Ultraschizophrenic MC

From the intergalactic hatching of Ziggy Stardust to Garth Brooks’s
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 David Bowie). In the worst cases, such role-playing 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 Central District 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.
The lack of context and expectation of recognition led me to guess that
young Mr. Control—who bore a distinct whiff of the
Joker—was the latest fey diabolical comic-book-villain type.

I was wrong. William Control is the musical alter ego of Seattle
musician Wil Francis, lead singer of Aiden, the “darkwave”/screamo
outfit that’s reportedly huge in Europe and 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 who might appreciate what the band have to offer
should already be fully saturated with the work of the 101 equally
derivative pop-punk bands Aiden are scavenging for parts. As for
William Control, he seems to be Francis’s effete cousin, with a
fondness for ascots and synthy new wave. It’s a step up musically, at
least, with William Control’s techno leanings allowing a melodic
goofiness banished from Aiden’s world of machine-gun guitar and Cookie
Monster vocals. But the lyrical content remains strictly limited. “I’ll never love again,” sings the pale young man in the velveteen blazer and white face paint, in his song “Beautiful Loser.” With laughter an unacceptable response, I must turn away.

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. It was 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,” which required the singer to shake her booty
in silhouette in some of the shortest shorts ever to bear the name,
over the song that would make her a superstar. The two 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 what Beyoncé calls “alter egos,” most people call
“moods,” and the double-life shtick is a dead end. What’s most galling
about I Am… Sasha Fierce‘s failure is the stupidity of the
whole endeavor. Beloved by millions the world over for who she is,
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 MC’s
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—he 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 Neumos show is credited to Dr. Dooom vs.
Dr. Octagon aka Kool Keith. God knows what that means, but prepare for
a most entertaining mindfuck.