LATEST RELEASE: JOHN V. VARIETY LOVES U FOREVER
a digital and tape release under GunkTVRecords (Zak Mering), this is a blistering, remastered, and expanded reissue of my 2024 EP "john v. variety loves u", including finished versions of Red Widow's lost singles, new tracks from the Union Pool show with John Maus, and a requiem rave rendition of Bauhaus for Sarah Goldfarb. it is for purchase and streaming on all digital platforms, as well as on handmade home-recorded cassettes through GunkTVRecords (which can be ordered at the bandcamp below or on my current east coast tour with Maus.
THE JOHN V. VARIETY HOUR (present)
"disco ex machina"
in its conceptual description, this project is that of an alien pop star named John V. Variety, a strange, upside-down-brained multi-instrumentalist/electronic composer who creates popular music on a far away planet and has been sent to earth to play his strangely constructed and oddly catchy cosmic gothic music in the form of the archaic "Variety Show", a medium still popular on his home planet.
in reality, it is a retro-futurist/hypnagogic pop/gothic cosmic/experimental project that aims, in its recording, to create strange, uniquely designed danceable music with subtle key changes and strange forms (e.g., the Steve Reich inspired 7 chord carousel of "MY MIRROR"). in live form, it attempts a more literal approach to the "disco ex machina" concept, mixing in hidden backing tracks masked as archaic technology, using guests both musical and non musical to illustrate or else interrupt the performance, and overall create a Brechtian sense of awareness of artifice, as if the fictional frontman is singing despite the theatrical bounds placed upon him, triumphing over the elaborate stage show and his own fragile and frazzled identity with the purity of polyphonic harmony and infectious rhythm, turning gothic anthems into mosh pits and hyperrock attacks into cathartic performance.
John V. Variety's most frequent collaborator is Margaret Davis (aka The Arranger), but he has worked with the rapper Big Baby Gandhi, the French-German sound artist Laure Boer, award-winning keyboardist Robin Hatch, Jah Jah of Ninjasonik, and he has worked parts of his collaborative soundtrack music with Michael Gira (Swans) into several tracks. the project played many Berlin venues 2018-2019, including Westgermany. he is currently touring with John Maus and later The Curls
LATEST RELEASE: JOHN V. VARIETY LOVES YOU FOREVER!!!
a digital and tape release under GunkTVRecords (Zak Mering), this is a blistering, remastered, and expanded reissue of my 2024 EP "john v. variety loves u". it will launch 10/3, the night the support tour for maus begins. it will be available on all major platforms including this space
RED WIDOW (2018-2019)
Red Widow was a goth rock band that i co-fronted with my late best friend Sarah Goldfarb (1991-2019). we made singles and played live shows that attracted the attention and approval of artists ranging from Danny Brown to Connan Mockasin, among others. the band was scouted by HTRK for a support tour and Nick of Sacred Bones Records, as well as showcased by adhoc.fm
LOVELY BEASTS (2014-2023)
Lovely Beasts was my first project, with myself on majority songwriting and fellow music majors Keenan LeBlanc and Lily Jarvis as performers and producers. our thesis demo album was a favorite at Columbia University's Computer Music Center. after college, we underwent a long hiatus. "Sea Psalm" released in 2022. we hoped to finish an EP by 2023, but called it amicable after the distance became too much. I still play our songs in their honor as well.