Who is the enigmatic Bobby Adams? Judging from lyrics on the recently released CD Bobby Adams, he’s a jet-setting degenerate, an unctuous cross between Bryan Ferry and Gene Simmons who drifts through European capitols in a very holy grail quest for girls and glamorous parties.
When it comes to women, Bobby has a few issues. Sample lyric: “The discos In Madrid where you are known … for your young ass/They wouldn’t have you if they got you alone … they’re high class/Don’t mean to kick you down that’s not what I’m for … you need some water/And shut your stinking mouth you filthy-assed whore …I know your father!”
Bobby Adams is in reality the duo of Ben Mumphrey and Mike Schafer, or at least the band is Mumphrey and Schafer. Who is Bobby Adams the man?
“He actually was a guy who graduated from high school with us,” explains Mumphrey. “The funny part is we didn’t really know him. He was a football player guy. Back in high school, a teacher offered extra credit if people would submit to the literary magazine, so all these football players were writing poems. Mike and I started making fake poems as if Bobby Adams had written them. I don’t think any of them were actually submitted, we did it just for our own stupid pleasure.”
Years later, the two began e-mailing each other their old Bobby Adams poems for a laugh, and soon they were writing new Adams verse as well. When Mumphrey and Schafer, who had previously played together in pop funk band Clones At Play, decided to start a recording project, they tossed around a few ideas before coming to a realization: The transcendently stupid monster they’d created was the perfect front man for a rock and roll band. Bobby Adams took on a life of his own, one that allowed the duo to expand on the Adams persona and indulge their fondness for tongue-in-cheek misogyny and inspired vulgarity.
“We totally made a character out of him,” Mumphrey says. “Bobby Adams became this well-traveled guy who’s tormented by love. He’s mad at his girlfriends, but on the other hand, he’s just sort of a dumb ass.”
What makes Bobby’s posturing so hilarious is Mumphrey and Schaefer’s inspired music. Mumphrey and Schafer play riffs so primal, they’re impossible to shake. The CD is a gloriously cliched glam-rock amalgam that throws together Kiss, T. Rex, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, the Beatles and Devo. Miraculously, it comes off like Beck fronting Ween. “For the most part, the singing is taken right out of Gene Simmons. Mumphrey says. “We’re sort of laughing at his whole, ‘Come on, baby…’ ”
Bobby Adams was initially intended to be solely a recording project, but after repeated encouragement from friends, including John Stirratt of Wilco and Sean Yseult of White Zombie and Famous Monsters, Mumphrey and Schafer decided to put together band. They recruited lead guitarist Mike Napolitano, keyboard player Pat Sansone and drummer Greg Wiz to create a live version of Bobby. The band has since played a handful of dates, most recendy on July 9 at the Mermaid, but Mumphrey says the schedules of the additional players (Napolitano is a producer best known for his work with Squirrel Nut Zippers, Sansone has been touring with Nashville-based Swan Song and Wiz performs regularly with Daydreams and Curry) make regular gigging impossible.
Mumphrey’s hope for the band is to get the CD into the hands of an independent label interested in bankrolling further recording sessions. “You can write it off as just being kind of stupid and trite, but we weren’t taking ourselves very serious when we did it,” lie says. “If you’re willing to, like, look into it and get into it, it’s a lot of fun.”
So what does Bobby Adams think of Bobby Adams? No one knows. “Whenever I run into another graduate, it’s rare that anyone has seem him,” Mumphrey says. “One time a guy told me he’d seen him around at Balcony Bar. It’s so funny because if we ran into him it would be like, ‘Oh my God! You’re a celebrity to us!’ I think he wouldn’t quite understand that it’s him, He would probably just assume it’s a coincidence.”
Bobby Adams is available at local record stores.
One of the more intriguing local demos to cross my desk in recent months is the debut cassette by Jai Alai. Like a pastoral Tortoise, the subdued guitar-bass-drums trio creates quiet, gently rhythmic guitar music that combines the protoambient sounds of the Durutti Column with the whispered intimacy of Felt. Gorgeous stuff. Their dreamy, lo-fi excursions should be a good match for Austin’s American Analog Set, who specialize in a similar brand of low-key guitar drone. You can catch both bands at the Mermaid Lounge on Aug. 20.
