Sittin’ back on a Saturday afternoon watching Urgh! A Music War, and there’s Klaus Nomi singing Total Eclipse in his vinyl cartoon tuxedo. What a performer. Somewhere I have a copy of Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video, on which he performs an opera piece while dressed in a weird transparent cone-thing.
You should check out The Nomi Song, a recent docuemtary about him the Sundance channel or IFC recently showed. It shows all kinds of cool clips, including the one where he backed Bowie on SNL with Bowie in a skirt looking very Janet Reno like. That is, if havent seen it already.
Ah, the man who could make Bowie look like a big square. What a freaking freak.
I saw that SNL when it aired. I became aware of Klaus Nomi soon after (from a REAL PEOPLE episode), but I never put the two together till I saw THE NOMI SONG.
THE NOMI SONG is one of the few worthwhile things I’ve seen on Sundance.
Ironically, the most airplay Klaus got a decade ago was when Rush Limbaugh used his “You Don’t Own Me” and “Lightning Strikes” as regular intro songs to Gay Rights stories.