A quick glance at the artwork accompanying Bobby Conn and the Glass Gypsies' latest release reveals the defining principle of Conn's work: unapologetic excess. Even if you ignore the image gracing the cover-- an enormous Masonic pyramid alluding to the United States' Great Seal-- the interior notes still feature a painting of a magenta helicopter landing on a golf course, with Conn and his Gypsies proudly vamping around a hole, chests revealed, heels high. As usual, Bobby Conn's outfits are as glitter-perfect as his sound, but on The Homeland, Conn's bombastic, prog-funk diddling (firmly rooted in Parliament, Bowie, and yes, Styx) gets mixed up in his equally flashy protest-ready agenda, thus making The Homeland a ridiculous mix of 70s glam and suit-and-tie politics.
The best way to describe The Homeland is as a self-contained circus, but one without the burlesque growl that absurdist carnival-sloggers like Tom Waits or Firewater consistently peddle: nothing here is laced with subtlety. The sonic equivalent of hula-hooping ladies and dainty brother/sister high-wire acts (in matching sequined leotards!), The Homeland is sparkly and perpetually overstated, a clown car spilling over with big red noses and three-foot shoes, as studied as it is camp. Conn's pastel pleather suits are part-Prince, part-Ziggy Stardust, and just about the last thing you'd expect to see a protest singer sporting-- which is nicely subversive, since, as its grandiose title so boldly suggests, The Homeland is essentially a protest album, a caustic, quasi-righteous diatribe against America's current political regime.
That Bobby Conn is the made-up messenger of this statement is both strange and gratifying: Conn is making broad political arguments against the American government (see nearly every track, especially "We Come in Peace", "Relax", and "Home Sweet Home", or ponder lyrics like, "We are your friends/ We come in peace/ We brought our guns to set you free.../ Say goodbye to all your history/ Come and join our family"), but he's doing so while sporting high-heeled, lace-up boots (in bright New York Dolls white) and playing jam-lite boogie guitar.
Conn's work has always been overtly political, but gone from The Homeland are the hedonistic, coked-up sex stories of Conn's past (who can forget the gums-only fellatio promise of 2001's "Whore"?) replaced by not-so-secret conspiracy theories ("I didn't need to get elected/ When I was born selected") and sweeping political laments. There are a handful of departures ("Bus No. 243", about riding drunk around London Bus No. 243), but most of The Homeland is preoccupied with taking the same anti-Bush stance over and over again.
Despite Conn's impossibly explicit agenda, fans will find still plenty of tights and riffage, sunglasses and swagger, drum machines and big, warbling vocals. And unlike the piles of self-proclaimed heirs currently mucking up the once-despised 70s guitar landscape, there's something persistently uncool about Bobby Conn-- and it's that kind of fuck-off, punk disobedience that makes him such a convincing portrait of pure, unfettered rock abandon. Anyone who's read a few chapters of The Dirt gets how wearing eyeliner can be a dangerous occupation, no matter how big your guitar amp is, and Conn's complete disregard for contemporary expectations (and hipsters relentlessly pushing irony) is delightfully unexpected, if ultimately underwhelming.
