' famous book
, showed a fedora hat in various marital situations - covered with confetti, posing for a honeymoon photograph beside the Eiffel Tower, on a caravanning holiday, and being weighed on bathroom scales.
, the ex-guitarist of the Monochrome Set
, Jem Egerton, a classically trained musician, who played bass, and the drummer Graham Carlow. Georgeson found the name for his band in a second-hand copy of My Magic Life, the autobiography of the great English stage magician, David Devant
(1868–1941). One of Devant's stage illusions was to produce a floating apparition of his ‘spirit wife’. Georgeson told the Sunday Times, ‘I knew it was lazy just to nick the name, David Devant and His Spirit Wife, so I decided to research the man. I read the book and his nickname at school was the same as mine – Monkey Face… Our motto – like his – is All Done by Kindness.’.
Georgeson explained the idea behind the band to the Brighton Punter magazine: 'It's quite simple really, as a magician Devant didn't really fulfill himself so he said 'I shall walk down the corridors of contemporary music', so he chose us. I am his vessel.' - hence Georgeson's new stage name, The Vessel. The rest of the band also assumed new names: The Colonel (Egerton), Professor Rimschott (Carlow), and Foz? . The line-up was completed by 'the Lantern', who provided film and light, and two 'Spectral Roadies', known as IceMAN (Nick Curry) and Cocky Young'un (Gary Smith), who accompanied the music with visual jokes and magic using cardboard props.
A Devant show was conceived as an act of invocation, in which the spirit of the late magician would speak through the Vessel, and the songs would summon down the Spirit Wife. Audience members attending early gigs were given paper 'spirit specs' (to enhance magic awareness) and a souvenir programme listing the 'songs of invocation'. There was always a message of welcome from David Devant:
In concert, the Vessel, who wore a black pompadour Elvis wig and a pencil moustache, might appear flying on a magic carpet, projected as a shadow on a paper screen, or be sawn in half by the roadies. At one Halloween concert, at the Duke of York's Picture House, Brighton, he was fired out of a cannon from the stage, emerging at the far end of the hall in tattered clothes, his face blackened. The climax of every show was the appearance of the Spirit Wife, manifested in the form of a Victorian lace nightgown waved on a pole, while the audience was instructed, 'Don Spirit Specs Now!'
The elaborate stage show created a false impression that the band was a novelty act. But, as a songwriter, Georgeson was easily the equal of any of his Britpop contemporaries. He had a gift for catchy melodies, and wrote about unusual subjects, from the murder mystery game Cluedo
('Ballroom') to ginger hair as a metaphor for the social misfit ('Ginger'). His lyrics looked at the everyday from a fresh, off-kilter, perspective: 'When we woke up, we thought, what's the big deal?/ Then we remembered - this is for real.' ('This is for Real'). They were also playful with language. In the opening lines of the first single, 'Pimlico', for example, the expected rhyme ('Ealing') is subverted: 'Sometimes London don't seem so appealing/ Maybe your lover is living in Deptford'. Georgeson also revived the lost art of the pop song coda, or outro, section. Two typical coda lyrics are 'Back to front left to right/ I could keep this up all night' ('Miscellaneous') and 'From my head right down to my Silver Boots/ I'm going to sell my story to whoever it suits' ('I'm not even going to try').
After the 1997 release of their first album, Work, Lovelife, Miscellaneous, the Radio One Breakfast DJ, Mark Radcliffe
, told the Sunday Times, 'Initially I was intrigued by the look of them, by the name, by the image. Then I heard some really good songs. It certainly helps that they sound like early Bowie. Since most people will never see the band play, unless the records themselves work there is no point to all the theatricality. But this lot are messing about with the concept of what makes a pop band. Their act isn't just a gimmick. We need more bands like them.'
In 1997, touring Britain in support of the album, the band was accompanied by a Channel 4 film crew from The Other Side series. The documentary, shown in 1999, marked a farewell to the first incarnation of David Devant as, in the final sequence, filmed in 1999, Georgeson symbolically set fire to his wig. As he did so, he joked, 'I feel my power draining!' He added, 'I'm doing that so that, from the flames, the Phoenix will rise.'
, of another art-rock band, Art Brut, would later describe Shiney on the Inside as 'one of the greatest albums ever made.'
The band continues to play two or three times a year. In recent years, there has been a return to theatricality, with audiences invited to take part in mass balloon twisting and Foz? wearing clown make-up or dressing in a gorilla costume. Georgeson now wears white pancake makeup with black eyeliner, and has found a replacement wig. There has even been magic with cardboard again, with Baron Gilvan in the role of a Spectral Roadie.
, whom he met at a Devant concert. As Carfax, they released two albums, ''Momento from a Digital Age'' and ''Minky Pauve". According to Georgeson, the band took its name from 'the centre of Horsham where the last public hanging took place'.
events, as a member of The School of English Dada and Daniel Lehan's This Happy Band, a group of roving musicians, inspired by medieval troubadours. As part of Margate's 'Dead Season Live Art' festival of 2010, This Happy Band paraded 'around the seaside town, commemorating its past, and the themes of Winter Dormancy, and Glorious Resurrection'. In 2011, in honour of the Royal wedding, he performed with the English School of Dada, at Cabaret Voltaire, the home of Dada
, in Zurich. In London, he has appeared at three other live art events: 'Mr Solo' Whitechapel Gallery (2009), 'Return of the Repressed' Portman Gallery (2009) and 'Artist As Scapegoat' Norn Projects (2010).
to create Glam Chops, inspired by the stomping rhythms of the The Glitter Band
and the image of Sweet. The critic Simon Price
described the new band: 'Think Evel Knievel jumpsuits, Red Indian head-dresses and star-shaped warpaint, think lyrics about Bowie vs. Gary rivalry, think parping saxes and stomping stack-heeled beats.' The band released a Glam cover of Bruce Springsteen
's Born in the USA, with a video showing Georgeson and Argos singing the song while driving down the M4. The version was a showcase for their different singing styles, with Argos speak-singing the verses, and Georgeson providing a soaring operatic refrain. There was also a Christmas single, Countdown to Christmas, released as a free download.
Georgeson describes his paintings, which use thickly applied bright oil colours, as 'a distillation of a desire to capture what I consider to be episodic globules in the glistening, sticky fluid called paint.' With My Magic Life, his 2008 exhibition inspired by magic and David Devant, he brought the different strands of his work together. Georgeson explained in the exhibition catalogue:
As Carfax
As Mr Solo
As Mr Solo
Glam Chops
Sartorial Contemporary Art
Sartorial Contemporary Art is a contemporary art gallery in central London, England.- Overview :The gallery was founded in 2005 as a project-led space in an 18th century Georgian house on Kensington Church Street in London, England...
and other galleries. As ‘the Vessel’, he is songwriter and singer of the cult art-rock band, David Devant and his Spirit Wife. Side projects included Carfax
Carfax
Carfax may refer to: about car history.* Carfax , a website with vehicle history information* Carfax 250, a motor race* Carfax, Oxford, England* The centre of Horsham, West Sussex, England...
, a collaboration with Jyoti Mishra, and Glam Chops, a Glam Rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
band formed with Eddie Argos
Eddie Argos
Eddie Argos is the lead singer of English rock band Art Brut,born in Weymouth, England. He later moved to Poole, Dorset as a young child, and has subsequently written about the Martin Kemp-Welch School there , in the song Martin Kemp-Welch Five A Side Football Rules from the album Brilliant! Tragic!...
of Art Brut. Georgeson also performs on his own, as Mr Solo, and in This Happy Band.
Illustration
After a childhood in Bexhill-on-SeaBexhill-on-Sea
Bexhill-on-Sea is a town and seaside resort in the county of East Sussex, in the south of England, within the District of Rother. It has a population of approximately 40,000...
and Horsham, Mikey Georgeson attended Worthing College of Art (1985–86) and Chelsea School of Art (1986–1989), where he studied illustration when it was a figurative painting course. In 1989, he moved to Brighton, for a postgraduate illustration degree at Brighton University (1989–91). As an illustrator, he published a series of quirky screenprinted booklets, which he sold in Brighton gallery shops. A Shady Tale (1993) contained a series of unlikely shadowgraphy images. The Hat He Mistook for His Wife (1993), reversing the title of Oliver Sacks' famous book
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales is a 1985 book by neurologist Oliver Sacks describing the case histories of some of his patients. The title of the book comes from the case study of a man with visual agnosia...
, showed a fedora hat in various marital situations - covered with confetti, posing for a honeymoon photograph beside the Eiffel Tower, on a caravanning holiday, and being weighed on bathroom scales.
David Devant and his Spirit Wife
In Brighton, in May 1992, Georgeson formed his first band with Foz FosterFoz Foster
James 'Foz' Foster is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the lead guitarist in the art-rock band, David Devant and his Spirit Wife, and in the 1983-5 incarnation of The Monochrome Set. Foster also plays guitar, musical saw and vibraslap in the house band of Karaoke Circus...
, the ex-guitarist of the Monochrome Set
The Monochrome Set
The Monochrome Set are an English post-punk band originally formed in 1978 from the remnants of a college group called The B-Sides...
, Jem Egerton, a classically trained musician, who played bass, and the drummer Graham Carlow. Georgeson found the name for his band in a second-hand copy of My Magic Life, the autobiography of the great English stage magician, David Devant
David Devant
David Devant was an English magician, shadowgraphist and film exhibitor. He was born David Wighton in Holloway, London...
(1868–1941). One of Devant's stage illusions was to produce a floating apparition of his ‘spirit wife’. Georgeson told the Sunday Times, ‘I knew it was lazy just to nick the name, David Devant and His Spirit Wife, so I decided to research the man. I read the book and his nickname at school was the same as mine – Monkey Face… Our motto – like his – is All Done by Kindness.’.
Georgeson explained the idea behind the band to the Brighton Punter magazine: 'It's quite simple really, as a magician Devant didn't really fulfill himself so he said 'I shall walk down the corridors of contemporary music', so he chose us. I am his vessel.' - hence Georgeson's new stage name, The Vessel. The rest of the band also assumed new names: The Colonel (Egerton), Professor Rimschott (Carlow), and Foz? . The line-up was completed by 'the Lantern', who provided film and light, and two 'Spectral Roadies', known as IceMAN (Nick Curry) and Cocky Young'un (Gary Smith), who accompanied the music with visual jokes and magic using cardboard props.
A Devant show was conceived as an act of invocation, in which the spirit of the late magician would speak through the Vessel, and the songs would summon down the Spirit Wife. Audience members attending early gigs were given paper 'spirit specs' (to enhance magic awareness) and a souvenir programme listing the 'songs of invocation'. There was always a message of welcome from David Devant:
In concert, the Vessel, who wore a black pompadour Elvis wig and a pencil moustache, might appear flying on a magic carpet, projected as a shadow on a paper screen, or be sawn in half by the roadies. At one Halloween concert, at the Duke of York's Picture House, Brighton, he was fired out of a cannon from the stage, emerging at the far end of the hall in tattered clothes, his face blackened. The climax of every show was the appearance of the Spirit Wife, manifested in the form of a Victorian lace nightgown waved on a pole, while the audience was instructed, 'Don Spirit Specs Now!'
The elaborate stage show created a false impression that the band was a novelty act. But, as a songwriter, Georgeson was easily the equal of any of his Britpop contemporaries. He had a gift for catchy melodies, and wrote about unusual subjects, from the murder mystery game Cluedo
Cluedo
Cluedo is a popular murder/mystery-themed deduction board game originally published by Waddingtons in Leeds, England in 1949. It was devised by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk from Birmingham, England. It is now published by the United States game and toy company Hasbro, which acquired its U.S...
('Ballroom') to ginger hair as a metaphor for the social misfit ('Ginger'). His lyrics looked at the everyday from a fresh, off-kilter, perspective: 'When we woke up, we thought, what's the big deal?/ Then we remembered - this is for real.' ('This is for Real'). They were also playful with language. In the opening lines of the first single, 'Pimlico', for example, the expected rhyme ('Ealing') is subverted: 'Sometimes London don't seem so appealing/ Maybe your lover is living in Deptford'. Georgeson also revived the lost art of the pop song coda, or outro, section. Two typical coda lyrics are 'Back to front left to right/ I could keep this up all night' ('Miscellaneous') and 'From my head right down to my Silver Boots/ I'm going to sell my story to whoever it suits' ('I'm not even going to try').
After the 1997 release of their first album, Work, Lovelife, Miscellaneous, the Radio One Breakfast DJ, Mark Radcliffe
Mark Radcliffe
Mark Radcliffe is an English broadcaster who has worked in various roles for the BBC since the 1980s and remains one of Britain's most recognised DJs. He is currently a presenter on BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music, where he hosts an afternoon show five times a week alongside Stuart Maconie, called...
, told the Sunday Times, 'Initially I was intrigued by the look of them, by the name, by the image. Then I heard some really good songs. It certainly helps that they sound like early Bowie. Since most people will never see the band play, unless the records themselves work there is no point to all the theatricality. But this lot are messing about with the concept of what makes a pop band. Their act isn't just a gimmick. We need more bands like them.'
In 1997, touring Britain in support of the album, the band was accompanied by a Channel 4 film crew from The Other Side series. The documentary, shown in 1999, marked a farewell to the first incarnation of David Devant as, in the final sequence, filmed in 1999, Georgeson symbolically set fire to his wig. As he did so, he joked, 'I feel my power draining!' He added, 'I'm doing that so that, from the flames, the Phoenix will rise.'
Shiney on the Inside
On 11 December 1999, at the Falcon in Camden, Georgeson unveiled a new David Devant, stripped of the theatricality of the earlier version. The Spectral roadies and the Vessel's wig had gone, and Foz? had been replaced by John Pope on guitar. The accompanying album, Shiney on the Inside, had a harder-edged sound, with driving glam-inspired anthems, 'Radar' and 'Space Daddy'. Eddie ArgosEddie Argos
Eddie Argos is the lead singer of English rock band Art Brut,born in Weymouth, England. He later moved to Poole, Dorset as a young child, and has subsequently written about the Martin Kemp-Welch School there , in the song Martin Kemp-Welch Five A Side Football Rules from the album Brilliant! Tragic!...
, of another art-rock band, Art Brut, would later describe Shiney on the Inside as 'one of the greatest albums ever made.'
Power Words for Better Living
In 2002, the original line-up of David Devant reunited, beginning with a concert at Komedia Brighton, on 8 April. A third album, Power Words for Better Living, in 2004, was filled with more catchy songs with witty lyrics from Georgeson: 'The older you are, the tighter you wear your jeans/ The longer you spend at the back of the queue waiting for cash machines' ('Contact')The band continues to play two or three times a year. In recent years, there has been a return to theatricality, with audiences invited to take part in mass balloon twisting and Foz? wearing clown make-up or dressing in a gorilla costume. Georgeson now wears white pancake makeup with black eyeliner, and has found a replacement wig. There has even been magic with cardboard again, with Baron Gilvan in the role of a Spectral Roadie.
Carfax
In 2001, while Devant were not performing, Georgeson began to work with Jyoti Mishra of White TownWhite Town
White Town is a musical act from the United Kingdom, and is the work of one man, Jyoti Prakash Mishra.-Career:Mishra was born in Rourkela, Orissa, India on 30 July 1966 and has lived in England since the age of three...
, whom he met at a Devant concert. As Carfax, they released two albums, ''Momento from a Digital Age'' and ''Minky Pauve". According to Georgeson, the band took its name from 'the centre of Horsham where the last public hanging took place'.
Mr Solo and Live Art
In 2005, Georgeson began to perform as a solo act. Using the stage name Mr Solo, he accompanied his new songs with backing tapes while playing ukulele, keyboards or acoustic guitar. As Mr Solo, he has released two albums, All Will Be Revealed (2006) and Wonders Never Cease (2009). Mr Solo often performs at live artLive Art (art form)
Live art is a term used to describe acts of performance undertaken by an artist or a group of artists, as a work of art. It is an innovative and exploratory approach to contemporary performance practices...
events, as a member of The School of English Dada and Daniel Lehan's This Happy Band, a group of roving musicians, inspired by medieval troubadours. As part of Margate's 'Dead Season Live Art' festival of 2010, This Happy Band paraded 'around the seaside town, commemorating its past, and the themes of Winter Dormancy, and Glorious Resurrection'. In 2011, in honour of the Royal wedding, he performed with the English School of Dada, at Cabaret Voltaire, the home of Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
, in Zurich. In London, he has appeared at three other live art events: 'Mr Solo' Whitechapel Gallery (2009), 'Return of the Repressed' Portman Gallery (2009) and 'Artist As Scapegoat' Norn Projects (2010).
Glam Chops
In 2008, Georgeson collaborated with Eddie ArgosEddie Argos
Eddie Argos is the lead singer of English rock band Art Brut,born in Weymouth, England. He later moved to Poole, Dorset as a young child, and has subsequently written about the Martin Kemp-Welch School there , in the song Martin Kemp-Welch Five A Side Football Rules from the album Brilliant! Tragic!...
to create Glam Chops, inspired by the stomping rhythms of the The Glitter Band
The Glitter Band
The Glitter Band are a glam rock band from England, who initially worked as Gary Glitter's backing band under that name from 1973, when they then began releasing records of their own. They were unofficially known as the Glittermen on the first four hit singles by Gary Glitter from 1972 to 1973. The...
and the image of Sweet. The critic Simon Price
Simon Price
Simon Price is a British music journalist and club promoter, born on 25 September 1967 in the Welsh town of Barry. He is now best known for his weekly review section in The Independent on Sunday and his book on Manic Street Preachers.-Career:...
described the new band: 'Think Evel Knievel jumpsuits, Red Indian head-dresses and star-shaped warpaint, think lyrics about Bowie vs. Gary rivalry, think parping saxes and stomping stack-heeled beats.' The band released a Glam cover of Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
's Born in the USA, with a video showing Georgeson and Argos singing the song while driving down the M4. The version was a showcase for their different singing styles, with Argos speak-singing the verses, and Georgeson providing a soaring operatic refrain. There was also a Christmas single, Countdown to Christmas, released as a free download.
Paintings
Georgeson lectures in art at the University of East London, and is a practising painter. He has exhibited his work in the following group exhibitions: 'Wapobaloobop', Transition Gallery London 2008, 'Legends of Circumstance' Whitecross Gallery London 2009, Bargate Gallery Southampton 2010 and the Liverpool Biennial 2010. In London, he has had three solo shows: 'My Magic Life' Sartorial Art 2008, 'Father, Son & Holy Smoke', Bear Gallery 2009, and 'Tragicosmic' at Sartorial Art in 2010Georgeson describes his paintings, which use thickly applied bright oil colours, as 'a distillation of a desire to capture what I consider to be episodic globules in the glistening, sticky fluid called paint.' With My Magic Life, his 2008 exhibition inspired by magic and David Devant, he brought the different strands of his work together. Georgeson explained in the exhibition catalogue:
Albums
As David Devant- Don Spirit Specs Now! (1993) [Cassette Only]
- Work, Lovelife, Miscellaneous (1997)
- Shiney On The Inside (1998)
- Power Words For Better Living (2004)
- The Lost World Of David Devant (2006)
As Carfax
- Momento from a Digital Age
- Minky Pauve Corporate Records
As Mr Solo
- All Will Be Revealed Outstanding RecordsOutstanding RecordsOutstanding Records is a record company based in London, England, which also manages many of the bands on the label.-Roster:* The Pinker Tones* David Devant & His Spirit Wife* Veldt* Mr Solo* Ovni* Pecker-External links:* home page...
18 September 2006 - Wonders Never Cease Outstanding RecordsOutstanding RecordsOutstanding Records is a record company based in London, England, which also manages many of the bands on the label.-Roster:* The Pinker Tones* David Devant & His Spirit Wife* Veldt* Mr Solo* Ovni* Pecker-External links:* home page...
7 April 2009
Singles
As David Devant- "Pimlico" Humbug Records HUM4 1995
- "Cookie"
- "Ginger"
- "This Is For Real"
- "Lie Detector"
- "Radar"
- "Space Daddy"
- "Contact" Outstanding RecordsOutstanding RecordsOutstanding Records is a record company based in London, England, which also manages many of the bands on the label.-Roster:* The Pinker Tones* David Devant & His Spirit Wife* Veldt* Mr Solo* Ovni* Pecker-External links:* home page...
OSTRS002 10 May 2004 - "About It" Outstanding RecordsOutstanding RecordsOutstanding Records is a record company based in London, England, which also manages many of the bands on the label.-Roster:* The Pinker Tones* David Devant & His Spirit Wife* Veldt* Mr Solo* Ovni* Pecker-External links:* home page...
OSTRS003 8 November 2004
As Mr Solo
- "Number One" * Outstanding RecordsOutstanding RecordsOutstanding Records is a record company based in London, England, which also manages many of the bands on the label.-Roster:* The Pinker Tones* David Devant & His Spirit Wife* Veldt* Mr Solo* Ovni* Pecker-External links:* home page...
18 September 2006
Glam Chops
- "Countdown to Christmas/Baby Jesus was the First Glam Rocker" 2008
- "Born in the USA" Where It's At Is Where You Are 10 August 2009