Jun 032008
Here’s a role-playing exercise for creative, self-aware Townspeople: Watch the following by obscure yet cheesy, foreign artist from the early 1970s, Sharif Dean, and take the role of a hipster critic who is trying to make a mark for him- or herself by lauding this artist before any other hipster critic stumbles upon him. Feel free to coin a new genre for what this artist is doing. Use hyphenated adjectives. Whatever. The goal is to elevate your standing among hipster critics and to inspire a wave of modern-day artists to follow in the footsteps of this groundbreaking, visionary artist!
Ready…set…go!
See, what you don’t understand is that before Sharif was on the scene, NOBODY ate a woman’s flowers! Nowadays, you see guys like Thom Yorke, or Davendra Banhart, and they’ve got they’re head in the bouquet…where do you think they got that..?
I’ll tell ya where…Sharif Dean.
This guy took what Englbert and Tom Jones were doing and used it as a departure point-went outlaw with it. I once read a story about B.J. Thomas being afraid to go home for days on end. Turns out Sharif was hiding in the bushes waiting for him with a knife. You don’t see that kind of valor in today’s singers.
Without playing the video, just looking at the still frame…that better not be Shatner.
Nice work, Kilroy!
Alexmagic, Shatner wishes this was Shatner.
I’m speechless. I watched to the end and assumed it was a parody till I followed up on youtube. Wow.
The flower-eating part is as shocking as a scene from a David Lynch movie, or Un Chien Andalou (sp?).
On the surface a seething cauldron of pure masculine energy, Sharif Dean was in fact the fulfillment of Lee Hazlewood’s Great Vision: that the spiritual energy that drove all of civilization was both Man and, crucially, un-Man (or “Phaedra”). His lyrics were hypnotic, near-shamanistic syntheses of love, desire, forgiveness and bisexuality, long before these topics became part of the cultural mainstream. Even today, the Sharif Dean cult is considered revolutionary. His most ardent followers, mostly old men now, are known as “the Flower Eaters,” and they strive to physicalize his philosophy of “sexual internalization” by literally consuming artefacts of femininity: flowers, lipstick, lingerie, and so forth. The recent discovery of videos showcasing vintage performances by Dean, accompanied by his priestess, “Mirror” (aka “Sharifa”), and various Flower-Eaters, has heightened interest in this once obscure musical figure and his remarkable sex cult.
Based on Hrrundi’s description, I need to track down some of this guy’s albums!
Good luck. Dean was Turkish, and they only released his *one* album (“Deep, Deep Inside Me”) in that country. Once people figured out what the record was mostly about, it was yanked off the shelves, and most copies were destroyed by the authorities. Nobody knows where the master tapes are — in fact, nobody knows where Dean is! Anyhow, the albums now fetch well over $400 or so on eBay, and that number is only likely to go up. You can find the odd track or two online, but that’s about it.
BTW, Jack White is said to be a huge fan.
Man, if you don’t know about Sharif Dean by now, I don’t know what I can do to help you.
But seriously, I’m glad to see that Zack de la Rocha and Jason Alexander (respectively) are keeping busy.
thurston and kim took alot from Sharif.
Dean’s work is an obvious influence in their “dirty” phase.