Dedicated to Bobby Jameson does what it says on the tin: each song is in its own way Ariel Pink’s ode to Bobby, the Britney Spears of the late ’sixties folk music scene. A Brian-Wilson-post-breakdown meets Charles-Manson-without-the-murder type of figure, Bobby was groomed to be the next big folk idol but, after a spectacular fall from grace, became instead a Hollywood freak and flower-power remnant roaming the soured Los Angeles of the early ’seventies. Missing and assumed dead for thirty-odd years afterwards, Jameson resurfaced on YouTube this decade with both old recordings and new tirades about the industry that sold him out.
It’s easy to see why Ariel Pink, the weirdo who made it (but still appears to walk that knife-edge of virtuosity and madness), might be drawn to Bobby’s Thomas Pychon-esque tale of drugs, madness and toxic celebrity set against the dying dream of the ’sixties. Pink’s particular brand of woozy, bitter disco (‘Acting’) and lush stoner prettiness (‘Just Like Heaven’ and the gorgeously Pink-ish ‘Kitchen Witch’) make for the perfect vehicle to pay homage to Bobby, from the sarcastically saccharine ‘Bubblegum Dreams’ in the mode of Jameson’s early Monkees-era career to the crazed, uneasy funk of ‘Death Patrol’ and deceptively taut punk of ‘Revenge of the Iceman’ that bring the image of the fallen folk star all too evocatively to mind. Ariel Pink has found a fitting muse in Bobby Jameson, and the success of this album is a testament to the talent of both artists.
