Klaus Nomi

Klaus Sperber (January 24, 1944 – August 6, 1983), known professionally as Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor noted for his wide vocal range and an unusual, otherworldly stage persona.

Klaus Nomi
Nomi performing in 1977
Background information
Birth nameKlaus Sperber
Born(1944-01-24)January 24, 1944
Immenstadt, Germany
DiedAugust 6, 1983(1983-08-06) (aged 39)
New York City, U.S.
GenresNew wave, synthpop, opera, experimental, baroque, disco
Occupation(s)Singer, songwriter, actor
Years active1972–1983
LabelsRCA
Associated actsJoey Arias, Man Parrish, Kristian Hoffman, David Bowie
Websitewww.thenomisong.com

Nomi was known for his bizarrely visionary theatrical live performances, heavy make-up, unusual costumes, and a highly stylized signature hairdo that flaunted a receding hairline. His songs were equally unusual, ranging from synthesizer-laden interpretations of classical opera to covers of 1960s pop standards like Chubby Checker's "The Twist" and Lou Christie's "Lightnin' Strikes". He is remembered in the United States as one of David Bowie's backup singers for a 1979 performance on Saturday Night Live.[1]

Nomi died in 1983 at the age of 39 as a result of complications from AIDS. He was one of the earliest known figures from the arts community to die from the disease.[2][3]

Early life

Klaus Nomi was born Klaus Sperber in Immenstadt, Bavaria, Germany on January 24, 1944. In the 1960s, he worked as an usher at the Deutsche Oper in West Berlin where he sang for the other ushers and maintenance crew on stage in front of the fire curtain after performances. He also sang opera arias at the Berlin gay discothèque Kleist Casino.[4]

Nomi moved to New York City in 1972.[5][6] He began his involvement with the art scene based in the East Village.

Career

In 1972, Nomi appeared in a satirical camp production of Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold at Charles Ludlam's Ridiculous Theater Company as the Rheinmaidens and the Wood Bird.[7][8] He came to the attention of New York City's art scene in 1978 with his performance in "New Wave Vaudeville", a four-night event MC'd by artist David McDermott. Dressed in a skin-tight spacesuit with a clear plastic cape, Nomi sang the aria "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" ("My heart opens to your voice") from Camille Saint-Saëns' opera Samson et Dalila The performance ended with a chaotic crash of strobe lights, smoke bombs, and loud electronic sound effects as Nomi backed away into the smoke. Joey Arias recalled: "I still get goose pimples when I think about it... It was like he was from a different planet and his parents were calling him home. When the smoke cleared, he was gone." After that performance Nomi was invited to perform at clubs all over New York City.[9]

At the New Wave Vaudeville show Nomi met Kristian Hoffman, songwriter for the Mumps. Hoffman was a performer and MC in the second incarnation of New Wave Vaudeville and a close friend of Susan Hannaford and Tom Scully, who produced the show, and Ann Magnuson, who directed it. Anya Phillips, then manager of James Chance and the Contortions, suggested Nomi and Hoffman form a band. Hoffman became Nomi's de facto musical director, assembling a band that included Page Wood from another New Wave vaudeville act, Come On, and Joe Katz, who was concurrently in The Student Teachers, the Accidents, and The Mumps.

Hoffman helped Nomi choose his pop covers, including the Lou Christie song "Lightnin' Strikes". Hoffman wrote several pop songs with which Nomi is closely identified: "The Nomi Song", "Total Eclipse", "After The Fall", and "Simple Man", the title song of Nomi's second RCA French LP. This configuration of the Klaus Nomi band performed at Manhattan clubs, including several performances at Max's Kansas City, Danceteria and Hurrah.

Disagreements with the management Nomi engaged led to a dissolution of this band, and Nomi continued without them. In the late 1970s, while performing at Club 57, The Mudd Club, The Pyramid Club, and other venues, Nomi assembled various up-and-coming models, singers, artists, and musicians to perform live with him, including Joey Arias, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, John Sex and Kenny Scharf.[9] He also appeared on Manhattan Cable's TV Party. David Bowie heard about Nomi's performances in New York and soon met him and Arias at the Mudd Club. Bowie hired them as performers and backup singers for his appearance on Saturday Night Live on December 15, 1979.[3] The band performed "TVC 15", "The Man Who Sold the World", and "Boys Keep Swinging". During the performance of "TVC 15", Nomi and Arias dragged around a large prop pink poodle with a television screen in its mouth. Nomi was so impressed with the plastic quasi-tuxedo suit that Bowie wore during "The Man Who Sold the World" that he commissioned one for himself. He wore the suit on the cover of his self-titled album, as well as during a number of his music videos. Nomi wore his variant of the outfit, in monochromatic black-and-white with spandex and makeup to match, until the last few months of his life. He was later buried in this suit. He released his second album, Simple Man, in November 1982.

Nomi also collaborated with producer Man Parrish, appearing on Parrish's album Hip Hop Bee Bop as a backup vocalist on the track "Six Simple Synthesizers".

He played a supporting role as a Nazi official in Anders Grafstrom's 1980 underground film The Long Island Four.[10]

The 1981 rock documentary film Urgh! A Music War features Nomi's live performance of "Total Eclipse."[9] His performance of "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" was used for the closing credits.

666 Fifth Avenue was listed as the contact address in the liner notes of Nomi's 1981 self-titled record.

In the last several months of his life, Nomi changed his focus to operatic pieces and adopted a Baroque era operatic outfit complete with full collar as his typical onstage attire. The collar helped cover the outbreaks of Kaposi's sarcoma on his neck, one of the numerous AIDS-related diseases Nomi developed toward the end of his life.[3] Nomi was reported to be gay, and at one point was involved in the "rampant promiscuity" that earned John Sex his surname.[11]

Illness and death

Nomi died on August 6, 1983 at the Sloan Kettering Hospital Center in New York City, one of the first celebrities to die of complications from AIDS.[12]

Filmmakers such as Andrew Horn and writers such as Jim Fouratt consider Nomi an important part of the 1980s East Village scene, which was a hotbed of development for punk rock music, the visual arts and the avant-garde. Although Nomi's work had not yet met with national commercial success at the time of his death, he garnered a cult following, mainly in New York and in France. Andrew Horn's 2004 feature documentary about Nomi's life, The Nomi Song,[13] which was released by Palm Pictures, helped spur renewed interest in the singer, including an art exhibit in San Francisco at the New Langton Arts gallery and one in Milan at the Res Pira Lab, which subsequently moved to Berlin's Strychnin Gallery, called "Do You Nomi?". New music pieces inspired by Nomi were commissioned by the gallery for a variety of European musicians, including Ernesto Tomasini, a singer often considered to be Nomi's heir.[14][15][16][17]

In 2001 German pop duo Rosenstolz and English singer Marc Almond recorded a cover version of "Total Eclipse".[18][19] Garbage used his "Valentine’s Day" song as the basis for their 2012 "Beloved Freak".

Nomi makes an appearance in Derf Backderf's graphic novel Punk Rock and Trailer Parks, released in 2008.

Klaus is one of the Sovereign's bodyguards in the Adult Swim series The Venture Bros. The Sovereign is the leader of the Guild of Calamitous Intent, and often takes the form of David Bowie.

Discography
gollark: It's bad compared to the amazingly powerful osmarksdevices™.
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gollark: You would probably use one to host esobot, if you didn't run it on some bad laptop.
gollark: Well, a VPS is a "virtual private server".
gollark: Did you know? Around you, visualizations of inscrutable computer systems compute away rapidly, and virtual software-defined blockchains hyperconverge within the virtual AI metaverse cyberclouds.

See also

References
  1. "Klaus Nomi | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  2. Smith, Rupert (July 1994), "Klaus Nomi", Attitude, London, England, 1 (3).
  3. Rosenzweig, Leah (November 30, 2018). "Cause of Death: Uncovering the hidden history of AIDS on The New York Times obituary page". Slate.com. Retrieved December 1, 2018.
  4. Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache: How Music Came Out. ISBN 978-1472122438.
  5. Gdula, Steven (September 14, 1999), "Eclipsed: The Best of Klaus Nomi (Review)", The Advocate
  6. Smith, Rupert (July 1994), "Klaus Nomi", Attitude, 1 (3)
  7. Hager, Steven (1986), Art After Midnight: The East Village Scene, St. Martin's Press
  8. "ART AFTER MIDNIGHT". Psychotica.net. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  9. Hager, Steven (1986), Art After Midnight: The East Village Scene, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 978-0-312-04976-8
  10. Internet Movie Database: The Long Island Four
  11. Hager, Steven (1986) Art After Midnight: The East Village Scene, New York: St. Martin’s Press
  12. Kort, Michele (February 15, 2005), "Klaus and effect", The Advocate, archived from the original on February 12, 2008, retrieved November 2, 2007
  13. The Advocate. Here Publishing. p. 56. ISSN 0001-8996. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  14. Clare, Lenora (2008), "Naked City: Informer (article)", Frontiers, 27 (02), archived from the original on May 31, 2008
  15. "Man Parrish on the Angie Bowie Show, 2014". blogtalkradio.com. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  16. Diana, Barbara (2008), "Ladies and Gentlemen Ernesto Tomasini (article)", Il Giornale della Musica (April 28)
  17. M, G (2011), "OTHON: Digital Angel (article)", African Paper (August 31)
  18. Köhnlein, Stephan (October 8, 2001), ""Wir hassen Schlager"" (in German), Rhein-Zeitung
  19. "Rosenstolz – Marc Almond – Nina Hagen – Total Eclipse – swisscharts.com", Hung Medien
  20. Out. Here Publishing. p. 82. ISSN 1062-7928. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
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