Bongwater
The Power of Pussy

The "Bongwater" were one of the most bizarre acts in the American underground.

The band was born from the union of two unique characters, namely the eclectic Mark Kramer, whose real name is Stephen Michael Bonner (ehm, my peer), founder of the independent label and talent aggregator out of the ordinary, the "Shimmy Disc", and the singer and also actress Ann Magnuson (two years older), daughter of a journalist and a lawyer, who after graduating in '78 went to New York where she worked as a DJ, performing in various shows, as well as singing in an all-female band, the "Pulsallama". She also found time to manage the "Club 57" (also frequented by the legendary Keith Haring), and she acted in several films including "Desperately Seeking Susan" and "The Hunger". In short, she is a sui generis artist who has skillfully and successfully navigated from cinema to underground rock.

The style of the "Bongwater" has been defined as psychedelic (a rather reductive term).

The term psychedelia now encompasses a vast field and if in the '60s it could be identified as a certain type of music with well-defined characteristics, over the years it has become a cauldron so wide as to include disparate and very different bands and groups, so its boundaries have become increasingly elusive and undefined, to the point of blending and coinciding with other genres ranging from post rock to techno music. For example, psychedelic already in the '90s were both the "Labradford” or "Neutral Milk Hotel” as well as "Orbital” or "Chemical Brothers”, hence the sound of the "Bongwater” remains a hybrid including deviated folk, realist abstractionism, arty Dadaism (all definitions found on the web) and last but not least psychedelia.

If we mean to speak of psychedelia in the strict sense, the figure of Mark Kramer fully embodies the concept: one could define him as a legacy of the flower power culture who has developed a talent that can be considered, ehm, musical renaissance outsider, in the sense that his particular skill is such that he manages to overturn and dabble in various musical genres with an approach similar to the universal artists of the Renaissance who could operate in multiple artistic disciplines.

The Magnuson finds herself with a voice very similar to a contralto and is a probable mix between Grace Slick, Nico & Laurie Anderson and she was a performer of very extravagant Dadaist pieces (among other things, it is said that she was also, ehm, a big 'grass smoker).

In short, the music of the "Bongwater” closely approaches the worlds of Uncle Frank and Captain Beefheart as well as the psychedelia of the "Jefferson Airplane”, and without too many upheavals, it combines popular genres like folk and raw lo-fi rock perhaps creating a new genre.

"Power of Pussy” is a rather explicit title, and it is their 3rd studio album (4th if considering the debut LP), after the 1st bizarre album, this is more of a treatise on sex with its social implications, and it is dominated by the charisma of Magnuson who comes from dadaist-surrealist cinema and theater. It is a grotesque transposition of claustrophobic alienation and the individual, and absurd social conventions.

The tracks have their own characteristics but overall, this album seems like a crossbreed between the "Jefferson Airplane” and "Frank Zappa” as already mentioned above.

En passant, here is a mini-analysis for each individual track (that is, the much-loved and hated track by track), bear with me ehm, there are only seventeen tracks but don't take them too literally:

In the opener "The Power of Pussy”, we hear a modulated female voice, then an electronic lo-fi hiss, after which a power-pop with psychedelic tones begins and we immediately perceive the farcical and ironic attitude in addressing the album's content, in this case, an apology for the ehm, pussy and its power.

In "Great Radio”, we find a message transmitted through the ether for a solemn and cosmic psychedelic rock, in which Magnuson comes close to Nico, while a guitar emits acidic and screeching cries.

"What Is?” is a track with surreal tones featuring a bass loop in the background accompanying a female voice.

"Kisses Sweater The Wine” is a cover of an old folk piece by the "Weavers” here reprised with a softly lysergic melody between banjo chords in the fashion of Pete Seeger and a vocal style reminiscent of British folk akin to the "Pentangle”.

In "Chicken Pussy”, Magnuson recites over Byrds-like notes of an ehm, lysergic guitar.

"White Rental Car Blues” is a suspended trip akin to a flight through clouds and female voices.

"Nick Cave Dolls” is satire on cosmic cavean pessimism. It begins with the sounds of telephone keyboards and vocalizing halfway between the tragicomic and the farcical, then kicks off into a tough psychedelic rock reminiscent of "Birthday Party” amid a feminine spoken word filled with existential angst.

"Bedazzled” is another cover (this time by Dudley Moore) with a sort of oriental-sounding flute that opens the track, which unfolds between a chorus and hypnotic keyboards in a pop melody.

In "Obscene & Pornographic Art”, we hear erotic and orgasmic sighs, on a sparse drum & bass base that veers into an absurd and obsessive rock.

In "Connie”, other female voices for a high-graduation heavy-psych-track.

"What Kind of Man Reads Playboy?” is the third cover (taken from the magnificent album "Bewitched” by Robert Fripp and Andy Summers ehm, practically they've ruined it) it could be an unlikely semi-erotic soundtrack for a b-movie with a lysergic guitar loop.

"I Need a New Tape” is ninety-nine seconds in the style of say, "Jefferson Airplane” in an ehm, orgasmicomusical ecstasy.

"Woman Tied up in Knots” is like a shock punk lo-fi.

"Junior” is an acid-rock with female voices in cataleptic pleasure.

"Mystery Hole” is a theatrical psychobilly with female voices.

"Time is Coming” is a tribal-lysergic pop with alien-like vocalizations.

"Folk Song” lasts 9 and a half minutes and closes the album starting with a country voice reminiscent of Emmylou Harris where the tone gradually becomes more anguished, like a lysergic folk madrigal, and there is even a background sample from "Roundabout” by Yes (protagonists of the English progressive), a piece of pure lysergic madness, which seems to be sung by an Emmylou Harris hybridized with Grace Slick, a true masterpiece stitched in psycho-folk.

What else to add if not the line-up, besides the aforementioned duo, Mark Kramer & Ann Magnuson on vocals, there are David Licht on drums and percussion, David Matthew Rick on guitar, and Peter Stampfel on banjo.

Dulcis in fundo, the album will be followed by a European tour, where the guitarist "Dogbowl” aka Stephen Tunney was involved, and that's it...