R. Stevie Moore

Robert Steven Moore (born January 18, 1952) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter who pioneered lo-fi (or "DIY") music. Often called the "godfather of home recording", he is one of the most recognized artists of the cassette underground, and his influence is particularly felt in the bedroom and hypnagogic pop artists of the post-millennium. Since 1968, he has self-released approximately 400 albums, while about three dozen official albums (largely compilations) have been issued on various labels. Born the son of Nashville A-Team bassist Bob Moore, Steven grew up in the 1960s listening to the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Mothers of Invention, and Jimi Hendrix. In his teens, he acquired access to a reel-to-reel stereo tape deck and began recording as a one-man band in his parents' home. The innovative manipulation of low fidelity recording processes in his early albums defined his general aesthetic. With help from his uncle, he made his official label debut with 1976's compilation Phonography, which was well received in New York's punk and new wave circles. Although he is best known for "'60s-inspired power pop in the XTC vein," his body of work incorporates a variety of music genres, both popular and experimental, and his records are typically styled after freeform radio. He describes his prolific output as "a diary of sound". From 1978 until 2010, Moore lived and recorded in his apartment studios in northern New Jersey. He was also a WFMU staff member for a number of years. In 1982, he launched the R. Stevie Moore Cassette Club, his home-based mailing service. Throughout the 1980s, the French label New Rose released a series of Moore vinyl albums: Everything (1984), Glad Music (1986), Teenage Spectacular (1987), and Warning (1988). After the 2000s, he became better known for his associations with Ariel Pink, who frequently praised Moore as his "mentor". Robert Steven Moore was born in Nashville, Tennessee on January 18, 1952. His father, Bob Moore (1932 – 2021), was a session musician associated with the Nashville A-Team conglomerate who worked as a recording bassist for Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison, George Jones, Chet Atkins, and Bob Dylan. Steven characterized his father as a "terrible" parent and said that "It was a very intense, dramatic, abusive childhood, with all this money coming in, because he's doing these amazing historical sessions. It's very, very sad. He was very disappointed in me because I was not a get-up-and-go type." At the age of seven, Steven made his commercial recording debut singing a duet with country recording artist Jim Reeves, "But You Love Me, Daddy". The novelty song was withheld from commercial release until 1969, when it became a hit single in the UK on the RCA Victor label. Moore's mother Betty Palmer was from Paterson, New Jersey. I'm all about diversity. Freeform radio show. The Beatles White Album. ... I definitely had no "plan" to rush and become known as the very first modern DIY pioneer. "Self-contained innovator" — yes, but not satisfied to be content as merely that. — R. Stevie Moore As a teenager, Moore became proficient on guitar, bass, piano, and drums. He was self-taught. In 1966, he and a few high-school friends formed a short-lived rock combo called the Marlborough. His recordings in this period were heavily influenced by the Mothers of Invention's albums Freak Out! (1966) and We're Only in It for the Money (1967). He found particular inspiration from albums that are "just all over the map … Zappa leaned into parody, and I'm all about that. I love humor." On his 16th birthday, he received a four-track reel-to-reel tape deck and began recording as a one-man band set up in his parents' basement in suburban Madison. The first album he completed and self-released was a mixture of Beatles-inspired songs and sound collages titled On Graycroft (1968). Much of his output, he later said, was "uncontrollable—compelled without compulsion. I didn't seek out to do this. It just came out of me. I had this music inside of me and I wanted to be a pop star. It was like a disease that I had to record and write." Over the years he would describe himself as "a huge record collector and music historian" with interests ranging from beatnik and avant-garde to noise and jazz: "I love attempts at all genres and styles – even if I fail. It doesn't matter." "You Can't Write a Song" from Stevie Moore Often (1975) Excerpt from what AllMusic reviewer Stewart Mason calls one of "the first in a long series of quirky but immediately catchy, falsetto-sung songs that would quickly become one of Moore's trademarks." Problems playing this file? See media help. Moore began working as a studio musician and assistant at his father's music publishing company, Mimosa Music. His father expected him to "follow in his footsteps, to become a wealthy country session picker. My personal interests couldn't have been more opposite than that." He briefly attended Vanderbilt University, but dropped out in 1971 to pursue his passions for writing, recording and performing music. That same year, he moved out of his parents' house and rented an apartment at the Music Row area in Nashville. He formed a close friendship with next-door neighbor Victor Lovera, who he called "one of my best friends and ... very influential for my songwriting." Victor Lovera died in 1998. Throughout the early 1970s, Moore continued to play local shows with a group of high-school friends whose band name changed frequently. His music tastes—which mainly encompassed artists like the Beach Boys, the Move, Frank Zappa, and Todd Rundgren—were mostly out of step with the prevailing music culture in Nashville. In 1973, Moore, Lovera, and friends Roger Ferguson and Billy Anderson recorded original material at the local Audio Media recording studio under the band name "Ethos", which was left unreleased at the time. Engineer Paul Whitehead remembered of those sessions: "Moore [would] perform on ANY instrument with total control and an energy that I have never witnessed in a studio. I thought the world of Victor's unique vocal sound and thought the two of them would be wildly successful, but as I told them they would have to move to New York to even get noticed." In 1975, Moore was commissioned by his uncle Harry "H.P." Palmer (an executive of Atco Records) to record an album of Beatles instrumentals, Stevie Does the Beatles, but plans for an official release fell through. Palmer continued to encourage Moore to put his music out, and in 1976, Phonography was Moore's first album to be released on an outside label (Palmer's HP Music). Technically a compilation, the LP was assembled by Palmer using material from Moore's previous two years of home recording, with its contents split between pop songs and spoken-word interludes. Its initial pressing was limited to 100 copies. Phonography was reviewed in New York's Trouser Press as "an outrageous collection of musical brain spewage" and "a true slash of genius". Moore credits the review's author, Ira Robbins, as "the one who helped turn people on to Phonography and those early independent records." The album soon attracted praise from within New York's punk and new wave circles. HP Music followed up with the EP Stance (recorded 1976–77) and the LP Delicate Tension (recorded 1976–78), both released 1978. Dominique Leone of Pitchfork wrote that Phonography and other albums from this time ultimately "defined his aesthetic: a mixture of Anglo-powered pop, Zappa-esque instrumentals, lo-fi experimental sound design, and other music that defies categorization." Phonography later became the best-known album of his career and was listed among "the fifty most significant indie records" in Rolling Stone's Alt-Rock-A-Rama (1996). In February 1978, Moore relocated to Montclair, New Jersey and got a job working at a Sam Goody record store in Livingston, where he remained for many years. According to him,