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John Mendelsohn | |
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| Occupation(s) | writer,journalist,musician,graphic designer |
John Ned Mendelsohn is an American writer, journalist, musician and graphic designer.
Mendelsohn, who has sometimes spelled his name as Mendelssohn with two s's,[1] was born inWashington but moved with his parents tosouthern California aged six months. He lived briefly in theSan Fernando Valley, but mostly on the coast, first inPlaya del Rey, and later abovePacific Coast Highway just south of Topanga Canyon Boulevard on Sunset Mesa. He studied at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, thus avoiding military service in theVietnam War.
Mendelsohn began contributing music criticism to theLos Angeles Times andRolling Stone while still a student. Although he was an ardent champion ofthe Kinks andDavid Bowie, the best known of these early contributions are his unfavorable reviews of the first twoLed Zeppelin albums, which were published inRolling Stone in 1969. His review ofLed Zeppelin II displayed the sarcastic wit that became a characteristic of Mendelsohn's writing style, exemplified by his assertion that "Jimmy Page is the absolute number-one heaviest white blues guitarist between 5’4" and 5’8" in the world."[2] Mendelsohn cited the British criticNik Cohn as a major influence on his own writing, calling him "screamingly funny" and saying that "my own star began to rise very quickly after I perfected my imitation of him".[3] WhenRitchie Yorke wrote an article disparaging Mendelsohn and other rock critics, Mendelsohn, responding in the February 1971 issue ofPhonograph Record, justified his dispassionate approach and said that "Rolling Stone suspects" he would even "give God a bad review".[4]
While continuing to contribute album reviews, Mendelsohn launched a music career in the early 1970s. Together with bass player Ralph William Oswald, with whom he'd played in a succession of ragtag college groups (including recording a demo album with a nascentSparks), he formed a serious version of their groupChristopher Milk in mid-1970. With Mendelsohn primarily serving as lyricist, the group recorded forUnited Artists andWarner Bros. Records before disbanding in 1973. As a musician and composer, Mendelsohn released an EP onGreg Shaw's Bomp label, titledJohn Mendelsohn's the Pits, in 1975. Rhino released a package comprising his authorized autobiography,I, Caramba, and a compilation of song demos,Masturpieces, in 1995.
In 1984, Mendelsohn's biography of the Kinks,Kinks Kronikles, was published. Between stints withRolling Stone, Mendelsohn contributed toCreem in the mid-1980s;[3] later, he wrote forPlayboy,Wired andMojo.[5] He worked ingraphic design andwebsite design from the late 1990s through the mid-2000s.[6]
In 2002, Mendelsohn relocated to the United Kingdom to reside there with his English second wife Claire, during which he composed and produced his own solo album,Sex With Twinge, and Mistress Chloe's much-praisedLike a Moth to Its Flame. Over the course of the next half-decade, he composed and produced albums for Sadie Sings and Do Re Mi Fa (Cough) and published three books (Dominatrix: The Making of Mistress Chloe,Waiting forKate Bush, andGigantic:The Pixies andFrank Black), in addition to working on a great deal of unpublished fiction and several teleplays. He directed and starred in two scripted sketch comedy revues, The Ministry of Humour and Clear & Present Rangers.
Mendelsohn departed the UK in late 2007. He spent 10 months in the Midwest before buying a home in New York'sHudson Valley, where, between November 2008 and November 2009, he composed, performed, and recorded his second solo album,Sorry We're Open, released in February 2010.[7] Now living back in London after two years in Los Angeles, Mendelsohn regularlyblogs on his web journal, "For All in Tents and Porpoises", in which he writes his thoughts on various elements of pop culture, personal anecdotes including frank accounts of his lifelong struggles with lowself-esteem anddepression, and satirical political pieces in which he purports to have embracedconservatism and the policies ofSarah Palin.
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