The late songwriter Peter Ivers had a rich life long before he relocated to Southern California in the 1970s—as a Harvard student, a harmonica virtuoso, and a Van Dyke Parks-groomed solo artist—but his legacy wasn’t sealed until he made a home on the West Coast. It was there that Ivers composed “In Heaven” for David Lynch’s debut film Eraserhead, hosted the public access variety show New Wave Theatre, and recorded numerous demo cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes, leaving a mess of pop oddities at the time of his still-unsolved murder in 1983. On Becoming Peter Ivers, RVNG Intl. presents a collection of his bizarre and beautiful recordings, some of which have never before seen the light of day. It is an embarrassment of riches that crowns Ivers as the weirdo king of bedroom pop, decades before the genre existed.
“Demos are often better than records,” Ivers once wrote. “More energy, more soul, more guts.” Becoming Peter Ivers is a testament to that doctrine. The compilation presents 25 tracks culled from over 500 recordings that Ivers laid down at his Laurel Canyon home and studios in L.A. in the mid-to-late ’70s (four songs that appear on Ivers’ earlier albums are absent from the digital edition). Lovingly compiled by RVNG’s Matt Werth with Matthew Sanders, Ivers’ friend Steve Martin, and Ivers’ longtime girlfriend Lucy Fisher, the songs feel close and warm. Opener “Take Your Chances With Me” is one of the record’s most intimate and modern offerings. Ivers’ small voice is pinched into an airy whisper, supported by a scaffold of acoustic guitar and the cry of a distant siren. It’s such a spare piece of music that any additional arrangement would threaten to crush its delicate bones. “Even Stephen Foster” takes a similar approach, uniting subdued piano and Ivers’ half-sung confessions.
Not every song on Becoming is so stripped down, but they all possess an unpolished charm. “I’m Sorry Alice” is a disco-funk romp with horns, harmonica, and back-up singers. “Miraculous Weekend” is even more decadent; Ivers takes a page from Marc Bolan’s book and slips into a trembling falsetto, rhyming “fabulous” and “miraculous” with tossed-off elegance. These tracks are some of the most decorated entries on Becoming, but they sound loose and spontaneous, as if performed live at a house party. At the opposite side of the spectrum, the brief “Untitled” is among the album’s best songs, with a simple keyboard progression and wordless melody that, though written prior to the band’s debut, sound oddly like the Cure. Tracks like “Alpha Centauri” present a middle ground in Ivers’ work—the production is pared back, but the combination of skronking sax and Ivers’ shrill voice lends it an air of absurdity. Comfortably transitioning between lo-fi love songs and full-band glam rock, Ivers’ chameleonic songwriting reflects his professional life: He hosted punk bands like Fear and Dead Kennedys on New Wave Theatre while also befriending Hollywood mainstays like Harold Ramis and composing the theme for Ron Howard’s 1977 film Grand Theft Auto.
Becoming feels assembled from an endless bag of Ivers’ tricks, as delightful and deceptive as Mary Poppins’ suitcase. Just when you think you’ve seen the bottom, Ivers pulls out an umbrella. One such surprise is late-album gem “Happy on the Grill,” a tender track sung from the perspective of a frankfurter. “I’m a little hot dog on the grill,” Ivers sings. “Your love is hot, but there’s the thrill.” No matter how sweetly it’s sung, the line is quite masochistic and strange. Ivers’ dark sense of humor is present throughout, particularly in “Conference Call at Four,” a snide send-up of corporate culture that details a very important phone meeting. “Suppose a baby’s born tonight, or a flood hits, or a gun,” Ivers lilts. “You can bet your bottom dollar, Jack, that they’ll all still be on.” It is the spiritual sibling of Harry Nilsson’s “Good Old Desk,” a cheeky reprimand of those who live to work as opposed to the other way around. One gets the sense that Ivers understood both modes of living—and that he knew where his true allegiance lay.
Buy: Rough Trade
