Francis Bacon

Now on Bandcamp, released as part of Mood Wring Reenactment . . .

Francis Bacon (It's also on Box.)


Preferring to jump around in regards to time, style & approach, I'm stopping off circa 1992 when two things happened.

The painter Francis Bacon had died.

And sometime not long before that, a podiatrist at Beth Israel Hospital was nice enough to remove an ingrown toenail in my right big toe.

Not so subjectively speaking, the death of any person, cultural hero or whoever, far exceeds a little outpatient procedure.

But I had never had anything other than a couple of wisdom teeth removed. I was creeped out and I think the doctor was too. And somehow I had retrieved the excised toenail or had some other clipping from before and in morbid facination had drawn a small doodle of it in red ink in a small notebook of drawings & stray lyrical ideas. The image of the clipping met the news of Bacon's death and words were scribbled.

Well, all that and some half-remembered biographical data a friend Dave (himself a damn fine artist) had once read in a bio about Bacon.

It all collided in a swirling musical goulash that seemed an ironical and earnest testimonial to the artist's life, his work and the themes contained therein.

Yeah, I know: big words for a three-minute song.

Later, when I presumed to send out cassettes of this song (and 3 others) to local rock 'zines, it actually jumped out at one reviewer, Francis DiMenno of The Noise. I think the others said the early 90s equivalent of "meh".

Scary video of me playing Francis Bacon live. And not so scary music video.