I was vaguely following what Devandra Benhardwas doing at one point, like may be 5 years ago and I enjoyed some of his tunes. ‘Nino Rojo’ (2004) has a lot of lovely songs and for example ‘At the Hop’ is a cute one. I know little about him but he seems to have that unique and original side, a totally out of the box character who would, paradoxically, borrow from many artists and periods. He also has a thing going on for animals, especially for insects and birds, since in his world, there are the ‘Little Yellow Spider,’ the ‘Insect Eyes,’ the ‘Little Monkey,’ the ‘Owl Eyes,’ the ‘Little Sparrow,’ the ‘Queen Bee,’ the ‘Lazy Butterfly’, the ‘Bluebird,’ the ‘Dragonflys’… Did I forget any? His genre is a little surreal, weird and haunted by nature, with sometimes lyrics as direct as ‘Here’s what we believe/It’s simple/We don’t want to kill.’ His flower child resurrected look is a bit much at times, but he seems not taking himself too seriously and that is refreshing.
I saw him once in LA and he let people get on stage, playing his songs with his guitar, a free spirit in his total glory. The long hair and beard, the outfit and everything seemed real on stage. Despite some odd pictures, somehow this deviant hippie with an exhibitionist side, not even afraid to show his pubic fringe, became a cult figure, a sex symbol for some.
Devandra’s new video ‘Foolin’’ is a happy reggae/ska song and Devendra has pushed the foolin’ way beyond what I thought by just listening to the lyrics, oh my! Sadomasochism, lot of whipping, finger cutting, blood lipstick, tears, this is a whole new level of weirdness! I should probably have followed him closely to see that coming.
I’m not sure what his intentions are, is he just paying homage to pulp films by creating a Tarantino’s leftover dream? Does he just want to disturb conventional people with his little perverse gay loving video? At least it’s funny, and he should never been taken seriously, after all he is a guy who has a song about a schizophrenic hermaphrodite (his saying).