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recordsandrambling · 7 years

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Alex Cameron: The Tommy Wiseau of Indie Pop?

On June 27, 2003, the best bad movie of all-time, The Room, forever changed the landscape of cult cinema. Due to its plot holes, abandoned story lines, and inexplicable wardrobe changes, the film is an enigma to most viewers. But to writer, director and actor Tommy Wiseau, it was a masterpiece. (Or rather, according to James Franco’s upcoming adaption of The Room’s background story and filming, a disasterpiece).

Yet what the film failed to deliver in coherent narrative, it made up for in ridiculous dialogue and a memorably puzzling lead performance by Wiseau himself. The man became an slow burning icon, reaching peak notoriety thanks to Adult Swim April Fool’s viewings and YouTube hits. As of now, he is the face of the cult following of bad films.

Wiseau’s character, Johnny, is noticeably an extension of how he sees himself: “handsome,” successful, and loved. But as a consequence of this, its hard to distinguish where Johnny ends and Wiseau begins. In interviews, Wiseau speaks with the same inflection and uncomfortable cheesiness as his film counterpart, to the point where you’re not so sure whether or not Johnny is just a character anymore.

Enter Alex Cameron, a singer and songwriter from Sydney, Australia with a penchant for over-the-top musical creations. His album Forced Witness was recently released on September 8, 2017 and consists of 10 crisp, to-the-point pop tunes chock full of lyrical and musical cliches reminiscent of the 1980s.

Thumping bass propels many of the songs as synthesizers, keyboards and guitars pepper the air around his smooth voice with vibrant melodies to the driving beat of powerful drum leads. The occasional sexy saxophone line cements Cameron as a genius of nostalgia; each song feels like what being young and in love was like when my parents were in high school.

Except with a twist.

The songs are rarely as rosy as I’m making them sound. In the destined-to-be-hit-single “Runnin’ Outta Luck,” Cameron croons about being in love again, a simple enough concept. But the chorus reveals that the character is actually on the road with a former stripper, blood dripping from his knuckles and he tries to escape from some sort of questionable past. The title suddenly seems more literal. The unlikely pair are running from something, and presumably will not see positive things on the road head (especially after the chorus’s revelation that they have stolen money in the trunk).

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The lyrical topics become more ridiculous as the tracklist fist-pumps and head-bobs forward. Cameron despairs over a woman he met on the Internet that might be a Nigerian guy (”True Lies”). He laments about waiting for a teenager to turn 17 so she’ll be the legal Australian age of consent so they can be together (”Studmuffin 96″). The most anthemic song in the tracklist, “Marlon Brando,” comes near the end, where he describes being called a “faggot” by a girl’s boyfriend at the bar, spurring a knock-out punch.

Yet somehow, the song structure is impeccable and the lyrics are hilariously well-written. Case in point, “The Chihuahua.” Lines like “heartache is for the ugly,” or “chasing pussy online cause the dog’s feeling fine and he needs it,” and even, “love’s a diabetic sweetness/love’s a fistful of bronze jewelry” come at opportune times in the song’s narrative, ripping away initial sincerity to set off a scream of humor like a band-aid that you want to tear off.

The parallels with Tommy Wiseau then rear their heads outside the music. In an interview with The Guardian from November 2016 Alex Cameron claims that his stage persona is different than his actual self, “I write about the outlier, the table-for-one guy, the guy whose life is a constellation of microscopic tragedies.” But the man visible in the music videos and on the album covers doesn’t look like he’s playing a part. He looks the part.

Cameron’s face remains in a stiff pout throughout each video, not unlike Wiseau’s stone-face in most scenes in The Room. Each man’s should-be-ironic-but-clearly-isn’t fashion sense outlines the personalities they portray: Wiseau’s sportscoat over a black v-neck, Cameron’s leather jacket, wife beater and whitewashed jeans. Even Cameron’s socially-awkward-Michael-Jackson dancing reinvokes PTSD of Wiseau trying to toss a football around.

The similarities even go deeper than appearances.

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Alex Cameron and Tommy Wiseau both had the same goal: to be taken seriously in their respective creative fields. But holding them back is the pure comedy at the forefront of their tragedy-driven art pieces. Inescapable hilarity is found in every nook and cranny of their overblown dramas. And unfortunately for Cameron, like the fate of Wiseau and the character Johnny, he will be forever cast into the role of “online cowboy in the wild-west days of the World Wide Web,” as his Bandcamp bio states.

However unlike Wiseau, Cameron has a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel. His music is undoubtably self-aware. Could you picture someone dancing the way he does or writing the phrases he sings un-ironically?

But many great pieces of art are initially misunderstood. Maybe The Room is a truly excellent satirical film, and audiences are the butt of its joke. Or (more likely) it’s simply a mess of a film that came from a brain not wired for filmmaking.

Cameron himself croons: “I don’t care if they’re just beautiful lies.” Regardless of whether or not he and Wiseau are sincere in their artistic intent or are pulling a fast one on audiences everywhere, we’re gonna keep watching and listening to their absurd creations anyway.

#tommy wiseau #the room #alex cameron #forcedwitness #music #blog #recordsandrambling

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