Born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, but raised in the UK, clever and quirky singer/songwriter Cosmo Jarvis has justly earned enthusiastic attention and increased airplay in Britain, thanks to viral videos and singles like the bittersweet "Gay Pirates" off of his second album, Is The World Strange Or Am I Strange?, out now on 25th Frame/The End Records.
Touted on NPR's fall music preview, Jarvis, real name Harrison Cosmo Krikoryan Jarvis, has a wildly eclectic fanbase of folks like Brian Eno, Stephen Fry and Kylie Minogue, all drawn to his loquacious, smart and undeniably unique mesh of funk, reggae, agit-folk, punk, rap and soft rock.
The Alternate Side asked the 22-year-old singer, who is also an actor, producer and filmmaker, to report back on his three-gig CMJ Music Marathon experience last month, which involved buskers, the Beatles and the rediscovery of bad habits:
Cosmo Jarvis' CMJ blog:
All in all I had three shows at CMJ in New York. I can't remember how long I was in New York, but there sure are a lot of people.
Besides spending all my time pissing and moaning to nobody who gave a s**t about how the quality of the shows would be raped by the 100W line 6 amps I knew my band and I would be using, I think that the CMJ trip was a success, in that shows were indeed played.
Navigation of the city was a task I would have liked to have mastered, but didn't have the time. I met a bunch of very nice guys and ate large quantities of food. I even temporarily started smoking again, despite swearing to myself I wouldn't due to diabetic complications.
It was good to be in New York though. I only saw a few other bands and didn't much like any of them. The best music I saw at CMJ was this busker guy in the subway with an acoustic guitar and a vocal harmonizer sitting on a P.A., triggering drum samples with his feet in perfect time. He had built a rig that meant he could sound like 80s power rock on his own. He was doing fast Beatles covers and my band and me were stunned, the guy was amazing.
