Momus (musician)

Momus
Born	Nick Currie 11 February 1960 (1960-02-11) Paisley, Scotland
Residence	Osaka, Japan
Other names	Momus
Occupation	Author, journalist, songwriter
Website
www.imomus.com

Nick Currie (born 11 February 1960 in Paisley, Scotland), more popularly known under the artist name Momus (after the Greek god of mockery), is a songwriter, blogger and former journalist for Wired. Most of his songs are self-referential and many could be classified as postmodern.

For more than twenty-five years he has been releasing, to marginal commercial and critical success, albums on labels in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. In his lyrics and his other writing he makes seemingly random use of decontextualized pieces of continental (mostly French) philosophy, and has built up a personal world he says is "dominated by values like diversity, orientalism, and a respect for otherness." He is fascinated by identity, Japan, Rome, the avant-garde, time travel and sex.

Career

Musical

Momus began by recording post-punk material with various ex-members of Josef K in a group called The Happy Family in the early '80s, and was associated with the musicians around Postcard Records (although he never recorded for that label). His debut solo album Circus Maximus (1986, él Records) explored biblical themes in dark, almost Gothic acoustic style, and his debt to the influence of Gallic pop was clear from a subsequent, sardonically self-referencing cover of Jacques Brel's "Jacky" and portraits of himself in the style of early 60s Serge Gainsbourg.

In 1987, by which time he lived in London, he signed to Creation Records, and began to record the hyper-literate, quirky pop songs for which he is best known. A trio of albums, The Poison Boyfriend, Tender Pervert and Don't Stop The Night blended accessible dance-pop with such heavy lyrical themes as paedophilia, necrophilia and adultery. The latter album almost yielded a hit in the UK with "The Hairstyle of the Devil". Subsequent albums on Creation included Hippopotamomus, a scatological tribute to Gainsbourg, as Momus continued to push boundaries of acceptability within accessible pop structures. By 1994, however, when Creation signed Oasis, his music started to sound out of place on the newer, more 'laddish' and commercial sounds Creation then started to produce, and he moved to Paris and signed to Cherry Red records. Since then he has lived in various countries and, while less popular in Britain, has had a reasonable level of commercial success in a number of countries, especially Japan, where he wrote and produced records for successful singer Kahimi Karie, including the hit single "Good Morning World".

He has been sued twice. The first time was from Michelin UK, for the song "Michelin Man", which compared the mascot to a blow-up doll, on Hippopotamomus (1991). He was also sued by Wendy Carlos for the song "Walter Carlos" (which postulated that the post-sexual reassignment surgery Wendy could travel back in time to marry her pre-surgery self, Walter) on The Little Red Songbook (1998). The case was settled out of court for a fee of $30,000, withdrawal of the song, agreement not to use Carlos's name for any purpose whatsoever and payment of damages and attorney's fees to Carlos. To pay off the debt, Momus wrote thirty songs, one about each person or group who commissioned a song at the price of $1,000, compiling Stars Forever (1999). Patrons included artist Jeff Koons, Japanese musician Cornelius, and three-year-old animator/superhero Noah Brill. Stars Forever also features the winners of a karaoke contest started on The Little Red Songbook (1998).

In 2000, he performed "As You Turn to Go" (written by Stephin Merritt) on The 6ths' album Hyacinths and Thistles and "Mnemorex" (his own lyrics) on Kreidler's self-titled third album. He has continued to release Momus albums, as well as contribute to other artists' records since.

As author and other activities

Momus has written for Wired, Vice, Index Magazine, AIGA Voice, 032c and Design Observer. Momus has also been a kind of guest instructor working on sound-art projects with students first at Future University in Hakodate, Hokkaidō, Japan during the early months of 2005, and then again in September at Fabrica, the Benetton Group "research centre" near Venice, Italy. In 2006 he was a featured artist in the Whitney Biennial in New York City, serving as an "unreliable tour guide" to visitors of the exhibition. He also kept an online blog, documenting his everyday experience, philosophies and fetishes. Momus is an atheist.

Momus is credited with the first documented instance of writing, in 1991, that "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen people", which has evolved into the popular meme "On the web, everyone will be famous to fifteen people". The quip is a parody of Andy Warhol's famous prediction that, "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes".

The Fotolog.Book with texts by Momus on photoblogging was published in April 2006 by British publishers Thames & Hudson.

Momus has published several books, most recently The Book of Jokes and The Book of Scotlands which have received positive reviews in places such as the LA Times and the Guardian. He is set to publish The Book of Japans in 2011.

Personal life

In the last two decades, Momus has lived in London, Paris, Tokyo, New York and Berlin. He has made Osaka his home since 2010.

He wears a patch over his right eye because he lost the use of it in 1997, after contracting acanthamoeba keratitis from a contact lens case washed with Greek tap water.

His cousin is musician Justin Currie, the lead singer and songwriter of Del Amitri.

Discography

Album name	Release year
Circus Maximus	1986
The Poison Boyfriend	1987
Tender Pervert	1988
Don’t Stop The Night	1989
Monsters Of Love	1990
Hippopotamomus	1991
The Ultraconformist (Live Whilst Out Of Fashion)	1992
Voyager
Timelord	1993
Slender Sherbert	1995
The Philosophy of Momus
Twenty Vodka Jellies	1996
Ping Pong	1997
The Little Red Songbook	1998
Stars Forever	1999
Folktronic	2001
Oskar Tennis Champion	2003
Summerisle, a collaboration with Anne Laplantine	2004
Otto Spooky	2005
Ocky Milk	2006
Joemus, a collaboration with Joe Howe	2008
Hypnoprism	2010
The Thunderclown	2011
Thunderclown, a collaboration with John Henriksson	2011

External links

• Momus's Official Site
• Click Opera (Momus's LiveJournal blog)
• Whitney Biennial 2006: Day For Night
• A MySpace page falsely claiming to be Momus's, and his Wired article explaining it
• Interview (2003)
• Interview (04/2003)
• Interview (2002)
• Interview (1998)
• An interview with Momus on The Marketplace of Ideas
• An interview with Momus about The Book of Japans on The Marketplace of Ideas
• Ocky Milk Review at Pitchfork Media
• LA Times Book Review
• Guardian Book Review
• Review of »The Book of Jokes« by David Woodard

Listening

• UbuWeb: Momus and Anne Laplantine featuring the song Summerisle Horspiel