Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the concert hall, along
comes Klaus Nomi. Not that the German-born messo-soprano of
indeterminate age means to be shocking. It's just that anybody who walks
through the streets of Manhatten with waxed blue hair, jet black lipstick
and clothes secured from a Vincert Price garage sale isn't canvasing
for the Salvation Army. Yet, put Nomi on the stage of New York's The Rock
Lounge (where he will appear April 15), and his perverse persona falls into
plac. Influenced by Elvis Presley, Maria Callas and Buck Rogets, a cosmic
hybrid of crass pop and classical opera, his music is among the most
revolutionary in America today. Its purpose, explains Nomi, "is to make
the bizarre familiar and vice versa - like finding yourself doing the
twist in the Twilight Zone and suddenly feeling right at home."
Klaus Nomi isn't strange. How else would one dress for Twisting in the
Twilight Zone?
