by Ken Leick The monstrous four-by-six-foot poster over Joe Newman’s bed proudly bears the
legend “The Love God” in six-inch letters. The display is not a sexual boast,
however, and in fact one would suspect that its presence would hinder rather
than spur on any hanky panky in the area. The poster, you see, is a
dry-mounted, pristine mint copy of the one-sheet for Don Knotts’ 1969 film
The Love God, and it sports a large portrait of the diminutive funnyman
wearing a colorful daishiki. It’s a jarring bit of boudoir decor and
just one example of the parade of Knotts memorabilia displayed throughout
Newman’s Central Austin home, rivaled only in number by the images of Frank
Zappa that line the walls. It’s a frightening thought, but a collaboration
between Knotts and Zappa, had it ever occurred, might well have come close to
the type of music that Newman spews forth to the world as the Rudy Schwartz
Project. Newman is a quiet, unassuming man in his early thirties who spends his days
performing feats of Software Engineering. He would probably be described by his
neighbors the same way that serial murderers tend to be remembered after the
fact: “He kept to himself, and seemed like a nice enough guy…” In point of
fact, though, Newman is considered by some to be far more dangerous than your
run-of-the-mill mass murderer; his music, which he performs and produces
largely by himself, dares to poke fun at religion, politics, and ignorance.
Worse, it dares to be both incisive and funny. His new CD, G�nther
Packs a Stiffy, even dares attack the venerable
Dallas Cowboys and
sports fans in general. Uh-oh. There goes the neighborhood.
In his youth in rural Missouri, Newman’s early taste in music mostly ran along
the lines of what he now refers to as “stadium shit rock” like Queen and Led
Zeppelin; he lost his virginity to the soothing strains of Led Zep III on eight-track in the back seat of his parents’ Pontiac Grand Ville. When he
went on to college at the University of Missouri in Columbia, however, he “was
fortunate enough to end up in a dorm full of freaks,” where he was introduced
to the more eclectic sounds of Gong, Funkadelic, and most notably, Zappa’s
Chunga’s Revenge album. He moved to Houston for a year and a half and
thence to Austin, while his tastes continued to broaden and warp to include
strange and off-center acts like Spike Jones and the Bonzo Dog Band, and the
films of drekmeisters like Ed Wood.
Newman got his first taste of what it was like to make music in Austin as a
member of the Politicians in the early Eighties. The satirical group also
included Dave Irwin, current Liquid Mice/Robot Group wizard Brooks Coleman, and
main songwriter Gregg Leinwebber. “We were pretty bad,” Newman recalls; “some
people were horrified by what we did, some liked it, and most got up and left –
like with any other band.” It didn’t take long before Newman decided he wanted
to try his hand at songwriting himself, and in 1985 he bought one of the
four-track portable studios that had just become cheaply available at the time.
As luck would have it, this was about the time Daniel Johnston had begun
making a name for himself hawking homemade tapes on the street and selling
cassettes on consignment in local independent record stores. Following
Johnston’s lead, Newman headed into Record Exchange (now Sound Exchange) on the
Drag with a little collection of songs he had recorded called Moslem Beach
Party. Among the ditties on the hit-and-miss collection were a rude Prince
parody (“Raspberry IUD”) and a seemingly endless jam of “Polly Wolly Doodle.”
It was the sacrilegiously catchy, Tom Lehrer-type zealot’s anthem entitled
“Kill for God” that was the gem of the lot, however. In deadly earnest voice,
sung as though through a Forties radio microphone, Newman mercilessly, if
somewhat crudely, accosted extremisits of both the Moslem (“I’ll use pipe
bombs, what the fuck/Killing Hebrews brings good luck”) and Christian (“Fuck
those pagans, they’re such cynics/Let’s bomb the abortion clinics”) faiths. The
foundation had been laid; the Rudy Schwartz Project was set in motion. Akin to
nothing so much as a Carl Stalling for the Nineties, Newman began developing a
style that quotes liberally from the musics of his heroes, serving up a hash of
Zappa, Monk, seventies AOR tripe, and obscure cult film soundtracks.
Since then, the number of Rudy Schwartz tapes has climbed to seven (MBP;
Plastic Containers Retain Odors; Bowling For Appliances; Salmon Dave; Don’t Get
Charred, Get Puffy; Yodelin’ Satan; and Enhanced Florence
Henderson), production quality has risen to a professional level, and music
magazines like Option and Sound Choice have taken notice of his
work. Just as importantly, Newman’s music has led him into the company of
kindred souls like Jello Biafra, Dr. Demento, Zoogz Rift, and Subgenius Church
maven Rev. Ivan Stang. Demento has played some of Newman’s less controversial
material on his nationally syndicated radio show, Rift helped him get a CD deal
with obscure German label Musical Tragedies, and Stang (who performs dialogue
from the wretched Larry Buchanan movie Down On Us on Enhanced
Florence Henderson) put in a good word about the Project to controversial
cut-and-paste California music montagists Negativland. They decided to release
G�nther Packs a Stiffy on their private Seeland Records label. As
for playing live, the career of the Rudy Schwartz Project as a live act was
quite literally ephemeral. “Some prick in L.A. said he would fly us out there
to do some shows with fIREHOSE if I assembled a band,” says Newman, but after
he did so and conducted months of intensive practice, the gigs never
materialized, so the band’s entire performance career consisted of a single
brief opening set for Brave Combo at Liberty Lunch in 1990. Newman has no
interest in repeating the experience. With the Project existing as a break-even
endeavor at best, and no great piles of money coming in from the music, Newman
eventually tired of the whole ordeal, and sold all his musical equipment.
Ironically, Newman has become much more visible since giving up on the
Project. The G�nther CD has a wider circulation than any of his
previous works, his own music and his voluminous collection of obscure
compositions has made him a popular guest deejay on local public radio, and
through the magic of the Internet, he and wrestling promoter/dadaist musician
Zoogz Rift have become international superhighway terrorists, flooding the
Zappa newsgroups with loquacious, rambling diatribes about Dean Martin,
infuriating the readers of alt.music.alternative by pestering them with endless
anecdotes about Anthony Newley, and popping up in various sites asking for nude
photos of Richard Nixon. At last, Joe Newman is doing the things he likes to
do. And he’s still such a good, quiet neighbor. n
This article appears in June 16 • 1995 and June 16 • 1995 (Cover).