Bobby Brown (4) – Live

Ugh, horrible record. The kind of thing that gives real people records a bad rep. Some rhythmic (minimal!) synth with vocals and no charm. I wish I had that 45 minutes of my life back. His first record is much better.

Can anyone say if the signature on the back of the pictured cover copy is the artist's? My copy has one that looks very similar, including what looks to be "Love," and a smiley face, along with "Thanks a lot." I ask partly because his other listings say he would often sign them if sold at shows. Thanks in advance for any help.

This is an awesome obscure outsider-ish one-man-band album recorded in a van as played to his dog, with no overdubs... self released on his own label, it's a follow-up to a first LP that is a cult collectors item that can fetch hundreds of dollars.

From the looks of it, Bobby is a hippie type living with his dogs in a van down by the river (ok, maybe Venice Beach or Hawaii) where he performs as a sort of street musician. Acid casualty? Happy hippie artist living his dream? It doesn't really matter, the end result is that he left us three very obscure and interesting albums by an imaginative dreamer intent on doing things his own way. He reminds me a little of how Harry Partch took off and hobo'd around California, building his own instruments from scrap metal. Bobby took his own path.

There's talk of his music being an extension of his doctoral thesis at UCLA that covers new discoveries in physics... and of Bobby's 6 octave voice and obsession with his homemade instruments and "orchestra" of 51 instruments and 311 strings... later slimmed down to fit in the van, apparently. He's apparently a new age visionary, and an aural explorer.

The liner notes on this go on a bit about the time he got to open for Fleetwood Mac at some big show, and from what I gather this was the pinnacle of his live performances, but the tape was sadly marred by noise and quality issues. So Bobby decided to sit down and record this alone in his van, with his dog as his audience.

This probably deserves more than this off the cuff commentary. This is the kind of obscure, self released record that I love to find, where the album cover itself tells a story and makes you want to have this little gem, regardless of what the music even sounds like, because it's obviously a rare artifact of some unique character living his dream. He seems like the kind of guy Werner Herzog would do a documentary on.