The Jimi Homeless Experience

 

 

Parody Albums & Live Stage Show

On August 23, 2007, I released a full length CD of parody songs I had written and produced, all inspired by a webcomic I had been publishing for a year or so. The first CD by The Jimi Homeless Experience was released on the exact day of the 40th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’ first album release Are You Experienced, my Are You Homeless? features “Weird Al” Yankovic-styled parodies of some of Hendrix’ biggest hits. In 2009 a follow-up EP was released featuring a parody of the Hendrix hit “Red House” and a heavy blues/rock cover of the classic blues song “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”. Various lineups of the band have been playing live at venues all over Southern CA. since 2007. In the latest incarnation, I am playing the part of Jimi.

 

[click to read comix]

Stop Motion Animation and Webcomic

On March 6, 2008, I was honored as the first “featured animator” on MyToons.com, which was a brand new YouTube-styled website specifically geared for 2-D and 3-D animation. My stop-motion clay animation which caught the site’s attention parodied Jimi Hendrix’ key performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. The piece features a fictional character named Jimi Homeless who first appeared in a series of webcomics published as The Jimi Homeless Experience (webcomic). The webcomics were written by me and drawn by my friend and underground cartoonist known only as Big Tasty.

 

Jimi Clay Animation #2

Charlie Manson’s Spahn Ranch Dressing

This was one of my crazier ideas, and like most, it started out as a simple joke. A friend and I were working on a screenplay for a comedy film called, “Six Million Dollar Manson” — Charlie Manson is in prison and his limbs get caught in a license plate pressing machine, the doctors rush in to save him and give him bionic arms and legs… you get the gist. Anyway, I came up with the idea that he should be running a business out of his cell in his spare time, making salad dressing called “Spahn Ranch Dressing”, which sells like hotcakes to his weirdo fans, eventually spawning an industry of commercial products made by incarcerated serial killers. One thing led to another and I began looking into ways I could manufacture and distribute this salad dressing in the real world. Eventually, I decided against it, but not before making some funny commercials for the product. I put these up on YouTube and wound up getting more than 120,000 views on them.

Savage Religion

Singles; A Short Drive / Flown Too High

In 1989 I co-produced Switchblade Symphony’s very first studio recording for a compilation album on my own label. The LP featured 10 of the best industrial/goth bands based in San Francisco at the time. The song “Mine Eyes” was key to Switchblade Symphony being signed to Cleopatra Records. I had a knock down, drag out with my one-time partner and old “friend” from high school, who wound up ripping me off and stealing away with the recordings (no contract between friends, of course).

Undaunted, I formed an industrial band of my own. I moved into a roommate situation with the keyboard player in the Mission District, S.F. and set out to write and record an album of original songs. There were two local bands we were in direct competition with, trying to outdo each other with the darkest/strongest content. Lyrically (my lyrics) and musically we were soon kicking ass.

In early 1990, we released a demo version of an industrial song entitled “Septic Think Tank ” which was played in several well-known clubs and was in heavy rotation on college radio stations KUSF, KFJC, & KZSU in the San Francisco bay area. We wrote more than 3 dozen songs for our band “World of Hurt” in less than a year, we recorded demos and shopped them around but never got signed. Two songs were eventually done in the studio under a new name “Savage Religion” but disagreements about the direction of the band led to us throwing in the towel (Savage Religion singles are available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify).

Here’s a sample of the type of lyrics I was writing for this band project. I’ve been working, on and off, on a film script using the songs as a guide for a story… sort of like a dark version of Tommy, by The Who.

KILL OR BE KILLED
(lyrics by JFKinyon)

VIOLENCE RULES THE WORLD
DON’T BE DECEIVED.
GIVE IT JUST AS FREELY
AS YOU HAVE RECEIVED.

IT IS BUT A CHOICE
OF WHOSE BLOOD IS SPILLED.
THE LAW OF NATURE
IS KILL OR BE KILLED.

DON’T DRAW BACK FROM
THE BEAST WITHIN.
SIT BACK ENJOY THE RIDE
AS HE TAKES YOU FOR A SPIN.

IN HIM ALL YOUR DREAMS
SHALL BE FULFILLED.
THE LAW OF NATURE
IS KILL OR BE KILLED.

THE TIME OF VENGEANCE
IS LONG PAST DUE.
DO UNTO OTHERS
AS THEY’VE DONE UNTO YOU.

IT IS BUT A CHOICE
OF WHOSE BLOOD IS SPILLED.
THE LAW OF NATURE
IS KILL OR BE KILLED.

RAPED OF INNOCENCE
AT YOUR REQUEST.
THE ERRORS OF YOUR WAY
ARE MADE MANIFEST.

LEFT TO YOUR DEVICES
JUMP AT ANY CHANCE.
TO REDEEM YOURSELF
TO TAKE A FINAL STANCE.

Schoolbus Dave!

Cover of Issue 1 – Sept. 1985

Schoolbus Dave may or may not be based on someone I knew in high school. The poor guy had been hit by a school bus when he was a kid and every time he smoked pot he got an acute headache, which he associated with “good pot”; the more pain, the better the pot.  A friend (who wishes to remain anonymous) wrote lyrics for “Schoolbus Dave Blues” around the time we graduated. A couple years later I recorded the song, adding a couple verses of my own. While I was at it, I wrote and recorded 3 other songs… I had the idea of making a comic book to go along with the songs.

It took me a couple months to finish the comic. I printed up a few dozen of them and put them in the popular Comics & Comix store in Palo Alto. Each comic came with a cassette tape of songs. I sold about a dozen of them before the rest were lost in a fire inside the store. So ended the Schoobus Dave endeavor.

SCHOOLBUS DAVE BLUES

STOP! STOP! I CRIED
TO TEN TONS OF YELLOW STEEL.
WHICH SMACKED MY HEAD
BEFORE THE BRAKES SQUEALED.

LETS GET HIGH MAN
MY HEAD IS THE SPLITZ.
DOES IT HURT YOU TOO
WHEN YOU TAKE BONG HITS?

IT HURTS RIGHT HERE
I CAN FEEL THIS PAIN WAVE.
I GUESS THAT IT’S CLEAR
WHY I’M SCHOOLBUS DAVE.

DRIVING IN A STOLEN CAR
THRU A RED LIGHT WITH NO BRAKES.
I FLEW OUT THE DOOR AT IMPACT
AND AGAIN MY HEAD SCRAPES.

LETS GET HIGH MAN
CUZ I AIN’T HAD ENOUGH.
DON’T BELIEVE ME?
JUST CALL MY BLUFF.

I’LL SMOKE THIS STUFF
TO MY DEATHBED.
GIVE ME ANOTHER HIT
UPSIDE OF MY HEAD.

ETC. ETC.