Alvarius B. (Alan Bishop as...)

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"This is Volume Two of my new three LP set, and it's called A Mark Twain August. Now don't go asking me what the fuck that title means but I will say that it may be my favorite of the three. My 'fans', all 133 of them, are pretty smart. I used to think only 67 people mattered on earth, now it could be far less, but it's beginning to trouble me how I've actually accumulated 133 fans. So if you're not a moron, I don't mind if you buy this record. I made more copies than I have fans so I need to expand on the audience a bit but I don't want fucking idiots buying my albums. A brand new car loses value the moment you drive it home, but my records will always go up in value (like my Dodge Ram Van which tripled in value when I drove it off the lot) so this is also an investment opportunity. If you were to walk slowly on a hot bed of coals you may discover that Don McLean never actually drove his Chevy to the levy and that the singer-songwriter is dead, just like all the poets.

What do contemporary poets and the entire Indonesian population have in common? Most of you cannot name even one of them. Homo Sapiens now love to complain and act as if they know how the world works by 'expressing' themselves on their social media networks -- that's become the new poetry. And I think there are only nine people writing songs today that I respect, I'd have to check to make sure. And the Thinking Fellars were a great band -- I could name a dozen more from the past 30 years that I'd call contemporaries, but that's about it. . . . And I almost forgot to mention that Mark Twain's old banjo appears on this record. Oh and this is better than that Wolf King of LA album by Papa John Phillips, for all those who got mesmerized by it 30 years after it came out. There's only three or four good tracks on that and A Mark Twain August has six great tracks on it, at least. "

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"Serial killing was one of history's greatest art forms. Now it's becoming almost impossible to get a skull-drilling startup off the ground unless you murder for the corporations or governments where you have highly organized protection from any enforceable law but at the expense of sacrificing all the glory for the anonymity required to maintain employment. So, unfortunately, the days of any zit topography random commoner being able to string together a few killings to hit the big time before being caught has almost come to an end. Sad. This record, the third and final volume of my new three-LP set called Heathen Folklore, could serve as somewhat of a manual of inspiration on how one could start such a career, as risky and unpopular as it is. It gets much more fucked-up than the previous two LPs, and sometimes I think it's the best one due to that aspect.

I'd have to give it one more listen but I also think this is the LP with coded messages that could trigger an unsuspecting listener to start his/her career in extreme behavior. But killing isn't everything you know. There are many more ways to express yourself and reach the top of the charts these days. In fact, I saw Burt Bacharach three weeks ago gripping a huge fucking machete while chasing modern dance music architects off his champion ship and into deep water where they hopefully became shark bait. And to set the record straight, Jimi Hendrix did not fake his death and become Morgan Freeman nor was Hunter S. Thompson directing snuff films. But most of that other weird shit you hear about these days is probably true. And I'm working on a film called 'Being Alvarius B.' where all of you loser fucks crawl into my brain and see yourselves from my perspective and then commit collective suicide because you finally realize I was right all along. And I am. Can't wait to make more albums so I can write these album descriptions. Cocksuckers."

Wow.

To talk about the cover songs, most of these are pretty obscure….

Yeah, I suppose… and even if you know the artist you might not know the song. You might know Morricone but might not know the track "Il Forte/The Fort" is from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, where it's done very slowly, like a funeral march, and I turned it into a more up-tempo thing. And Sly Stone wrote "Are You Sure?" but he gave it to Beau Brummels and produced it. "Wanted Man" is a Dylan song given to Johnny Cash. Yeah, and Lee Hazelwood, and Gene Clark …. Not their most famous songs, but songs that I love, that's why I wanted to do them.

You've appropriated them, you've changed the lyrics to fit more with your own commentaries and your own outlook.

Yes, with a couple of exceptions. I have no problem re-writing anyone. Nothing is sacred when it comes to words or poetry. I find the original "Wanted Man" and the Nick Cave version pretty boring and cheesy. The original is boring and typical for Johnny Cash and fair enough, it's Johnny Cash, it works for 1969, but the Nick Cave version was a little bit cheesy, he's trying to sound like a bad ass and it doesn't work. My version is ridiculously absurd but I think it's more updated and a little bit more wanted.

https://www.popmatters.com/heathen-folklore-an-interview-with-alvarius-b-2495376493.html

Just finished my first listen through the 2CD set. this new set is not really that good IMO. It suffers from a standard "rock" band backing, a lotta predictable chords, and a lotta lazy rhyming lyrics.

the "suitcase handler" song is great, menacing and weird, and the version of Wanted Man is indeed pretty bad ass, but those were pretty much the only standouts for me. I miss the weirdness and bite of the S/T 2LP more now than ever.

2nd time through, listening at home, and this is opening up a lot more. Lotta good stuff on here that didn't reveal itself in the truck. Nice to have him doing fully produced bitter pissed off tunes after the last few years of barrel scrapings, which kinda soured me a bit. This set could probably have been cut to a single 80-minute disc/double LP instead of a 110 minute triple LP, though.

yeah, i've been enjoying it more and more after a kinda similar first reaction — some of it was pretty close to cracker van beethoven, I thought! but i think there's more than enough good stuff ...

heard some of this on WFMU, p impressive

Camper van second and third albums not worlds away from certain SCG stuff tbh

yeah, true! (didn't mean that as a slight on CVB, i dig 'em)