From the intergalactic hatching of Ziggy Stardust, to Garth
Brooks’ transformation into bewigged goth-rocker Chris Gaines,
musicians have long been inspired to feats of daring, genius, and
hilarious failure by the lure of the alternate persona. In the best
cases, such alter egos give established artists a fresh way to fuck
with their audience and their own celebrity (see the various
gender-and-species-bending personas of Bowie). In the worst cases, such
roleplaying feels like rock-star Halloween, crossed with an improv
exercise at which audiences are forbidden to laugh (see the
aforementioned Chris Gaines, which reigned as the funniest thing
Americans were not supposed to laugh at until Dick Cheney shot that guy
in the face).
Last year brought two new entrants onto the alternate-persona
playfield, one major, one minor, both announced via cryptic viral
marketing. “Who is William Control?” asked glossy posters wheat-pasted
around my neighborhood last autumn. “Who is Sasha Fierce?” asked
shimmering banner ads placed on several well-trafficked websites last
winter.
The William Control question was accompanied by a photo of what
looked like an adolescent mime in smudgy eyeliner smoking a cigarette.
But that was no mime. I was wrong. William Control is the musical alter
ego of Seattle musician Wil Francis, lead singer of Aiden, the
“darkwave”/screamo outfit that I’d literally never heard of until this
ad campaign. Investigation revealed Aiden to be purveyors of that type
of derivative posture-rock that can only be truly intoxicating to those
younger than the band’s members; anyone older than Aiden that might
appreciate what the band has to offer should already be fully saturated
with the work of the hundred and one equally derivative pop-punk bands
Aiden’s scavenging for parts. As for William Control, he seems to be
Wil Francis’ effete cousin, with a fondness for ascots and synthy new
wave.
Which brings us to Sasha Fierce, whose instigating
question—”Who is Sasha Fierce?”—was answered by a Herculean
PR blitz informing the public that Sasha Fierce is the imaginary alter
ego of the one and only Beyoncé Knowles, who was now releasing
her third solo album, I am… Sasha Fierce, a double-CD set with
one disc credited to Beyoncé—leader of the best-selling
female group of all time™, blockbuster solo artist, movie star,
and wife of Jay-Z—and the other attributed to Sasha Fierce, an
alter ego Beyoncé reportedly birthed during the video shoot for
“Crazy in Love.” The split CDs are meant to symbolize the two halves of
Beyoncé—one the real-life woman with real-life feelings,
the other the professional entertainer who’ll do astounding things to
entertain us.
Had I am… Sasha Fierce carried out this real-life/art-life
split—offering, say, one CD of Sasha Fierce belting out amazing
pop songs and another of real-life Beyoncé pooping and arguing
on the phone—the result might have been worth paying attention
to. But Beyoncé chose to relegate her most interesting traits to
some invented other—the exact inverse of what smarter musicians
have been doing for generations. To wit: Talking Heads did not rename
themselves “Mr. Big Suit and the Accumulating Band” for Stop Making
Sense; they blew people’s minds by showing how freaky and artsy
Talking Heads could be.
In the end, the richest motive for creating an alter ego remains the
basest: to fuck with people’s heads, and in this regard, Kool Keith is
the eternal master. After introducing himself on Ultramagnetic MCs’
classic Critical Beatdown, Keith Thornton set about amassing a
stable of alter egos now numbering in the dozens, among which reside a
small handful of “major” characters—Dr. Octagon, Black Elvis, Dr.
Dooom—who routinely fight and kill and resurrect each other,
existing primarily to illustrate what a uniquely insane bad-ass Kool
Keith is. Major characters come with bios (“Dr. Octagon is an
extraterrestrial time-traveling gynecologist and surgeon from the
planet Jupiter”) and give interviews. As Reverend Tom—Kool
Keith’s alter ego in Thee Undatakerz—told a journalist in 2003,
“It’s better to morph than to stay who and what I am, because if I was
to stay that way, then your government wouldn’t allow me to be here any
longer.”
The morphing continues, in all directions: While various websites
(including Keith’s own) hype the imminent arrival of Tashan Dorrsett, a
new Kool Keith character described as a “real and regular person from
New York City,” this week’s show is credited to Dr. Dooom vs. Dr.
Octagon AKA Kool Keith. God knows what that means, but prepare for a
most entertaining mindfuck.