Music Views: Gary Wilson Makes Out.

Gary Wilson is the guy, right? Covering his face in tape and tenderly singing sweet nothings to a mannequin that he often straps to his back, all the while a fellow band mate repeatedly throws fistfuls of flour into his face. All of this is clearly beyond me, but it accurately describes Gary Wilson in concert. He's had a top notch backing band off and on over the years that he refers to affectionately as The Blind Dates. So, if you are doing your math: Gary Wilson + The Blind Dates = Make Out! Perhaps Gary Wilson primarily became known to us young people when Beck gave him the old name-check in his corny Pop anthem "Where It's At." Fact is, however, Gary Wilson has been doing his thing since the late '70's.

While a child prodigy of sorts in that he started making substantial home recordings at roughly the age of twelve, it was a teenage Gary who met and seriously discussed music with the now deceased and sometimes bearded composer John Cage. John's crazy ideas about Music Theory merged very nicely with those of young master Wilson, and by the time the '70's dawned upon his jet black sunglasses, Gary Wilson was already magically transformed into a fully realized Funk Maestro. Inspired by a series of women in his life that he clearly obsessed over, as his lyrics often referenced to, a 23 year old Gary Wilson set up shop in his parents' basement and began to get down to business.

Writing songs about calling up groovy girls and taking walks into his mirror all spilled into various recording sessions that would eventually make up Gary Wilson's 1977 emotionally deranged Funk epic "You Think You Really Know Me?" To promote the record that came to fruition in a dank basement that was filled to the brim with female mannequins, Gary self-released his debut with a limited run of vinyl copies. Record collectors of the Cult Band persuasion know good and well that original copies of Gary's debut demand top dollar, this is in part because Gary would often smash his albums over his head while playing gigs to promote it. Apparently, his late '70's gigs in such historic spots as the now deceased CBGB's housed some of Gary's unforgettable stage antics.

This bizarre figure in Underground Music eventually disappeared from his native New York. His whereabouts were unknown for the majority of the eighties and nineties among admirers of his debut album and even harder to find singles that he released around the same time period in the mid-late '70's. We know now that he actually relocated to San Diego and found work as a pianist in a fancy restaurant and as a security man in a pornographic theatre, respectively. Enough copies of his debut were not broken over his skull to eventually reach the claws of pasty white Indie Rock radio DJ's all over college radio. It was here that the apparently now defunct Motel Records label chiefs caught a whiff of Gary's Disco-Funk chic.

A private detective was put on the job to locate the man who dropped out of sight decades earlier. Once found in San Diego, Gary was pleased that there was actual label interest, and his first album received a proper re-release, damn it all to hell. A second release through Motel Records was a great collection called "Forgotten Lovers," that contained material from his painfully hard to find 45" single releases that I alluded to earlier. Mr. Wilson found renewed fame and then some in the world of Outsider Art and celebrated with a series of shows that saw him reunite with the majority of his former backing band The Blind Dates. Gary mostly hit the festival circuit for large fistfuls of cash, as he has expressed a genuine lack of interest in an out and out tour due to his age. Too bad, because I certainly don't suffer from ageism! KNOW WHAT I MEAN?

Anyhow, get yourself a musical grab bag of Gary Wilson, because his music makes George Clinton and Parliament look like Sunday church services. Caucasian Funk never had it so good. There would be no "Midnite Vultures" without Gary Wilson, plain and simple. These days, Mr. Wilson is on the Experimental Hip Hop(That is a genre of music, right?) label they call Stones Throw, a kindly and motherly label that released Gary's 2004 return to form, the hair fetish epic "Mary Had Brown Hair." You can visit Gary and get any and all details that I omitted by visiting him legit at: www.sixpointfour.com ,but be sure to return right back here when you're done. Christ, you can even email Gary through his web site, so be sure to ask worthwhile questions...as he will be getting back to you. Finally, Gary is even the subject of a full blown documentary(Take that, Daniel Johnston!), although the documentary is not yet available on any format that I am aware of, but be sure to give it the old Netflix "Save" option, because one never knows.

Gary's in the park, you can stay up all night thinking about it...