The Return of the Homosexuals’ Grand Wizard
by Jonathan
Wow! Heads up! Bruno Aleph Wizard, that’s right, the legendary Bruno from the Rejects and the Homosexuals is performing at Cake Shop tonight. If you’re not familiar with important figure in modern music or his work, now’s as good a time as any to get acquainted…
While the Rejects are historically important as one of Britain’s better seminal class of 1976 punk bands, Bruno’s next project after breaking up the band the next year, The Homosexuals, was a deliberate attempt to rebel against the punk vogue of the time - thereby making them one of the first, if not the first, British band of what would soon be labeled the “post-punk.”
Attempting to distance themselves from the punk mainstream that was making their peers rock stars and commodities, and deeply influenced by African and Jamaican sounds as well as more experimental art and music, the Homosexuals designed self-consciously non-accessible un-commercial quirky pop music that, despite its rhythmic shifts, odd harmonies, angularity, and generally unconventional approach, would up surprisingly catchy, balanced, and full-bodied. Generally speaking, they made the Clash sound like Paul Simon, Wire like the Alan Parsons Project, and Gang of Four like KC and the Sunshine Band. They were perhaps closer to Crass politically, This Heat musically, and Swell Maps aesthetically.
Bruno promises to at least be uncompromising at the least, and a real life-changer at best. Tonight he’ll be backed by Dot-Dash Tom’s art punk band Imaginary Icons.
Bruno Wizard and the Imaginary Icons perform at Cake Shop tonight (details here)
