On Wednesday afternoon my Facebook wall began to light-up with the frantic news that outsider musician and Nashvillian par-excellence, Dave Cloud, was in an intensive care unit as a result of his battle with cancer. The news came out of nowhere for most of the rocker’s friends and admirers and yesterday’s announcement of his death came so quickly that most are still trying to wrap their heads — and hearts — around the wide, wild space Cloud and his art once occupied.
For the uninitiated, here’s a bit of the man’s bio: By day a volunteer book reader for the blind, Cloud undergoes a transformation at night, and for over three decades has entertained patrons of local dive bar Springwater, often with his band The Gospel of Power. Cloud’s unpredictable performances can be uproarious, jaw-droppingly bizarre events, delighting some while frightening others. His musical amalgam of experimental garage rock and lounge crooning—defies easy categorization, but his delivery makes the experience hard to forget. Cloud has appeared in several films, videos, and television programs, including Harmony Korine’s films Gummo and Trash Humpers.
There have been some thoughtful remembrances in Nashville’s local media. Here’s a bit from Jim Ridley’s post on the Nashville Scene’s Country Life blog yesterday afternoon…
Twenty years ago, while Nashville was lusting after the acclaim and approval of coastal arbiters, Cloud was bashing out untutored, incantatory garage rock in venues like Springwater and Lucy’s Record Shop. Nobody at the time suspected how crucial those clubs would be to the city’s reversing fortunes — or how much of a cult figure Cloud would become in Scandinavia and other ports of call.
And yet even when he was backed by members of Lambchop, Silver Jews and other vanguard indie bands, Cloud bowed to nobody’s fashion. Whether he was playing ’60s bubblegum tunes or easy-listening standards, they came out in his own Martian time signatures and pulverizing arrangements, animated by the innocent primordial current of rock ‘n’ roll. He could be courtly and coarse, sophisticated and vulgar, elevated and lowbrow. What he could never be was the same damn thing you’d seen a hundred times before — or like everyone else.
I met Dave years ago at the Springwater and I remember working to re-open a re-modeled local art museum in the summer of 1999 with Dave’s debut CD, Songs I Will Always Sing, echoing through the galleries “…I’ll run the jack on you NOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!” I witnessed the interchangeable musicians who backed Dave as the Gospel of Power come and go from the Springwater stage over the years, and I know for certain that I caught a glimpse of the still-beating blood red heart of rock ‘n’ roll one Saturday night at that bar somewhere in the middle of a medley of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” and Bruce Springsteen’s “She’s the One.”
But, mostly I remember Dave as a good neighbor. I lived in and near Nashville’s Belmont/Hillsboro neighborhood for nearly two decades. During much of that time, Bongo Java’s original coffeehouse and the Circle K gas station and convenience store were daily stops for me. They also seemed to be daily stops for Dave. It was always a fun surprise to see the man outside of the beery, bleary late night scene at the Springwater. Off of the stage, Dave was still a big, imposing man with a deep drawl of a voice. Dave was a flat-out riot when he was rockin’ in the wee hours, but in the sober light of day he was always thoughtful, kind, eloquent and happy to see you and to chat about nearly anything that might come up. That’s the Dave Cloud I’ll miss the most.
Nashville’s pre-eminent curator of the avant-garde, Tony Youngblood lost his radio show on Vanderbilt University’s WRVU station following an appearance by Cloud. It wasn’t really Dave’s fault. Here are Youngblood’s thoughts on that episode from his website, introducing a little over an hour of a weird, wild and hilarious tour of the mind and mouth of Dave Cloud.
Featuring a band comprised of some of Nashville’s most talented players, Get It On With Dave Cloud sounds lush and bristles with detail. Dispensing with our usual arhythmic soup, the idea here was to create jilted lounge music that conversed with Dave’s dialogue. The band provided that, and in spades. I only wish we picked a different mic for Dave to speak into. WRVU Studio Mic 4 has a tendency to distort and Dave Cloud has a tendency to talk loud. (I warned Jim Hayes about that mic before. Am I the only dj that notices these kinds of things?) Still, the slight distortion in Dave’s voice kind of works in a strange way.
For an hour and eight minutes (I just couldn’t whittle it down to one hour), Dave Cloud flirts with callers, reads from dirty magazines, takes long smoke breaks, and espouses his wisdom. I’m quite proud of this episode, and it makes a fine sendoff to WRVU. In a weird way, this episode is responsible for this blog and podcast. If we hadn’t made Get It On, we still might be on WRVU. If we were still on WRVU, I probably wouldn’t have invested the time in learning how to podcast.
Listen to the full episode here.
Dave left us under the celestial sign of a Black Supermoon, at the turning of the Chinese Lunar New Year — a nearby new moon that arrives during the daytime hours, hidden by the sun’s glare.
Here’s Dave and the Gospel of Power playing a house party, and the man himself being interviewed outside the Springwater.
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