“A Tribute to R. Stevie Moore” was constructed from a collection of images from the public domain featuring the virtually unchanging face of a self-made, underground empire. The R. S. M. public image has been built on a world of dirt style websites, over 400 masterful mix tapes and CDs, and several official releases including the early indie classic, Phonography. As an artist, R. Stevie Moore has endured the passing of time, has earned critical acclaim and played alongside Elvis Presley, yet continues to perform humbling shows in small New York City clubs to audiences consisting of a few fanatics amongst venue grazers.

I was first exposed to the artist as I was browsing music videos on youtube and stumbled upon a jem: the racy and beautiful “Girl Go” added by a member of the empire, the yt user autosam. At first, stumbling upon his work felt like discovering a new favorite thrift store or coming into an ebay browsing obsession… everything was just so consistently interesting and felt like a well-kept secret of that one-of-a-kind vintage variety. Then I realized how intelligently this empire was laid out, how everything linked to everything else, how meticulously he marketed every inch of this gigantic body of work. And I was sold. Never underestimate a champion of the vintage internet aesthetic (even if he is overweight, grizzled, and self-aggrandizing); it’s like saying that mixtapes are too low-fi.

To me, what is perhaps most remarkable about the artist is his consistency; R. S. M. is a carbon copy of himself fifty years ago, still just a kid in a basement making music for his friends for better or worse. In a culture where image reinvention is now a prerequisite to the maintenance of iconic stature, the artist not only has never changed his image or taste for camp, but also seems just as reluctant to be forgotten as he is to be “discovered” (in the big label kind of way). Save R. Stevie!

-Liz Filardi
http://blog.elizabethfilardi.com/