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Johnny Alien

A.k.a. John Allen (12)

Johnny Alien began his discography with a release for Sterile Records in the early eighties, with an inclusion on the compilation Standard Response. The track was called 'Without Measurable Damage',production was assisted by Chris Vine - an experimental guitarist who has worked with New York avante jazz impressario Elliot Sharp. Since this brief dalliance with experimental electronica Alien went on to form, what was initially, a folk-punk duo with Patrick Owens of Detroit. This project soon grew into a seven piece Folk-Punk Orchestra which in turn revolved into a four piece 'Electric-Acoustic, Folk-Punk, Rock Band'...this is Alien's current performing status. Though more and more he is performing solo with a spoken word/squeezebox show he calls 'Gobsmacked' mostly in his adopted Massachusetts. He's originally from northern England where he grew up a close friend of Nigel Ayers of 'Nocturnal Emissions'. His show 'Gobsmacked' is a rant about those wet, cold, years up north and his obsession with Americana...From cowboys and indians (this can be observed from his paintings featured on the cover of Ayers and Storey's 'The World Turned Gingham')through American realism in painting to Andy Warhol and Martin Scorsese. Alien is a hopeless romantic who lives pretty much in some invented past which he prefers to his reality. At his performances it is clear that their are others who feel the same way. He works a crowd like a seasoned carnival barker - amusing, challenging and entertaining...and quite funny! He is currently working on a book which will compliment his live solo shows, tracing and formulating life and pop-culture as an ongoing formula for who he is and in turn who some other people might be. He's interested in pop-culture's folkloric imprint on our lives. More than anything he'd like to own a pub in Cornwall and be able to sit around and reminisce with his old mate Nigel and his family who he misses very much.

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