Franklin Avenue

Rock Over London, Rock On Chicago!
I'm sad to learn that Chicago legend Wesley Willis has died.

Who was Wesley Willis? Let's let the website www.monzy.org describe:

Wesley Willis is 6 foot 5, weighs between 300 and 350 pounds, and likes to greet people with a headbutt. Shortly after he made his first album, he was diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia, and he now claims to have "schizophrenia demons" in his head that take him off of his "harmony joy rides" to put him on "torture hell rides".

He lived on the streets of Chicago, homeless, selling his city landscape line drawings and playing music on his late 80's Casio keyboard from K-Mart. After saving for a while, he pulled together the money to cut a few albums, and suddenly his musical career took off. Willis was "discovered", and is now an artist under Dino Paredes and the major record label American Recordings. He has released at least 20 albums as a solo artist and with his punk rock band, the Wesley Willis Fiasco, and has over 400 songs in circulation.

You might think that fame and riches would have spoiled Willis, but this isn't the case at all. The background music in nearly all of his songs is still provided by the same demos on his Casio keyboard. You may find it rather lazy of him to use the keyboard's built-in music, but this isn't the case either -- Willis makes sure to press the "fill-in" button at regular intervals. Besides, the focus of Willis' compositions is not on the cheesy synth music, but on the lyrics. Just so that you can get an idea of Willis' lyrical genius, let's take a look at the words to one of his most popular songs, "Alanis Morissette":

You are a rockin' maniac.
You are a singin' hyena.
You are a rock star in Jesus' name.
You can really rock Sadam Hussein's ass.
You are so lovable to me in the long run.
ALANIS MORISSETTE!
ALANIS MORISSETTE!
ALANIS MORISSETTE!
ALANIS MORISSETTE!


Wesley would even end every song with a different ad slogan -- such as "Leinenkugel Beer-- It's Out There!" and "Kentucky Fried Chicken -- We do Chicken Right!" He put out literally hundreds of CDs during his lifetime, all emblazoned with his art (usually of the Chicago skyline and "El").
We used to play Wesley's music on WNUR (Wesley was big in the mid-90s) -- and I had the pleasure of meeting Wesley several times, where I always received a head butt from him (ow, it was painful. He's a big guy.)

I've also seen him perform at a party, as he played his Casio and went through his notebook for lyrics. At the end of the night, he even asked around for a ride home.

Wesley, you'll always rock Saddam Hussein's ass.