Listened to some of his stuff recently, and was reminded of how much I love this man.

Right now, pitchfork is streaming a film about him called Joy Rides, which until now I'd never seen. Recommend checking it out here

One of the realest people ever.

His enthusiasm for art and life was enviable and inspiring. In an alternate universe, schizophrenia wouldn't exist and this man would be heralded as the big mover and shaker that he was.

I love the shoutout songs he'd do about other bands/artists, that were pretty much always him reacting to a show that really rocked it out. You could tell the man loved life.

I'd drop some serious coin to get an original of one of his drawings... actually gonna look into that.



In this thread, talk about Wesley. We miss you and love you.




Really threatening, this thread.

Fuck.

"Suck A Cheetah's Dick" is a timeless classic.

^ Just listened to that in the car. One of my faves.

I played Joyrides at the Lake County Film Festival last year.

everything this dude did is a timeless classic. RIP wes.

dont have time to watch joyride anytime soon, but i'm excited for it to hit netflix one day.

Was a real joy seeing this guy perform.

The song where smashes up and burns a luxury car and gets arrested is awesome, especially since it begins "Once upon a time...."

Got a kick on him resurfacing through the 'take a cab, instead of driving drunk' ad. "...you say he's just a friend..." - I'll bet a lot of folks found WW through that. We used to laugh thru his songs at work, like over 10 years ago. A much 'cooler', hipper, Daniel Johnston, to say the least. But then again, they had nothing in common except sickness.

This is a Biz Markie song from the '80s.

Or did I miss something.

I wasn't going to say nuthin'...Wesley would've been flattered.

Well color me with shit, for bing a shithead. Sure sounded like Wesley to me. My bad.

how you can tell is that the music isn't the Casio keyboard demo and there isn't enough bestiality in the lyrics

Casper the Homosexual Friendly Ghost didn't have those elements either, and it was still Wesley. Dude wasn't just a one trick pony or nothin.

Signing Wesley to his record label was the best thing that Jello Biafra ever did.

Like anyone else that got a chance to know him a little bit, I've got a lot of great Wesley stories. He just made wonderful things happen all around him all of the time. Never met anyone with that quality before or since.

One particularly fun moment was when I picked Wesley up one weekend to have him out to the house. I had a GBV mix cd on in the car. Just my own personal "best-of" that I burned for myself. Wesley had heard of them and knew a bit about them. He knew they were from Dayton, OH. He hears a few tracks and asks about the band, but for some reason he wanted to hear AC/DC's "Highway To Hell," which nor I or he had on him, so we just kept listening to my GBV mix. Then the song "Exit Flagger" came on. Wesley lit up and made me play the song about 6 times in a row until he had learned the lyrics. Each time we played it, he sang the chorus louder and louder. The chorus of:

Exit Flagger!
Exit Flagger!
Exit Flagger!
Exit Flagger!

Much like Wesley's own choruses.

That story reminds me of another reason I loved Wesley so much... one time at some bar in Wrigleyville that no longer exists, Wesley came in off the street. A friend of a friend ran into him on the street and told him that I was in the bar. He comes in and finds me along with some friends and of course sits down and starts selling CDs to everyone in site. Some random guy came up to Wes and Wes tried to sell him a CD. The guy says to Wes, "I've heard some of your CDs. Its the same song on the whole CD. How come you sing over the same music on the whole CD?"

This pissed Wes off and he raised his voice and yells at this guy, "Because that's the way I like my music sonofabitch asshole! Fast like that! I like my keyboard music fast like that because that's they way I like it!" That pretty much shut the guy up.

Wes was the real deal. He did all of what he did 100% because it made him happy. He liked music and art because that's what he liked. He's probably the purest artist that ever existed.


One other really good one was when Wesley was talking to Eddie Vedder backstage at the Metro when Mike Watt played and had Vedder and Dave Grohl in the band and Hovercraft and Foo Fighters opened up. 1995.

Wesley: You're Eddie Vedder?
Eddie: Yeah.
Wesley: You're the singer of Pearl Jam?
Eddie: Yeah.
Wesley: Are you a millionaire?

JohnnySuperstar... I envy the hell out of you. That pretty much sums up exactly what I'd always imagined hanging out with Wesley would be like. Wish I'd had the chance to hang with and be headbutted by that real motherfucker. Rock over London...

I knew wesley back when he was just a little skinny kid making & selling his art on the cta platforms downtown. After he 'broke out' to become the rock star everyone knows. I went to a party a co-worker at the time was throwing and I was told that there'd be live entertainment. It was Wesley.

He was sitting right by the front door at a card table . He had a couple of his casio keyboards and a collection of all his cd's for sale. He'd grown to be three times his size (in both height and weight) from when last that I'd seen him and he proceeded to go around giving everybody multiple headbutts which he enjoyed doing.

I also saw him a few weeks before he'd passed away. He came into the video store I used to work at trying to sell some of his artwork in an attempt to get money for a bus ticket. He was trying to play some gigs out east. He had troubles managing his money and predictably would get his medications screwed up too sometimes. I bought two pieces from him then but word was he failed to save the cash. Soon after this, he was gone.

I still kick myself for not having picked up some of his earlier works from him.

this post = 100% awesomeness

the man is a legend in Chicago. went to see him at fireside bowl back when i was in high school but he didn't show. i wanted a head butt from him

Back in the Chicagoland area for the holidays and enjoying the things I've been missing out on. Went to the Rock & Roll McDonalds and listened to Rock & Roll McDonalds while eating a double cheeseburger. Probably the top thing I'll do all holiday season. God bless you Wesley Willis.

Hate to shit on this parade, but am I the only one who feels like this dude was majorly exploited and taken advantage of? He was out of his fucking mind. Completely. Wesley didn't do what he wanted to do; he did what others wanted him to do, and through that he found complacency. Some might say that this is all that really matters. However, all the other homeless schizophrenics out there don't have the ironic appreciation of the alternative set to bolster themselves.

Again, Wesley Willis as a musician is crap. It's bad. All he did was push presets on a Casio keyboard.

While Wesley Willis and Daniel Johnston are obviously comparable for their deep mental problems, Johnston is is an artist appreciated for his art, not a sideshow exploited for his insanity. Johnston's career derailed for a while as his manic depression grew less controllable and only returned somewhat under new medications. He was always a brilliant, emotional songwriter and a competent musician. For Wesley Willis, the schizophrenia appears to be the point.

Pretty worthless post.

Why, because its pointing out inconvenient truths?

Because you evidently don't know what an outsider artist is.

I know full well the definition. It dosent change the fact that he was exploited.

Again, his visual art was pretty good. His music was absolute crap, if it can even be called that.

He wrote a song about my band once during a sound check at the Empty Bottle.

I don't know, it's pretty fun, enjoyable music. Dude seemed like he was having a good time when he played.

Dude, all he did was press "play" on 30 second Casio keyboard loops and rambled on about stuff.

I always found it wrong that this mentally unstable person was being used as a way and means for people to laugh at someone who was under the impression he was in on the joke.

Wesley definitely was an outsider musician, even after Jello hooked him up with guys who can actually play their instruments. I think the term "outsider music" gets mislabeled sometimes. For example, I don't consider Root Boy Slim to be an outsider musician.

I'm not much of a Dream Theater fan, sorry.

Sounds like the best any of us could hope for, to be honest.

Perhaps. But the difference is I truly dont believe he had control of the situation. And even if you want to make the argument that it gave him a life and that he enjoyed doing it, it would be nice to see the same level of admiration and respect paid to the rest of Chicago's homeless/schizophrenic/mentally ill community, who dont have the same advantage of being tied to the underground music community.

Seems to me like the man got some genuine enjoyment out of doing the stuff he did, though fuck if I know... never actually knew him. For what it's worth, I get more out of listening to Wesley's songs than most of what's out there. Labeling art as good or bad is pretty arbitrary bullshit anyway.

I could never really tell: is Thax mentally ill too?

Fucking awesome.

SEVERELY uninformed opinion.

I'm not a big fan of the keyboard stuff, especially after hearing the first 100 songs of them, but I LOVE the Fiasco. However, I'm not sure what Wesley's input has to do with it. He either sings and presses play, or just sings while a band plays. I'm unsure how his "musical talent" has anything to do with it.

Sure it would be nice, but why not let one guy enjoy doing what he did and let everyone around him enjoy a guy enjoying himself who probably otherwise wouldn't be?

I mean, all of this unless you knew Wesley and have some inside information that he didn't like doing what he did musically.

Bingo. 100% on board with this sentiment.

I tend to agree with this. Dude got severely screwed when he signed to that major label in the mid 90s.

There's no arguing his music, just that he got taken advantage of without his full knowledge.

I really can't believe this thread. Are you guys just talking out of your ass or what?

Wesley was never on a major label, and I'm sure he made out pretty well being on Rick Rubin's label.

wasn't American Recordings owned by Sony?

it has been distributed by several different large companies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Reco...gs#Distribution

Sure, but Sony is the parent company.

Did Warner Brothers ever own a controlling stake? That wikipedia page is unclear.

I'm guessing that from the position of power that Ruben started with, and the frequency that he hopped from distributor to distributor that none of them had a controlling stake in anything.

Just noticed that last paragraph. Maybe he thought that, but they really did have some share? who knows. My point is that he probably got an advance many times larger than what he usually sells 1000 copies for on the street PLUS, it brought him the attention that probably increased how many he sold on the street, being able to go on tour, etc.

He also clearly didn't "sign" to American, simply licensed a couple albums, which is a much smarter/better way to go.

Wait wait wait. You're complaining about people 'talking out of their asses' and you yourself are using Wikipedia to prove YOUR points? Wow...

Dero wrote a piece for the Reader in the mid-90s about Wesley's deal with American Recordings. Some highlights.



Also,



http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-w...tent?oid=890513