Wesley Willis
Encyclopedia
Wesley Willis was a musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. A diagnosed chronic schizophrenic
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...

, he gained an enormous cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...

 in the 1990s after releasing several hundred songs of simple but unique music, with emphasis on his humorous, bizarre, and frequently obscene lyrics. In addition to his large body of solo musical work, Willis fronted the punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 band the Wesley Willis Fiasco
Wesley Willis Fiasco
The Wesley Willis Fiasco was an American punk rock band based in Wicker Park, Chicago, Illinois.-History:The band was formed by Wesley Willis on vocals, Pat Barnard on lead guitar, and his friend Dale Meiners on guitar and bass. Dale Meiners previously played guitar in Billy Corgan's pre-Smashing...

. He was also a visual artist long before his forays into music, and produced hundreds of intricate, unusual, colored ink-pen drawings, most of them of Chicago streetscapes and CTA
Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago Transit Authority, also known as CTA, is the operator of mass transit within the City of Chicago, Illinois and some of its surrounding suburbs....

 buses.

Life

Willis was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 31, 1963. In 1989, Willis began hearing what he called "demons" and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was institutionalized for two months after his diagnosis. He often mentioned that his demons were named "Heartbreaker", "Nervewrecker", and "Meansucker". He called his psychotic episodes "hell rides", and alternatively, he declared rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 to be "the joy ride music".

Willis sold ink pen
Fountain pen
A fountain pen is a nib pen that, unlike its predecessor the dip pen, contains an internal reservoir of water-based liquid ink. The pen draws ink from the reservoir through a feed to the nib and deposits it on paper via a combination of gravity and capillary action...

 drawings of the Chicago cityscape on the street. In The Daddy of Rock 'N' Roll
The Daddy of Rock 'N' Roll
Wesley Willis: The Daddy of Rock 'n' Roll is a 2003 documentary film directed by Daniel Bitton about rock musician and artist Wesley Willis, who died in 2003 at age 40...

, Steve Albini
Steve Albini
Steven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...

 tells an anecdote about how Willis was in one train station drawing a detailed picture of a different train station from memory. These works of outsider art
Outsider Art
The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.While...

 appear on the covers of his albums. Willis joined musicians from the city's alternative rock scene to form the hard rock band The Wesley Willis Fiasco
Wesley Willis Fiasco
The Wesley Willis Fiasco was an American punk rock band based in Wicker Park, Chicago, Illinois.-History:The band was formed by Wesley Willis on vocals, Pat Barnard on lead guitar, and his friend Dale Meiners on guitar and bass. Dale Meiners previously played guitar in Billy Corgan's pre-Smashing...

. Willis created a fervor in the Chicago music scene and soon caught the attention of American Recordings, an independent label distributed by The Warner Group
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

.

In early 1994, Willis recorded with the Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 industrial
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...

-metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band Monster Voodoo Machine
Monster Voodoo Machine
Monster Voodoo Machine a Canadian Industrial metal band, originally active from 1991 to 1998, has recently begun working on a new album.- History :...

 and appeared on their Juno Award winning debut album Suffersystem (RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

). In 1995, Willis was signed as a solo musician to American Recordings and went on to record two albums while producing dozens of other albums independently, becoming a minor novelty rock
Novelty song
A novelty song is a comical or nonsensical song, performed principally for its comical effect. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs. The term arose in Tin Pan Alley to describe one of the major divisions of popular music. The other two divisions...

 sensation. He toured frequently, was profiled on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 and was a guest on The Howard Stern Show
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...

 on September 26, 1996 where he played nearly identical songs about Baba Booey and Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...

.

Rock critic and Okkervil River
Okkervil River
Okkervil River is an indie rock band from Austin, Texas. Formed in 1998, the band takes its name from a short story by Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya. They self-released their first album, Stars Too Small to Use, which led them to the South by Southwest music festival. After recording their first...

 frontman Will Sheff
Will Sheff
Will Sheff is the frontman for the Austin, Texas-based indie band Okkervil River . Originally from Meriden, New Hampshire, he is also a founding member and co-songwriter for Shearwater , another Austin band...

 wrote that Willis' "[P]eriodic appearances for crowds of jeering white fratboys
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...

 evoke an uncomfortable combination of minstrel act
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....

 and traveling freak show
Freak show
A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics, people with other extraordinary diseases and...

." Conversely, guitarist Scott Anthony, who toured with Willis in 1998, said "It's not frat boys coming to his shows and making fun of him; it's punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 kids who appreciate that he sings stuff people are thinking."

Death

On August 21, 2003, Willis died due to complications from chronic myelogenous leukemia
Chronic myelogenous leukemia
Chronic myelogenous leukemia , also known as chronic granulocytic leukemia , is a cancer of the white blood cells. It is a form of leukemia characterized by the increased and unregulated growth of predominantly myeloid cells in the bone marrow and the accumulation of these cells in the blood...

 in Skokie, Illinois
Skokie, Illinois
Skokie is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Its name comes from a Native American word for "fire". A Chicago suburb, for many years Skokie promoted itself as "The World's Largest Village". Its population, per the 2000 census, was 63,348...

. He was 40 years old. A memorial service for him was held on August 27, in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

.

Hellride

"Hellride" is the term used by Willis to describe his encounters with "demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...

s," which occurred mainly on the CTA bus lines in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. Willis, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, often claimed that demons were trying to ruin his "Harmony Joy Music" or "Joy Rides". Willis also used the term to describe general harassment: In one of his songs he says, "He gave me a yelldown warhellride." When asked about the demons or Hellrides, Willis would often comment that he was trying to "stay the hell out of prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

" by "not hitting people in the street with bricks." In several songs, both terms are used openly. One of Willis' songs is entitled "I Deserve a Warhellride".

Song style and structure

The Wesley Willis Fiasco
Wesley Willis Fiasco
The Wesley Willis Fiasco was an American punk rock band based in Wicker Park, Chicago, Illinois.-History:The band was formed by Wesley Willis on vocals, Pat Barnard on lead guitar, and his friend Dale Meiners on guitar and bass. Dale Meiners previously played guitar in Billy Corgan's pre-Smashing...

 songs were essentially punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 songs with Willis howling his obscene, absurd rants as lyrics. Some called it exploitation; others dubbed it "savant-garde." The Wesley Willis Fiasco recorded at least three cover songs: Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Two of the founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist/vocalist Phil Lynott met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of thirteen studio albums...

's "Jailbreak", Pure Prairie League
Pure Prairie League
Pure Prairie League, sometimes abbreviated PPL, is an American country-rock band whose roots began between 1964 and 1969 in Waverly, Ohio with Craig Fuller, George Powell, Tom McGrail, Jim Caughlan and John David Call. In 1970 McGrail named the band after a 19th century temperance union mentioned...

's "Amie
Bustin' Out
Bustin' Out is the second album by American country rock band Pure Prairie League, released in 1972 . It features the hit song "Amie," which is segued into by "Falling In and Out of Love" ....

", and Duran Duran's
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...

 "Girls on Film
Girls on Film
"Girls on Film" is the third single by Duran Duran, released on 13 July 1981.The single became Duran Duran's Top 10 breakthrough in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at Number 5 in August 1981...

", the last of which was recorded for a 1997 Duran Duran tribute album
Tribute album
A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...

. Another song by the Wesley Willis Fiasco, "The Bar Is Closed", recreates a section of Rush
Rush (band)
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...

's "Tom Sawyer"; the song "Casper the Homosexual Friendly Ghost" does the same with Van Halen
Van Halen
Van Halen is an American hard rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. The band has enjoyed success since the release of its debut album, Van Halen, . As of 2007 Van Halen has sold 80 million albums worldwide and has had the most #1 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart...

's "Jamie's Cryin'".

After the Fiasco broke up, Willis' popularity increased markedly. As a solo artist, Willis created more than 50 albums, each with over 20 tracks, full of bizarre, tense, and often obscene rants about crime, fast food, cultural trends, bus routes, violent confrontations with superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

es, commands for his "demons" to engage in bestiality (in The Daddy of Rock 'N' Roll
The Daddy of Rock 'N' Roll
Wesley Willis: The Daddy of Rock 'n' Roll is a 2003 documentary film directed by Daniel Bitton about rock musician and artist Wesley Willis, who died in 2003 at age 40...

, Willis explained that these songs (e.g. "Drink a Camel's Cum, Suck a Cheetah's Dick") would "gross out" the demons enough to leave him alone), and praise for his favorite actors, friends (both platonic and romantic), politicians, and hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 and rock
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 artists. Songs about rock artists were usually confined to describing a show performed by the band that Willis had attended or opened for, recycling key phrases such as "The crowd roared like a lion," "A lot of people met the band," "The band got down like a Magikist
Magikist
Magikist was a U.S.-based rug cleaner manufacturer and cleaning company. After the company went out of business in 2001, the name was sold and is currently used by a Canadian manufacturer of car wash equipment. The original company was notable for its large advertising signs which were a part of...

," and the opening couplet "This band played the [venue of appearance] / About [number] people were at the show," as well as uses of the phrases "rock show" and "jam session" in conjunction with "the (rock) show was..." or stating that the existence of one of these within the show "was awesome" or "whipped a(n) [random animal, generally a non-human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

 mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

]s ass". Many songs end with the phrase "Rock over London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, rock on, Chicago," followed by a product slogan, such as "Polaroid
Polaroid Corporation
Polaroid Corporation is an American-based international consumer electronics and eyewear company, originally founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. It is most famous for its instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's flagship product line until the February...

. See what develops."

Willis' keyboard of choice was the Technics
Technics
Technics may refer to:* Technics turntables, no longer in production.* Technics , a brand name of the Panasonic Corporation* An anglicization of the Ancient Greek term techne, used primarily in media theory...

 KN series. Willis would obsessively trade in one KN model for the newest ones on the market during the time when he was making the most money (after his break-up with The Wesley Willis Fiasco). The KN1200 was the keyboard he was currently using, according to a Howard Stern interview.

Cultural impact

  • In 2003, Filmmaker Daniel Bitton released a film about Wesley Willis called The Daddy of Rock 'N' Roll
    The Daddy of Rock 'N' Roll
    Wesley Willis: The Daddy of Rock 'n' Roll is a 2003 documentary film directed by Daniel Bitton about rock musician and artist Wesley Willis, who died in 2003 at age 40...

    . The documentary follows Willis around as he talks to himself and others, rides the bus, writes a song on a public computer at Kinko's, performs a concert, records a track, and visits his friends. Bitton also interviewed many people who commonly interacted with Willis. Willis and his band the Fiasco were also featured in the 1997 Chicago rock documentary Out of the Loop as well as in the German documentary Golden Lemons by Jörg Siepmann about the Wesley Willis tour supported by the German band Die Goldenen Zitronen
    Die Goldenen Zitronen
    Die Goldenen Zitronen are a punk rock band from Hamburg, Germany that are known for their entertaining and politically relevant style. Their original name was Die Deutschen Nazikartoffeln . When the band formed in 1984 at the beginning of the “Fun-Punk”-movement, punk was their main style...

     (The Golden Lemons) and the group Grand Buffet
    Grand Buffet
    Grand Buffet is a hip-hop funk duo from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, made up of Jackson O'Connell-Barlow and Jarrod Weeks . Their music is a unique brand of humorous, often satirical rap...

    .
  • In 2008, the documentary film Wesley Willis' Joy Rides made its public debut at the Slamdance Film Festival
    Slamdance Film Festival
    As a year-round organization, Slamdance serves as a showcase for the discovery of new and emerging talent in the film industry; it is also the only major film festival fully programmed by filmmakers. Slamdance counts among its alumni many notable writers and directors who first gained notice at the...

     in Park City, Utah
    Park City, Utah
    Park City is a town in Summit and Wasatch counties in the U.S. state of Utah. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back. The city is southeast of downtown Salt Lake City and from Salt Lake City's east edge of Sugar House along Interstate 80. The population was 7,558 at the 2010 census...

    . The film comprises footage of Willis collected by the filmmakers over a period of five years, interviews of family and friends after Willis' death, and animations created from his artwork.

Partial discography

  • 1993 Radiohead
  • 1994 Double Door
  • 1994 Machine Gun Kelly
  • 1994 Mr. Magoo Goes to Jail
  • 1994 Prisonshake
  • 1994 Rev Norb
  • 1994 Rev Norb #2
  • 1995 Atomic Records
  • 1995 Delilah's
  • 1995 Drag Disharmony Hellride
  • 1995 Fireman Rick
  • 1995 Policeman Steve Harvey
  • 1995 Greatest Hits
  • 1995 Jason Rau
  • 1995 Rock Power
  • 1995 Tammy Smith
  • 1995 Dr. Wax
  • 1995 Wesley Willis (Fuse Records)
  • 1995 Daren Hacker (Wesley Willis Records)
  • 1995 Wesley Willis (Alternative Tentacles
    Alternative Tentacles
    Alternative Tentacles is an independent record label originally based in San Francisco, California and was established in 1979. It was originally used as the label name by the Dead Kennedys for the self-produced single "California Über Alles", and after realizing the potential for an independent...

    )
  • 1996 Spookydisharmoniousconflicthellride
    Spookydisharmoniousconflicthellride
    Spookydisharmoniousconflicthellride is the only studio album by the Wesley Willis Fiasco, released in 1992 and re-released on September 10, 1996, through the Urban Legends label, with distribution through RED Distribution.- Track listing :# Get On The Bus...

     (with the Wesley Willis Fiasco) (Urban Legends Records)
  • 1996 Mr. Magoo Goes to Jail Vol. 1
  • 1996 Mr. Magoo Goes to Jail Vol. 2
  • 1996 Mr. Magoo Goes to Jail Vol. 3
  • 1996 New York New York
  • 1996 Fabian Road Warrior (American Recordings)
  • 1996 Feel The Power (American Recordings)
  • 1996 Rock 'N' Roll Will Never Die (Oglio Records
    Oglio Records
    Oglio Records is an American record company started in 1993 by Carl Caprioglio. They are well-known for issuing compilations of rare 1980's modern rock and New Wave songs, many of which were previously unreleased on CD...

    )
  • 1996 Black Light Diner
  • 1997 Metal Clink Punishment Jail
  • 1997 QUT Music Grads Rock Out Man
  • 1998 Rock 'N' Roll Jackflash
  • 1998 SMD Promotions
  • 1999 Dead End Street
  • 1999 Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (Alternative Tentacles)
  • 1999 Silver Fish Sea World
  • 2000 Guitar Rock of Ages
  • 2000 Shake Your Piggy Bank (Coldfront Records)
  • 2000 Joe Hunter (Wesley Willis Records)
  • 2000 Joe Hunter #2
  • 2000 Never Kill an Ape (Wesley Willis Records)
  • 2000 Rush Hour (Alternative Tentacles)
  • 2001 ASCAP
  • 2001 Fool's Gold
  • 2001 Torture Demon Hellride
  • 2001 Full Heavy Metal Jacket
  • 2001 Live EP (with the Wesley Willis Fiasco) (Cornerstone R.A.S.)
  • 2001 North Carolina Highway Patrol (Wesley Willis Records)
  • 2003 Greatest Hits Vol. 3 (Alternative Tentacles)
  • 2003 Big Black Ball Sack (Wesley Willis Records)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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