It seems appropriate that both Gary Wilson and Rod Serling share the same hometown of Endicott, NY as Wilson’s latest album sounds like the kind of music that one of his characters would be playing in a seedy nightclub staked just on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone. The artist known as Gary Wilson emerged from his parents’ basement sometime around 1977 fully formed, covered in flour, and sporting cat eye sunglasses with copies of his breakthrough album You Think You Really Know Me tucked under his arm ready to blow minds. The music contained on that record was an improbable hybrid of bedroom funk meets the avant-garde with just enough rock ‘n’ roll in its DNA to make it some previously unknown mutant form of pop music.
Things of course didn’t go exactly as planned. As Wilson’s late ’70’s and early ’80’s attempts at stardom fizzled, the artist retreated back into a self-imposed fortress of solitude in the form of a dead end job with a steady helping of playing regular lounge gigs on the side. Things picked back up again around the turn of the century with the rediscovery of his aforementioned magnum opus, and he’s been at the wheel ever since pumping out a torrent of releases both new and archival; there’s even been a Christmas album for God’s sake.
The King of Endicott is a love letter from Gary to his hometown, chock full of homages and references to his city of a thousand lights. Wilson seems to be trying to put himself back there with recollections of places and lovers who might be real or imagined, it’s sometimes really hard to tell what’s what in the Wilson-verse, or what exactly is lurking beneath the surface on even the sunniest of musical offerings on here. With lyrics that read more like the artist’s inner monologue than anything necessarily based in reality. While some of the artist’s edgier musical proclivities have been sanded down with time, what’s remains is the pulse of a drum machine, and a gnawing obsession with wanting to be wanted; peppered with just enough of his trademark weirdness lurking around the edges to make you feel uncomfortably at home. The King of Endicott makes it clear that Gary Wilson is still here, and still waiting to take on that perfect date to the park in his magic city. If you’re game for a real sick trip, swipe right.
Order the album direct from the artist.
The 13th Track 