Bio
Recently inducted into the Smithsonian Institute’s Archives of American Art, artist/musician THE DARK BOB has made a notable contribution to the worlds of conceptual art and the alternative music scene dating back to the mid-1970’s. In his 9th studio album, The Dark Bob delivers a bold, innovative and courageous tribute album celebrating, pondering and occasionally even criticizing visual artists both renown and obscure. The result is a genre blurring, 26 song double album boasting contributions from many of LA’s favorite musicians including Nels Cline (of Wilco), Dave Alvin, Peter Case, Syd Straw, DJ Bonebrake (of “X”) along with studio wizards Marty Rifkin (Bruce Springsteen, Dolly Parton, Glenn Campbell and more) and Danny Frankel (Lou Reed, kd lang, Beck, Laurie Anderson and more).
The Dark Bob is a widely acknowledged pioneer of conceptual and performance art and has toured his multi media shows throughout the United States while also exhibiting his artworks internationally. His drawings are in many public collections including the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and The Getty Museum. He even holds the unique distinction of having his first solo album, One Bob Job (1980), in the permanent collection of Museum of Modern Art in New York.
His music has been produced and distributed by PolyGram/Polydor Records, High Performance Records, the San Francisco Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and his own label, M.I.T.B. Records.
For decades, his songs and soundtracks have been included in films, TV shows and live performances and his short films and videos were a staple in avant gard film and video festivals around the world.
He is currently preparing for a retrospective exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of Bob & Bob, the infamous conceptual and multimedia art team he co founded in 1975. Bob & Bob’s work has also been honored with a previous induction into the Smithsonian Institute’s Archives of American Art.
This makes The Dark Bob a rare two-time inductee into the Smithsonian’s distinguished and globally revered collection!
FROM THE PRESS
To describe The Dark Bob as an artist or an entertainer doesn’t begin to tell the story of what he does, but it will do as a beginning. A freewheeling combination of Will Rogers, Marcel Duchamp and David Bowie, The Dark Bob embraces pop culture at the same time that he parodies it.
-Kristine McKenna, author, critic Los Angeles Times
There is no category of artist, which fully describes the Dark Bob. To his roots he is a painter. Yet he is also a musician, media-manipulator, a model-actor, a producer, a bag-lady, a fledgling saint, a sybarite, a filmmaker and a clown. His palette is the public’s electronic consciousness.
-Lewis MacAdams, High Performance Magazine
The Dark Bob is as much a staple of The L.A. alternative scene as anybody or anything that breathes smog and sings. But he’s not just any songster, mind you, but one who has always sung from the gut about gut wrenching stuff – be it the pain o’ love, the insanity o’ the world, or more arcane (if no less touching) topics – and who has drawn on an apparently bottomless well of musical styles and abilities.
-Peter Frank, LA Weekly
Compelling! The Dark Bob has an open sensibility with a neat sense of the ironic, the witty and the lunatic. That’s apparently what it takes to make it through our times.
-Mike Steele, Minneapolis Star and Tribune
The Dark Bob has opted for passion over distanced irony, emotional intensity over conceptual cool with a deeply appealing, romantic idealism and a popular appeal because of his undaunted optimism and his belief in people. He has been dubbed a modern tribal voice for a global family.
-Jacki Apple, LA Weekly
His music is as hybrid as his stage persona. Middle Eastern chants, country western music and avant guard mannerisms are tied together by Brian Ferry-esque vocals that owe as much to the pathos of Merle Haggard and the crooning powers of Dean Martin as to the strident edge of the Clash.
-Colin Gardner, Santa Monica Evening Outlook
There is a combination of sensitivity and romance in DB’s performance of this material that is utterly gripping.
-Linda Frye Burnham, High Performance Magazine
The Dark Bob makes intense music that draws from myriad schools – country, rock, Middle Eastern, surf, avant-garde, industrial, and more – and comes up with a fascinating hybrid…you should listen.
-Natalie Nichols, L.A.WEEKLY
The Dark Bob is one of the Big Orange’s premier crossover mix master’s and a staple of the L.A. alternative art scene. His shows are notable for their emphasis on wit, narrative bent and his comfort with musical, verbal and theatrical reference. That’s PERFOTAINMENT!
-Peter Frank, LA Weekly
…witty…often riveting…something for everyone.
-Philip Brandes, Los Angeles Times
THE DARK ALBUM, by seminal Los Angeles performance artist The Dark Bob, delivers an astonishing 23 song mash-up of musical styles that explores themes of remorse, renewal and redemption in a tour de force performance.
-Harvey Kubernik, Record Collector News
Above all else, The Dark Bob is a storyteller, and every facet of his songs come together to create a narrative; the abiding subject of his stories is love, in all it’s permutations, and the dark forces that threaten it.
-Denise Sullivan, music critic and author
Prophet, poet or performance artist? One of the brightest lights I’m aware of shines through an artist who calls himself The Dark Bob.
-Cindy Lamb, LA Weekly
Performance artist The Dark Bob stylishly crossed over into the role of pop singer.
-Gregg Weger, Los Angeles Times
Inspired by influences diverse as Robert Rauschenberg, Dean Martin and Spiderman, The Dark Bob’s style recalls the musical stylings of the incredibly strange variety (think of Esquivel, Elvis and Ennio Morricone turned inside out).
-Denise Sullivan, author, music critic, The San Francisco Examiner
The Dark Bob is a clone of none and follows in the footsteps of all… to create a blend of shock with controversy that is all wrapped up as entertainment.
-Greg Crawford, Philadelphia Tribune, The Perry Weekly
Multi-layered…full of treats and surprises. And the amazing thing is, that in these freaked out days, I can listen to The Dark Bob and feel unafraid – ah, art!
-Laura Weber, Vinyl Magazine
For a person interested in seeing how a broad range of musical styles from around the world can be merged, this a buy, no question.
-Ben Baker, Indie-Music.com
“The Dark Bob deals with two drives, one is the need to have fun, the other is the responsibility to act against human suffering. The Dark Bob is polished at manipulating both these drives. Bob becomes Super Bob, Caped Comedian, Savior of the Human Spirit!
-G.P. Meyer, Music Connection
A captivating listen. Strong yet vulnerable vocals by Dark Bob spiced with lovelorn world-weary crooning. These tracks pack a lot of clout when all’s said and done. Recommended.
-Doppelganger, Land of Caterwauls Reviews