Klaus Nomi

I'll tell you what little I know of Klaus Nomi.  I first learned of  Klaus around 1980 while watching the punk/new-wave movie "Urgh: A Music War."  This classic film contains some vintage performaces by the Cramps, the Police, The Go Go's, Gary Numan, Devo, Gang of Four and so on.  But aside from The Cramps, the one act in this movie that totally knocked me out was this bizarre, almost Robot-like creature who sang a song called Total Eclipse in a sort of operatic voice, but with a funky beat and cool black female singers.  Very avante-garde, very downtown New York.  I was transfixed.

I will admit I may have some facts wrong here, so please don't send the trivia police after me.  I went out and bought the one Klaus Nomi album I could find at the time (which is called just Klaus Nomi and includes Total Eclipse, a hysterical version of You Don't Own Me, Lightning Strikes, and others).  I believe he did one or two more albums and I read recently there is now a compilation CD (greatest hits might not be the accurate term).

The connection to David Bowie is the infamous 1979/1980 Saturday Night Live where Bowie performed The Man Who Sold the World, Boys Keep Swinging and TVC-15 in a very creative performance where at one point Bowie actually looks like a Puppet (!) and Klaus is one of the back-up singers. Klaus may also be in the Ashes to Ashes video, I'm not sure.

Whenever there is a Bowie chat on BowieNet I always try and get David to say something about Klaus, but to date to no avail. (SEE MY FEB. 25 UPDATE TO THIS BELOW.) However, David did mention Klaus just recently on his Jan. 25, 2000 Journal entry on BowieNet.  While talking about a record he had been listening to by an act called Comedian Harmonist, DB said that Klaus Nomi would have fit right in with that band.  An interesting item I saw recently on EBay too was an album by a group called Man Parrish which said it featured Klaus Nomi and Vanilla Cherry (Bowie's black female back-up singer from the Young Americans-era).

Around 1982 I happened to live in Hyde Park New York for a brief while and remember seeing that Klaus Nomi was going to play the Mudd Club in New York City (yes, the "This ain't no Mudd Club"), and my friend the late Dave Champagne and I were going to go but we didn't make it.  A lost opportunity, because not long thereafter, I then read that Klaus had passed away, I believe one of the entertainment world's first AIDS fatalities.

Klaus, we hardly knew ye'.

This is about all I know of this delightfully strange talent.  A good site for more on Klaus Nomi is at The Future Man:Klaus Nomi.

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UPDATE: On Friday Feb. 25, 2000 I was on BowieNetChat, left for awhile, and came back to see SAILOR in the room (this being Mr. Bowie's alias).  He actually said "Hallo Dave" and then later I said that the one question I always wanted to ask him if given the chance (or at least one of many questions) is what could he tell us about Klaus Nomi? A few seconds later Sailor wrote (and this is not an exact quote but it's pretty close) "d: Klaus was highly gifted as a singer but mainly as a conceptualist. He had a good knowledge of Dada and surreal theatre, so we had plenty in common.  Tragic that he died so young."  I then asked well how did you do the puppet thing during Sat. Night Live, and then started asking all kinds of things, thinking I was on a roll, and he wound up leaving the room not long thereafter (lol).  In any case, it was a thrill to be noticed.  Thanks again Sailor.  You are the Best!