music

art

fashion

blog

film

(posted 6/4/04)

Tacky is the brain child of one Jebediah Farklicky aka william Ellingsworth. The Kansas City native has been making his own peculiar brand of skroky electro pop since he first picked up (and accidently dropped) a guitar at age 6. The resulting clatter was dubbed "Love song in F Flat" and became a small regional hit on his street and surrounding neighborhood. After mastering drums and dropping out of high school by the age 13, he lived communally with a skater punk band Typhoid Mary and was soon named one of the original St louise 7, a band of transvestite skate punks known for burning down old churches By 18 he had started his own massive noise band in the Throbbing Gristle mold, Organized static, and achieved massive success on a very minute scale. One live show apperently boasted 7 diffrent spectators, 3 of which were not even employees of the club, Filthy Jack's Boogy Shack. The next couple of years are laregly disputed. Some say he worked as a roadie and personal massuer for the Flaming Lips, during which time he learned how to injest every illegal substance known to man. Others claim he spent time in the Far East as a Buddhist monk/fucktoy. Still others say he attempted to start the first man-on-man brothel in Missouri with a few elderly investors-it was apparently only in business three days befor being fire bombed, that is if it exsisted at all. During this time Jes developed a sick fascination with crude noise: ambient noise, environmental noize, planes passing over, cars passing by, can's being poptopped, high heels clomping, amp buzz, fridge hum, fart trickle-anything and everything became fodder for the ever evolving trashcan symphony in his mind. By age 24 Jes hooked up with St. Louise shit rockers, Dead Meat, who were annoyingly ruthless in their aural dissection of the most primitive impulses of truckdrivers and priests. In reality they were like a cross between GG Allin and spinal tap. (i realize this seems redundant), and released more limited albums than the number of people that had actually heard of them. This mega elitist release schedule earned them reams of respect by those tastemakers in the highest eschelons of the sub underground strata. This, along with worsening drug abuse of the members, surreal images of costumed crackheads stepping through a gigantic vagina on stage, and the quasi ritual ODing of the lead singer on stage as he was brained with a guitar proved too damaging for jes' fragile psyche. his time in 'the Meat' was over. By then, Ellingsworth had amassed an impressive collection of stolen albums and shitty fidelity mp3's by bands or "musical outlaws" with imposeing names like Whitehouse, Orthrelm, Nurse With Wound, kraftwerk (pre-disco), the Pop Group, This Heat, and the Slits, which inspired him to keep making "music" with or without his camrades. As were many in the free world, Ellingsworth also found himself wholly immersed in the neo funk/r&b pop mastery of recent albums by Justin Timberlake and Missy Elliot, both produced with hiphop golden boy, Timberland. Jes had no and to this day, has no formal musical training, but his vision knows no bounds. Around this time he also began writing screenplays and making short films inspired by his love for Samuel Fuller, Ed Wood, Ron Jeremy, and Russ Meyer. Enter the present day and Tacky, the two piece art disco funk party is the culmination of Jes' 'Kung Fu' like exploitation of the world which even took him to the bay area in California ("The West is the Best"- Jim Morrison) where he befriended, kidnapped and eventually wooed a young aspiring fashion designer named Regan Smith to join in his eventual musical conquest of all mankind. Tacky is not like the name. Tacky is sexy, rambunctious, funktacious and most of all darker than the inside of a donkeys rectum. Jes sums it up best. "Im trying to create a kind of Whitehouse meets Justin Timberlake vibe for the live sound. Like "death pop" with 3d slide shows, dancing, lights, soulful vocals, showmanship, revolutionary 'Fuck Da Man!' vocals, using turn tables, samplers, guitars, drum machines, musical toys from the dollar store, guitar pedals, sampling kids albums and christian records and even Perry Como. Its all sort of in the vein of mocking by rocking" Tacky is fo' rizzle (as posted by Dr. Yertly Manteetnees, comfort Texas)