July 12, 2025 • 38 mins
In Episode 14, Art Slut, Ann Wood interviews Ann Magnuson, the Goddess of the 80's & 90's underground Art, Music and Theater scene, as well as a appearing in countless films and television shows. What has she NOT done?
Find out in Part 1. Ann Magnuson shares her early experience in the late 70's early 80's New York scene at Club 59 where she managed, performed and promoted artists like Keith Haring, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Klaus Nomi, B-52's and RuPaul.
Hear cuts from Bongwater off of the seminal album, The Power of Pussy. As well as audio of "Live from TV," an original theater piece captured on the PBS Show "Alive from Off Center" in which Ann shifts between nearly 50 female characters, with each change of the channel.
Finally, hear a rare live performance with Bongwater of a Roky Erikson's song on the late night show "Night Music."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
it.
Because it was there, we're art sluts
Welcome back to Arts Sluts Radio.
I took a little break because I was lucky enough to score an interview with my next guest,Anne Magnusson.
(00:21):
I've done my best to share a retrospective of her extensive body of work.
In short, Anne Magnusson is the fairy godmother of the underground art scene of the 80sand 90s.
Her career floats effortlessly between theater, music, film, TV, and performance art.
Depending on who you ask, she is known for her seminal album, The Power of Pussy inBongwater, the love interest of David Bowie in the film The Hunger, the co-creator of the
(00:47):
groundbreaking film Vandemonium, creator of a universe of hilarious female characters andmade for TV, or one of the stars of the 90s TV series, Anything But Love.
And this is just a sample of what she's done.
Here's part one of my interview with Anne Magnusson.
So Anne, I did a deep dive into your career and it's just, it's color coded timeline iswhat I created just so could keep track of movies, theater, TV and music.
(01:18):
Incredible, incredible.
You've done what I'm not capable of doing.
What it made me think was if the moving back and forth between projects is kind of like acreative cleanser or is it just representative of sort of being
living performance art.
ah I think it's both of them.
(01:39):
It's definitely both of them.
Yeah.
And also it's just a compulsion, I suppose.
But, you know, one rides the waves of opportunities and whatever fate hands you, you dealwith it.
And uh I guess I like to mix things up, you know.
Absolutely.
Have variety and uh excitement.
(02:02):
So do you find that at certain times the
the flow is working and you just kind of go and then other times you have to kind of workharder at it.
yeah, absolutely.
mean, the thing about a lot of that mainstream work, that's where the bills get paid.
Sure.
TV shows and some other things and movies.
Now not so much anymore.
(02:23):
There's no middle class left.
Right.
It's what's happened to the country.
Yes.
Oligarchy.
And this started in the eighties or in the nineties, but became really evident in the tw-
2000s where the A-listers were taking all the money out of the budget.
So there wasn't a lot for anybody else.
And it's difficult for artists, especially, I would imagine.
(02:47):
I mean, you're definitely cutting edge artists, which I want to get into a little bit moreabout you on occasion, which I actually prefer.
Sure.
A lot of the time.
But I also like to pay my bills.
And I had family members who were depending on me.
Yeah.
uh Which made
made a lot of the mainstream work necessary.
(03:07):
Of course, I went back and I've had so much fun watching a lot of the early things thatyou did and realizing how much you contributed to your community.
uh it reminded me of myself and other people who in that time period, the very beginningthat you kind of have to do everything yourself and you.
yeah.
(03:28):
And you don't really think anybody's watching you.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
Oh, I didn't think anybody would pay attention to any of it.
But that's where you get incredible amount of freedom.
Absolutely.
And particularly, Bonwater, I didn't think anyone would be listening to any of that.
So when it became kind of a cult thing in college radio, was it was nice, but it wasshocking.
(03:52):
when we started doing live performances, I couldn't believe how many people were showingup.
And I remember at the time saying, this proves there's an audience for everything.
Absolutely.
I think, I think names are really important too.
Like arts, let's, that was our kind of window of getting people to pay attention.
He stumbled upon and then you had, you know, bong water and the power of pussy.
(04:14):
You know, it's like, but all of that stuff was just done because I thought it was funny.
I didn't do it to get attention.
In fact, honestly, when I started getting more attention,
You know, I tend to fade away a little bit when there's too much attention.
It's kind of like there's that meme of Homer Simpson disappearing into the hedge.
(04:38):
Right.
That's sort of...
Because it's not terribly...
It can be very unpleasant.
It can be very unpleasant.
I think, you know what?
Maybe not so much of this anymore.
go out to the desert or let me go to Western Avenue or let me do something else that isnot going to be scrutinized um with a particular set of standards that aren't my set of
(05:09):
standards.
A lot of the acting world and even anything performance-wise, you have kind of the NewYork Times paying attention to you or people like that, you're getting into a whole other
realm which I think
For women, and particularly back then, is beauty pageant adjacent.
not, pageant full out.
(05:31):
And then you start getting judged for things that you don't give a shit about.
Right.
I loved...
John Lurie had a really funny quote when he was being interviewed by somebody years agoabout getting into films.
And he did that vis-a-vis Jim Jarmusch movies.
But John did his own short films too.
(05:51):
Right.
But he said, um, he wasn't even interested in going on these auditions or being called infor different projects.
And he said, you end up getting rejected by people you didn't give a shit about or youdidn't like to begin with.
Bongwater was a band and Magnuson co-founded with Mark Kramer of shimmy disc fame.
(06:13):
The combination of Kramer's production chops and Anne's wildly creative, funny andshocking stories.
created a sensation in college radio that brought Bongwater onto the big stage.
Bongwater truly was unlike anything before or after.
Here's the title track to their 1990 hit album, The Power of Pussy.
(10:38):
And there was a very, very clear dividing line, at least in the early days, in New York inthe early 70s, the late 70s, when I got there.
Right.
But certainly in the early 70s, but the late 70s and the early 80s, where the the uptownworld, and you could call them mainstream or straight world or whatever, they weren't
(10:59):
paying any attention, really.
you had absolute total freedom.
Now there was a coterie of uh kind of gatekeepers in that world that gave one anopportunity to rebel against and piss off if you wanted to.
So you can't really escape that because it's part of human nature and there's a lot ofjuggling for weird power positions even though there's no power.
(11:27):
People will find power in the most unlikely places to find a way to dominate.
somebody else, even in the punk rock, maybe particularly in the punk rock world, whoknows, but I mean, one could go on and on about that.
But the point was there was a, there was definitely a culture that was counter to the onethat was in and on the three television channels and the magazine world.
(11:50):
And it wasn't shiny and pretty and ah you didn't have to look like a model or you didn'thave to have a lot of money or you didn't have to claw your way through some
kind of juggernaut to be to play in the game.
The downtown world was so much, it was built on a DIY mentality from...
(12:14):
Yeah, Club 57.
Club 57 was really on the shoulders of the hippies and the beatniks and then...
You know, I was a big fan of Alfred Jari when I discovered him in college and the AvantGarde Theater.
And I was interested in things that were decidedly not mainstream.
So that was what I was interested in and loved.
(12:36):
I loved it.
It looks like you, launched Klaus Nomi's first performance from what I can tell.
Well, that wasn't really me.
was, that was Klaus really launched himself.
You really have to give him credit for him.
He was doing all that.
just wasn't.
The New Wave vaudeville gave him an opportunity to kind of launch himself as a soloartist.
(13:00):
And as a solo artist, just to show a bigger audience that he could sing opera.
my gosh, amazing.
And dressed in this like alien New Wave outfit, and he created his own, this new persona.
But he had that persona and he would have gotten attention in some other way.
There were a lot of...
clubs and there were lot of venues and theater spaces that people were going in and outof.
(13:26):
Fiorucci, he had performed at Fiorucci, which was a store that Joey Arias was the managerof, and him and Joey.
Joey had a lot to do with really helping Klaus craft his persona.
Club 57 was home base for Ann Magnuson in New York City in the late 70s, early 80s as amanager, director, and performer.
(13:47):
Club 57 attracted groundbreaking artists like Keith Haring, The Cramps, RuPaul, CyndiLauper, and the B-52s.
Nomi launched his astonishing sound and persona.
Let's take a listen from the 2004 documentary, The Klaus Nomi Song.
Everybody else in the New Way vaudeville show was charming, inept, funny.
(14:09):
They were all kind of like in this community where they were palling around together doingthis sort of like...
punk version of Mickey Rooney, we're gonna do a goofy show.
Stuff that you could slap yourself in the back and say you're kind of hip because we'redoing this outsider theater and then Klaus came on and it was a whole different level of
(14:31):
accomplishment to me.
It wasn't silly.
It could be perceived as silly because of the way he looked as this kind gnomish creaturebut he was so convincing and his voice was so beautiful and I...
I do remember, you know, David McDermott after the first performance, every performance hehad to come out and say, is not an electrical recording.
(14:52):
He's actually singing because people didn't believe it was him.
(16:29):
to do is I would be backstage directing and stage managing and peeking out of the curtainsto see how the audience was reacting to certain acts and then when Klaus went on I would
leave the stage and go around to the back of the theater go up the stairs to the balconyto look down and see Klaus perform and watch the audience it was always so exciting
(16:50):
because all these young rock and rollers who were pretty cynical would just become
That statue was just stunned.
(17:21):
Even, it's gonna sound a little sentimental, but I remember crying.
It was just such a great moment of theater to see the audience being so stunned andastonished.
And that was always, I think, the pinnacle of success is to leave people absolutelyspeechless.
(17:42):
And the Vaudeville show was just a place where people could show off their wares.
It was another place.
was another place.
Was it similar to like the Groundlings?
No, no, no, no.
It was basically a high school talent show.
But much better talent.
Well, some was.
(18:03):
Some of it was just frankly absurd.
which is what we all wanted.
And that was a group of us who, that was a collaborative thing.
I wouldn't be like the Groundlings.
It was more of a one-off.
And then, uh
a group of us went from there to do events at Club 57, where I became a manager and thenkind of did my best to corral as many people that I thought had unique talents to do a
(18:31):
whole variety of things.
My vision for it was it was like a giant television set and every day was a differentchannel.
Or it was our version of Andy Warhol's factory or our version of Disneyland or ourversion.
that there were all these things we grew up with and we had a common language andvocabulary and references.
(18:52):
And we all loved punk rock, but we also loved, you know, earlier things, Bowie and then TVshows like laugh in political, political theater.
Well, it seemed like at least in my experience and different artists that I've talked tois that that early time period, because we were just kind of all outsiders, there was this
(19:13):
great cross-section of the gay community, artists, punk rockers, theater.
It just like all one thing.
Yes, because everybody was attracted to this visceral experience of rock and roll, butalso having to be less policed.
There's a lot more freedom and things could be wacky.
(19:36):
mean, the Titus Andronicus production was
was, we had to know our lines, although not everybody did, and that was an interestingexperience.
But they finally learned the lines, but it was, it was, the whole scene was like a circus,and we were all, run away to be with the circus, and we were all connected.
It didn't matter if you were gay or straight or whatever you were, it didn't matter.
(20:01):
We weren't even, I knew a lot of gay guys didn't want to be labeled as anything.
or they were bisexual or whatever they were.
Nobody wanted a label because a label was a form of dictatorship.
Right.
And we didn't want it from anybody.
So there was a window of time where that was, that seemed to be a bit of a free for all,but it didn't mean that people weren't committed to doing their artwork, whatever form
(20:27):
that might take and being disciplined about their technique and how they created it.
Anne Magnusson's chameleon-like ability to move seamlessly between characters, whichstarted on stage with Made for TV, continues to this day in her live and recorded
performances.
Here's a clip from the video, Made for TV.
(21:11):
to the morning show.
We just got a super show planned for you this morning so just settle back, relax, pouryourself another cup of coffee and join us, why don't you?
We got some great topics to talk about.
We're going to be discussing how to deal with the death in the family and the growingnumber of holiday highway fatalities and how to pack for a weekend.
(21:33):
Okay, let's go for it!
one and two and three and four and five.
America, this is your
Hey to like get to that like that inner inner inner like naked sexuality and that's whatwe're all about.
(21:55):
If you can't get into that, that's your problem.
No, shut up!
We've got stories, we've got songs, we have special guests from the neighborhood.
With this new sports car!
(22:15):
280 GX turbo with 5-speed manual.
these options.
Mmm.
(22:37):
A good cup of coffee.
And then he found a unicorn.
Then he found a unicorn.
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And then he found a unicorn.
Mmm.
Freshness.
(22:58):
unicorn.
Praise the Lord, we are back on the air, people, and it's so good to be here and preachingthe word of the gospel to you.
It's what it's all about.
You know, before I went on my gospel crusade tour, fiber.
Today's story comes to us from Mrs.
(23:20):
Dan Walsh, a wife and homemaker from Battle Creek, Michigan.
Well, I finally got a job down in West Hollywood in one of those drive-in restaurants.
I was aptly fitted with the shortest pair of hot pants a car hop could possibly wear.
(23:40):
Well, I had a nice derriere and I wanted to attract a few producers or directors.
I I always believed that if I only had the opportunity, I could really act.
Well, that's what most of us girls are doing half the time anyway, is acting.
a rich coffee bean.
(24:15):
Yeah, sure, but I didn't have that kind of money to throw away on acting lessons, you knowHe said not to worry that there'd be other ways that I could pay But we do what we can in
this ministry, but we just doesn't seem to be enough sometimes You know, we have so manybills that pile up and little Tammy Sue I just haven't been able to buy her a new dress
(24:36):
for school yet Because we had to attend to this and attend to that
We have our missionaries of course in those far off lands like Africa and India andFrance.
And we need, we need your seed pledge.
Your seed pledge which will grow.
Remember the more you give the more you will get back.
(25:00):
So please.
oh
We're talking a telethon here.
We're talking about a thousand dollars a month.
That's very little.
Just sign a check, make it out for cash, send it to Tammy Jan Ministries, P.O.
Box 666, Charlotte, North Carolina, and you'll be a better person for him.
Believe me.
(25:20):
People, wouldn't tell you this if I didn't feel it from the bottom of my heart.
I mean, how am I going to pay my dry cleaning bills?
I encourage you to go to YouTube right now and see Made for TV.
It's incredible.
Well, when when the artists that are the audience and also on stage, you know, rotatingthat the ah inspiration is just it's constant.
(25:47):
yes, yes.
Those those pyramid years, it's kind of.
for me started a lot of Club 57 booking every night as something different and that wasgot to be too exhausting to be the manager and an occasional performer and everything else
and the bartender and the person who cleaned the toilets and the whole.
(26:11):
Were you the hostess of the scene do you think?
No, there were many hostesses and hosts.
We everybody there was there was a rotating cast of people.
who hosted various events.
I sure love doing it.
I doing it.
I took to it.
(26:31):
I guess what I was kind of getting to is that you gave a stage to so many people that umin a way, do you feel like that was part of your role as well as being an artist, which
you're a great artist, but...
Why did that become so important in that time period?
(26:58):
You know, I wasn't thinking in terms of any of that.
I just liked people.
I I organized the neighborhood kids when I was a kid to, I might have some kind of bordercollie in me because I love to, he's probably Capricorn, you know, I like to- Make things
(27:24):
happen?
Make things happen, can be a bit bossy, my husband will tell you that.
But make things happen, but be with, but be part of a group, be part of a-
community be part of a cast.
Anne's first band, Pulsalama, sprung from the ladies auxiliary of the Lower East Side.
(27:47):
Take a listen to their song, The Devil Lives in My Husband's Body from 1982.
(30:43):
Tulsa Llama was difficult.
It was fun at the beginning and then people, some people, yeah, God.
And that's another thing I'm not gonna get into details about.
Well, it's another element to working in all female.
It's a completely different vibe too.
Yes, yes, yes.
Well also, I've been in plays and growing up doing all that theater.
(31:07):
You just do the work, you have fun and then there's the...
closing and then that's it and then you move on to the next thing.
The problem with some of these bands is that if you become even a little bit successful,Pulsalama got a ride up in a zine saying we're the greatest band ever and it was really
fun but for me it was more of a theatrical event that I created with Dainty Johnson andAndy Weiland and some of the Club 57 girls and then the thing got a little bigger and
(31:36):
more, you know, once there got to be a record deal.
you're getting into real trouble there because people invest, they invest a lot of dreamsinto this and get a bit ahead of themselves, I think, with how important what you're doing
is.
And then there can be a lot of, there can be a lot of, with Pulsar Lama, was just, itbecame very stressful.
(32:02):
Like, why am I doing, I don't need stress.
Why am I doing this?
I have 500 different things I could do that are fun.
So when it stops being fun, and I think bands tend to stop being fun pretty early on inthe game, and then they become a business, and then it becomes all this others.
And then you recreating some family dynamic that you ran away, you started a band to getaway from or something.
(32:27):
Anne Magnuson performed a cover of Rocky Erickson's song, You Don't Love Me Yet, withBongwater and special guests, Fred Schneider of B-52s and Fred Frith.
in 1990 on Night Music.
(33:07):
strikes anymore but I can't make it rain
again
strikes anymore
(33:44):
you
(35:29):
you
(37:04):
I mean, I don't see how there could be any other interpretation.
That was Ron, and it's the end of part one of my interview with Ann Magnusson.
Part two coming up soon.
Thanks for listening to Art Sluts Radio.
(37:25):
Hey, if you identify with the Art Sluts, explore our herstory at artsluts.net.
That's A-R-T-S-L-U-T-S dot net.
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(37:47):
Currently, 21 states have limited access to women's health care, including abortion, and15 of those have a total ban.
Talking about your abortion experience, voting and donating to support abortion rightswill make a difference.
(38:08):
I hate to leave you,
It's just my music, baby
So
it.
Because it was there, we're art sluts
Welcome back to Arts Sluts Radio.
I took a little break because I was lucky enough to score an interview with my next guest,Anne Magnusson.
(00:21):
I've done my best to share a retrospective of her extensive body of work.
In short, Anne Magnusson is the fairy godmother of the underground art scene of the 80sand 90s.
Her career floats effortlessly between theater, music, film, TV, and performance art.
Depending on who you ask, she is known for her seminal album, The Power of Pussy inBongwater, the love interest of David Bowie in the film The Hunger, the co-creator of the
(00:47):
groundbreaking film Vandemonium, creator of a universe of hilarious female characters andmade for TV, or one of the stars of the 90s TV series, Anything But Love.
And this is just a sample of what she's done.
Here's part one of my interview with Anne Magnusson.
So Anne, I did a deep dive into your career and it's just, it's color coded timeline iswhat I created just so could keep track of movies, theater, TV and music.
(01:18):
Incredible, incredible.
You've done what I'm not capable of doing.
What it made me think was if the moving back and forth between projects is kind of like acreative cleanser or is it just representative of sort of being
living performance art.
ah I think it's both of them.
(01:39):
It's definitely both of them.
Yeah.
And also it's just a compulsion, I suppose.
But, you know, one rides the waves of opportunities and whatever fate hands you, you dealwith it.
And uh I guess I like to mix things up, you know.
Absolutely.
Have variety and uh excitement.
(02:02):
So do you find that at certain times the
the flow is working and you just kind of go and then other times you have to kind of workharder at it.
yeah, absolutely.
mean, the thing about a lot of that mainstream work, that's where the bills get paid.
Sure.
TV shows and some other things and movies.
Now not so much anymore.
(02:23):
There's no middle class left.
Right.
It's what's happened to the country.
Yes.
Oligarchy.
And this started in the eighties or in the nineties, but became really evident in the tw-
2000s where the A-listers were taking all the money out of the budget.
So there wasn't a lot for anybody else.
And it's difficult for artists, especially, I would imagine.
(02:47):
I mean, you're definitely cutting edge artists, which I want to get into a little bit moreabout you on occasion, which I actually prefer.
Sure.
A lot of the time.
But I also like to pay my bills.
And I had family members who were depending on me.
Yeah.
uh Which made
made a lot of the mainstream work necessary.
(03:07):
Of course, I went back and I've had so much fun watching a lot of the early things thatyou did and realizing how much you contributed to your community.
uh it reminded me of myself and other people who in that time period, the very beginningthat you kind of have to do everything yourself and you.
yeah.
(03:28):
And you don't really think anybody's watching you.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
Oh, I didn't think anybody would pay attention to any of it.
But that's where you get incredible amount of freedom.
Absolutely.
And particularly, Bonwater, I didn't think anyone would be listening to any of that.
So when it became kind of a cult thing in college radio, was it was nice, but it wasshocking.
(03:52):
when we started doing live performances, I couldn't believe how many people were showingup.
And I remember at the time saying, this proves there's an audience for everything.
Absolutely.
I think, I think names are really important too.
Like arts, let's, that was our kind of window of getting people to pay attention.
He stumbled upon and then you had, you know, bong water and the power of pussy.
(04:14):
You know, it's like, but all of that stuff was just done because I thought it was funny.
I didn't do it to get attention.
In fact, honestly, when I started getting more attention,
You know, I tend to fade away a little bit when there's too much attention.
It's kind of like there's that meme of Homer Simpson disappearing into the hedge.
(04:38):
Right.
That's sort of...
Because it's not terribly...
It can be very unpleasant.
It can be very unpleasant.
I think, you know what?
Maybe not so much of this anymore.
go out to the desert or let me go to Western Avenue or let me do something else that isnot going to be scrutinized um with a particular set of standards that aren't my set of
(05:09):
standards.
A lot of the acting world and even anything performance-wise, you have kind of the NewYork Times paying attention to you or people like that, you're getting into a whole other
realm which I think
For women, and particularly back then, is beauty pageant adjacent.
not, pageant full out.
(05:31):
And then you start getting judged for things that you don't give a shit about.
Right.
I loved...
John Lurie had a really funny quote when he was being interviewed by somebody years agoabout getting into films.
And he did that vis-a-vis Jim Jarmusch movies.
But John did his own short films too.
(05:51):
Right.
But he said, um, he wasn't even interested in going on these auditions or being called infor different projects.
And he said, you end up getting rejected by people you didn't give a shit about or youdidn't like to begin with.
Bongwater was a band and Magnuson co-founded with Mark Kramer of shimmy disc fame.
(06:13):
The combination of Kramer's production chops and Anne's wildly creative, funny andshocking stories.
created a sensation in college radio that brought Bongwater onto the big stage.
Bongwater truly was unlike anything before or after.
Here's the title track to their 1990 hit album, The Power of Pussy.
(10:38):
And there was a very, very clear dividing line, at least in the early days, in New York inthe early 70s, the late 70s, when I got there.
Right.
But certainly in the early 70s, but the late 70s and the early 80s, where the the uptownworld, and you could call them mainstream or straight world or whatever, they weren't
(10:59):
paying any attention, really.
you had absolute total freedom.
Now there was a coterie of uh kind of gatekeepers in that world that gave one anopportunity to rebel against and piss off if you wanted to.
So you can't really escape that because it's part of human nature and there's a lot ofjuggling for weird power positions even though there's no power.
(11:27):
People will find power in the most unlikely places to find a way to dominate.
somebody else, even in the punk rock, maybe particularly in the punk rock world, whoknows, but I mean, one could go on and on about that.
But the point was there was a, there was definitely a culture that was counter to the onethat was in and on the three television channels and the magazine world.
(11:50):
And it wasn't shiny and pretty and ah you didn't have to look like a model or you didn'thave to have a lot of money or you didn't have to claw your way through some
kind of juggernaut to be to play in the game.
The downtown world was so much, it was built on a DIY mentality from...
(12:14):
Yeah, Club 57.
Club 57 was really on the shoulders of the hippies and the beatniks and then...
You know, I was a big fan of Alfred Jari when I discovered him in college and the AvantGarde Theater.
And I was interested in things that were decidedly not mainstream.
So that was what I was interested in and loved.
(12:36):
I loved it.
It looks like you, launched Klaus Nomi's first performance from what I can tell.
Well, that wasn't really me.
was, that was Klaus really launched himself.
You really have to give him credit for him.
He was doing all that.
just wasn't.
The New Wave vaudeville gave him an opportunity to kind of launch himself as a soloartist.
(13:00):
And as a solo artist, just to show a bigger audience that he could sing opera.
my gosh, amazing.
And dressed in this like alien New Wave outfit, and he created his own, this new persona.
But he had that persona and he would have gotten attention in some other way.
There were a lot of...
clubs and there were lot of venues and theater spaces that people were going in and outof.
(13:26):
Fiorucci, he had performed at Fiorucci, which was a store that Joey Arias was the managerof, and him and Joey.
Joey had a lot to do with really helping Klaus craft his persona.
Club 57 was home base for Ann Magnuson in New York City in the late 70s, early 80s as amanager, director, and performer.
(13:47):
Club 57 attracted groundbreaking artists like Keith Haring, The Cramps, RuPaul, CyndiLauper, and the B-52s.
Nomi launched his astonishing sound and persona.
Let's take a listen from the 2004 documentary, The Klaus Nomi Song.
Everybody else in the New Way vaudeville show was charming, inept, funny.
(14:09):
They were all kind of like in this community where they were palling around together doingthis sort of like...
punk version of Mickey Rooney, we're gonna do a goofy show.
Stuff that you could slap yourself in the back and say you're kind of hip because we'redoing this outsider theater and then Klaus came on and it was a whole different level of
(14:31):
accomplishment to me.
It wasn't silly.
It could be perceived as silly because of the way he looked as this kind gnomish creaturebut he was so convincing and his voice was so beautiful and I...
I do remember, you know, David McDermott after the first performance, every performance hehad to come out and say, is not an electrical recording.
(14:52):
He's actually singing because people didn't believe it was him.
(16:29):
to do is I would be backstage directing and stage managing and peeking out of the curtainsto see how the audience was reacting to certain acts and then when Klaus went on I would
leave the stage and go around to the back of the theater go up the stairs to the balconyto look down and see Klaus perform and watch the audience it was always so exciting
(16:50):
because all these young rock and rollers who were pretty cynical would just become
That statue was just stunned.
(17:21):
Even, it's gonna sound a little sentimental, but I remember crying.
It was just such a great moment of theater to see the audience being so stunned andastonished.
And that was always, I think, the pinnacle of success is to leave people absolutelyspeechless.
(17:42):
And the Vaudeville show was just a place where people could show off their wares.
It was another place.
was another place.
Was it similar to like the Groundlings?
No, no, no, no.
It was basically a high school talent show.
But much better talent.
Well, some was.
(18:03):
Some of it was just frankly absurd.
which is what we all wanted.
And that was a group of us who, that was a collaborative thing.
I wouldn't be like the Groundlings.
It was more of a one-off.
And then, uh
a group of us went from there to do events at Club 57, where I became a manager and thenkind of did my best to corral as many people that I thought had unique talents to do a
(18:31):
whole variety of things.
My vision for it was it was like a giant television set and every day was a differentchannel.
Or it was our version of Andy Warhol's factory or our version of Disneyland or ourversion.
that there were all these things we grew up with and we had a common language andvocabulary and references.
(18:52):
And we all loved punk rock, but we also loved, you know, earlier things, Bowie and then TVshows like laugh in political, political theater.
Well, it seemed like at least in my experience and different artists that I've talked tois that that early time period, because we were just kind of all outsiders, there was this
(19:13):
great cross-section of the gay community, artists, punk rockers, theater.
It just like all one thing.
Yes, because everybody was attracted to this visceral experience of rock and roll, butalso having to be less policed.
There's a lot more freedom and things could be wacky.
(19:36):
mean, the Titus Andronicus production was
was, we had to know our lines, although not everybody did, and that was an interestingexperience.
But they finally learned the lines, but it was, it was, the whole scene was like a circus,and we were all, run away to be with the circus, and we were all connected.
It didn't matter if you were gay or straight or whatever you were, it didn't matter.
(20:01):
We weren't even, I knew a lot of gay guys didn't want to be labeled as anything.
or they were bisexual or whatever they were.
Nobody wanted a label because a label was a form of dictatorship.
Right.
And we didn't want it from anybody.
So there was a window of time where that was, that seemed to be a bit of a free for all,but it didn't mean that people weren't committed to doing their artwork, whatever form
(20:27):
that might take and being disciplined about their technique and how they created it.
Anne Magnusson's chameleon-like ability to move seamlessly between characters, whichstarted on stage with Made for TV, continues to this day in her live and recorded
performances.
Here's a clip from the video, Made for TV.
(21:11):
to the morning show.
We just got a super show planned for you this morning so just settle back, relax, pouryourself another cup of coffee and join us, why don't you?
We got some great topics to talk about.
We're going to be discussing how to deal with the death in the family and the growingnumber of holiday highway fatalities and how to pack for a weekend.
(21:33):
Okay, let's go for it!
one and two and three and four and five.
America, this is your
Hey to like get to that like that inner inner inner like naked sexuality and that's whatwe're all about.
(21:55):
If you can't get into that, that's your problem.
No, shut up!
We've got stories, we've got songs, we have special guests from the neighborhood.
With this new sports car!
(22:15):
280 GX turbo with 5-speed manual.
these options.
Mmm.
(22:37):
A good cup of coffee.
And then he found a unicorn.
Then he found a unicorn.
And then he found a unicorn.
And then he found a unicorn.
Mmm.
Freshness.
(22:58):
unicorn.
Praise the Lord, we are back on the air, people, and it's so good to be here and preachingthe word of the gospel to you.
It's what it's all about.
You know, before I went on my gospel crusade tour, fiber.
Today's story comes to us from Mrs.
(23:20):
Dan Walsh, a wife and homemaker from Battle Creek, Michigan.
Well, I finally got a job down in West Hollywood in one of those drive-in restaurants.
I was aptly fitted with the shortest pair of hot pants a car hop could possibly wear.
(23:40):
Well, I had a nice derriere and I wanted to attract a few producers or directors.
I I always believed that if I only had the opportunity, I could really act.
Well, that's what most of us girls are doing half the time anyway, is acting.
a rich coffee bean.
(24:15):
Yeah, sure, but I didn't have that kind of money to throw away on acting lessons, you knowHe said not to worry that there'd be other ways that I could pay But we do what we can in
this ministry, but we just doesn't seem to be enough sometimes You know, we have so manybills that pile up and little Tammy Sue I just haven't been able to buy her a new dress
(24:36):
for school yet Because we had to attend to this and attend to that
We have our missionaries of course in those far off lands like Africa and India andFrance.
And we need, we need your seed pledge.
Your seed pledge which will grow.
Remember the more you give the more you will get back.
(25:00):
So please.
oh
We're talking a telethon here.
We're talking about a thousand dollars a month.
That's very little.
Just sign a check, make it out for cash, send it to Tammy Jan Ministries, P.O.
Box 666, Charlotte, North Carolina, and you'll be a better person for him.
Believe me.
(25:20):
People, wouldn't tell you this if I didn't feel it from the bottom of my heart.
I mean, how am I going to pay my dry cleaning bills?
I encourage you to go to YouTube right now and see Made for TV.
It's incredible.
Well, when when the artists that are the audience and also on stage, you know, rotatingthat the ah inspiration is just it's constant.
(25:47):
yes, yes.
Those those pyramid years, it's kind of.
for me started a lot of Club 57 booking every night as something different and that wasgot to be too exhausting to be the manager and an occasional performer and everything else
and the bartender and the person who cleaned the toilets and the whole.
(26:11):
Were you the hostess of the scene do you think?
No, there were many hostesses and hosts.
We everybody there was there was a rotating cast of people.
who hosted various events.
I sure love doing it.
I doing it.
I took to it.
(26:31):
I guess what I was kind of getting to is that you gave a stage to so many people that umin a way, do you feel like that was part of your role as well as being an artist, which
you're a great artist, but...
Why did that become so important in that time period?
(26:58):
You know, I wasn't thinking in terms of any of that.
I just liked people.
I I organized the neighborhood kids when I was a kid to, I might have some kind of bordercollie in me because I love to, he's probably Capricorn, you know, I like to- Make things
(27:24):
happen?
Make things happen, can be a bit bossy, my husband will tell you that.
But make things happen, but be with, but be part of a group, be part of a-
community be part of a cast.
Anne's first band, Pulsalama, sprung from the ladies auxiliary of the Lower East Side.
(27:47):
Take a listen to their song, The Devil Lives in My Husband's Body from 1982.
(30:43):
Tulsa Llama was difficult.
It was fun at the beginning and then people, some people, yeah, God.
And that's another thing I'm not gonna get into details about.
Well, it's another element to working in all female.
It's a completely different vibe too.
Yes, yes, yes.
Well also, I've been in plays and growing up doing all that theater.
(31:07):
You just do the work, you have fun and then there's the...
closing and then that's it and then you move on to the next thing.
The problem with some of these bands is that if you become even a little bit successful,Pulsalama got a ride up in a zine saying we're the greatest band ever and it was really
fun but for me it was more of a theatrical event that I created with Dainty Johnson andAndy Weiland and some of the Club 57 girls and then the thing got a little bigger and
(31:36):
more, you know, once there got to be a record deal.
you're getting into real trouble there because people invest, they invest a lot of dreamsinto this and get a bit ahead of themselves, I think, with how important what you're doing
is.
And then there can be a lot of, there can be a lot of, with Pulsar Lama, was just, itbecame very stressful.
(32:02):
Like, why am I doing, I don't need stress.
Why am I doing this?
I have 500 different things I could do that are fun.
So when it stops being fun, and I think bands tend to stop being fun pretty early on inthe game, and then they become a business, and then it becomes all this others.
And then you recreating some family dynamic that you ran away, you started a band to getaway from or something.
(32:27):
Anne Magnuson performed a cover of Rocky Erickson's song, You Don't Love Me Yet, withBongwater and special guests, Fred Schneider of B-52s and Fred Frith.
in 1990 on Night Music.
(33:07):
strikes anymore but I can't make it rain
again
strikes anymore
(33:44):
you
(35:29):
you
(37:04):
I mean, I don't see how there could be any other interpretation.
That was Ron, and it's the end of part one of my interview with Ann Magnusson.
Part two coming up soon.
Thanks for listening to Art Sluts Radio.
(37:25):
Hey, if you identify with the Art Sluts, explore our herstory at artsluts.net.
That's A-R-T-S-L-U-T-S dot net.
And purchase downloads of our music wherever you stream music.
All contributions and purchases will go to support Planned Parenthood.
(37:47):
Currently, 21 states have limited access to women's health care, including abortion, and15 of those have a total ban.
Talking about your abortion experience, voting and donating to support abortion rightswill make a difference.
(38:08):
I hate to leave you,
It's just my music, baby
So
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