When my family moved from a series of college towns in the midwest to the foothills of North Carolina, I experienced a bit of a culture shock. The 1974 talent show of my country K-8 featured an uncool Elvis tribute, very hoary and unhip to my self-defined “refined” tastes. Bobby Pitts, who had an uncanny Elvoid voice for an 8th grader, performed his winning entry, “American Tree-ology,” with enthusiasm and studied accuracy. One gal’s pure camp is another’s pure devotion, I guess. And the crowd of parents and kids embraced the costumed performance with such warmth and enthusiasm that it carried him to victory and also gave me my first exposure to Elvis impersonation.
Beyond the direct tribute artists, the “Elvis-plus” impersonator can add another layer of pathos, bathos, or just straight-up weirdness to The King. There’s El Vez, the self-proclaimed Mexican Elvis, who blends mariachi and Latin influences with alternative musical influences to create a weird, wonderful, and empowered musical melting pot. There’s Charlotte’s own RenElvis, “the Philippino Spawn of Elvis,” who performs originals as well as covers. For every possible cross-pollination, there is an Elvis.
I knew this, but yet was pretty unprepared for the comic marvel that is Clownvis Presley. Clownvis is a comic improviser who knows his own schtick inside-out. He is a perfect blend of clown and Presley--pompadour, sideburns, facepaint, red nose, jumpsuit, oversized belt buckle--an Elvis clown. He has a strong Presley-style singing voice and a repertoire of originals and quasi covers that are belly laugh goofy. For example, my favorite, ‘Chili Dog’:
Suckin’ on a chili dog,
suckin’ on a chili dog,
suckin’ on a chili dog,
suckin’ on a chili dog,
Oh yeah, suckin’ on a chili dog
Long after the thrill of
suckin’ on a chili dog,
Yes, that is sung to the tune of John Cougar Sometimes Mellencamp’s ‘Jack and Diane’ and it only gets funnier the longer it goes on. It is absurd and goofy and kind of poignant, like much of Clownvis’s act. Taking the grossest and least poetic line of the song and magnifying it into one of the clown’s best-known songs encapsulates Clownvis. His insipid brilliance is the blend that perfects his comic smarts.
I was introduced to Clownvis by total surprise: he was the opening act for The Blasters at Raleigh’s Pour House. More than a little trepidation crept up my spine on seeing this bill listed because on paper, this could be very, very unfortunate. Instead, he had me cracking up at his weird non-sequiturs (is Ted Danson dead? You can tell me. No really. Is he dead?) that sound stupid now but landed perfectly that night. He is a complete entertainer.
Clownvis has been performing a nightly review on Facebook live. I attended nights 16-19 before writing this appreciation. He has a very catchy theme song, ‘Clownvis to the Rescue,’ the name of his show. He appears with Squeeb, a bust of an alien, and Robodawg, a toy exactly what you think. They talk to each other, read from the chat, give shouts out, sing, and drink red wine. It has online glitches but has at its heart an organizing thread, a comic idea he carries through the show, and sometimes night-to-night. Last night, he combined the “Jamaican” wine, Gnarly Head, with the first night of Passover to lead to a performance of Desmond Dekker’s ‘Israelites.’ It was pretty funny. Lots of riffing on Bob Gnarly, Passover, and blood on your door to get the Angel of Death to pass, all blended together into at least comedy bronze if not gold. He called back to the prior night’s command to please to go to the window at midnight and sing ‘Chili Dog,’ goofing on all the viral videos of neighbors singing out their windows during lockdown. It is cozy, funny, and entertaining.
He begins shows with a call to “The Mayor” (on a Bozo phone) requesting bandwidth enough to send his message out to the people. He has been on about the bandwidth being gobbled up by “banjo pluckers” giving living room concerts, cutting into his fair share. It is all silly, and all pretty good fun.
The shows air at 10pm EDT on his Facebook page, www.facebook.com/ClownvisPresley/, and past episodes have been archived. After a long day of work emails and Zoom meetings, an unabashed clown is just about the right recipe for relief. I recommend it, personally.
--Adrienne Meddock
Thanks for dropping by. This blog is part of zubrecords.com, an indie label run by people who make and love music! Check out Alert for blogs on music, films, books, and more! Our podcast, Singles Going Steady, is on all major podcatchers and at tinyurl.com/SGSPodcast Lots of cool things to read and listen to at zubrecords.com