Kristian Hoffman
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Kristian Hoffman is an American musician. His sister is writer Nina Kiriki Hoffman.
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[edit] History
Kristian Hoffman ran away from his boyhood home in Santa Barbara, California, to New York City where he and his high school friend, Lance Loud, formed a band, The Mumps. Flourishing for about five years in the New York club scene in the late '70s, Mumps drew musical comparisons to The Move, The Kinks, and Sparks, and stylistic comparisons to the New York Dolls. Lance was the flamboyant singer, Kristian the songwriter and keyboard player. The band was known not just for its musical unpredictability, but for its love of fun (Kristian was known to play a kazoo on stage). They recorded a single in Brian Wilson's studio in Santa Monica, California but they never quite hit their stride as recording artists. They recorded singles, never a full length LP, and narrowly missed the chance to have a record produced by John Cale of The Velvet Underground fame.
Lance and Kristian appeared in a show called "New Wave Vaudeville," where they met Klaus Nomi, the eccentric German operatic glam rocker. Kristian's collaboration with Klaus included writing several songs for him, including "Total Eclipse," which was featured in the rock and roll movie Urgh! A Music War. Meanwhile Kristian was making his mark as keyboard player, producer, and songwriter for musicians in the avant garde "No Wave" of the New York music scene, including Lydia Lunch, James Chance, and Ann Magnuson.
In 1981, Kristian's band The Swinging Madisons put out a 5 song EP featuring "My Mediocre Dream," a song about the power of advertising, and "Guilty White Liberal," which he was known to dedicate to his mother. Kristian's mother had raised him in an atmosphere of liberal activism and folk music. The Swinging Madisons combined a lounge-band look with hard rock music, and gave Kristian the chance to take over the role of flamboyant singer. The band that followed, Bleaker Street Incident (also featuring Ann Magnuson and Robert Mache), parodied the folk music that had provided the soundtrack of Kristian's childhood.
By the early '90s joke band fatigue set in. After Bleaker Street Incident, Kristian was thinking folk, had written a lot of sad songs, and set out to make an album out of them. But in the meantime he was recruited to record songs for tribute albums to The Hollies and to the Bee Gees (pre-disco era). The producer for the songs he recorded for these two compilations was Earle Mankey, with whom Kristian had been associated since Mumps days, and both songs (Hollies' "I'm Alive" and Bee Gees' "Lemons Never Forget") featured a modern psychedelic production, which steered Kristian's musical thinking back toward other music he knew how to create. As a result, Kristian's solo debut, 1993's I Don't Love My Guru Anymore featured a broad array of musical styles, although folk/acoustic was the strongest influence heard on the album.
The '90s and '00s have brought more collaboration opportunities to Kristian Hoffman. He's made his mark on rock and roll history as a member of chamber pop singer Rufus Wainwright's touring band, has played keyboards and written songs for the atmospheric torch band Congo Norvell, has produced, toured with, and written songs for punk/cabaret singer Abby Travis, and has toured extensively with Kinks founder and lead guitarist Dave Davies. Kristian's keyboard work is featured on three of Dave Davies' recent solo releases. Meanwhile Kristian found time to record and release his second solo album, 1996's Earthquake Weather, the electric follow-up to the softer-sounding Guru, and to add his sometimes humorous illustrations to books by long-time musical accomplice Lydia Lunch and by Los Angeles poet Iris Berry.
In 2000 the German group Rosenstolz remade Kristian's previous hit song Total Eclipse as part of their album Kassengift. Along with the groups trademark sound, singers Marc Almond and Nina Hagen provided the main vocals, with the official CD single for the song released the following year.
Kristian finally entered the cyber age with the debut of this fan-designed website in February of 2002.
Kristian's third solo album, called "&" because it consists mainly of duets with other musicians (including Russell Mael of Sparks, Rufus Wainwright, Maria McKee, El Vez, "the Mexican Elvis", Anna Waronker, Steve MacDonald of Redd Cross, Stew of the Negro Problem, Van Dyke Parks, Ann Magnuson, and Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens), was released in July of 2002 to great critical acclaim. All three of Kristian's solo albums are currently available at CD Baby.
Kristian is also an accomplished artist who has designed album cover art for such musicians as: The Voltaires, Andrew, legendary Los Angeles punk band X, eggBERT Records Hollies tribute "Sing Hollies In Reverse" , as well as his own "He Means Well" limited addition 45 cover. Kristian's art was also highlighted in the books "Two Blocks East of Vine" by Iris Berry and "Incriminating Evidence" by Lydia Lunch. His most legendary art composition to date probably remains the notorious "Bendover Girl" from the insert in the original edition of the New York Doll's first album, since reproduced on tee shirts, tattoos and drum heads all over the world. In 2005 Kristian was featured in two separate one-man art shows in Los Angeles galleries - the first an extensive retrospective of thirty years of illustrative work, and the other a showing of several new larger format works.
In late 2005 a documentary on Klaus Nomi "The Nomi Song", directed by Andrew Horn, was released and received wide critical praise and several awards. It has since come out on DVD (a Palm Pictures Release). It features extensive interviews with Kristian as well as almost all of Klaus' key collaborators, and many rare concert and television appreances by Klaus. Four of Kristian's compositions for Klaus are featured in the film, as well as some original incidental music, and some clips of Mumps songs. The DVD extras include an extended interview with Kristian wherein he details the genesis and thoughts behind each song he composed for Klaus.
Also released in 2005 was "How I Saved the World," a newly remastered Mumps compilation, with all the tracks on the original 1995 eggBERT release plus ten extra unreleased tracks, all composed by Kristian. It also includes a full color 24 page booklet and a companion DVD of vintage Mumps performances at CBGBs and other venues, with optional commentary by Kristian. This double-disc compilation was released by Sympathy For The Record Industry Records. Press and other historical information can be found at the Mumps official website www.mumpsmusic.com.
Kristian spent much of the first half of 2006 producing a new full length CD for long-time collaborator Ann Magnuson, called "Pretty Songs and Ugly Stories." Besides playing on the album with his band The Rock Gods, Kristian also co-wrote ten of the songs with Ann. Rufus Wainwright again collaborates with Kristian by adding a one-man chorale to a track. Other songs feature performances by the Chapin Sisters, Jonathan Lea of the Jigsaw Seen, DJ Bonebrake of X, and Heather Lockie of Listing Ship. The release date is expected to be late 2006.[citation needed]
Currently Kristian is a regular member of the Mink Stole band, the Abby Travis band, the Carolyn Edwards band, the new Jane Wiedlin lounge combo "Downtown Sensation," and is writing songs for his own upcoming CD.
