The monk approaches the front of the room. His followers sit in a Zen-like trance as he takes to the makeshift stage. He launches into his first hymn:
""All I ever wanted was to get laid in a haunted house.""
""All I ever wanted was to punch out Mickey Mouse.""
This is not a normal monk, and this is not a normal show. This is Stuart Davis.
Davis, known as ""The Original Punk Monk,"" has toiled on the edge of obscurity since the release of his 1993 album Idiot Express.
Since then, he's released a total of 12 albums, including this year's ?What. He's cultivated a dedicated following, playing coffee houses and concert halls worldwide.
With a unique blend of pop styling and mysticism, his sound affects people: It might prompt a deep-bellied laugh or a stream of honest tears. Although Davis told The Daily Cardinal before his July show in Madison that his style is ""squarely in the pop-rock zone ... the content of the songs redeem them and make them much more nuanced and challenging.""
Davis attributes this ability to his songwriting style, which causes him to take on multiple perspectives and just lets the characters of his songs exist.
""One of my basic practices is to take perspectives fully and completely and become that character, become that view and not judge it,"" Davis said.
""The best songs, in my experience, are the ones that you would not be comfortable with writing or what do not strike you as plausible or palatable songs to write. Some of my most disturbing, fucked up popular songs have these characters that are really fucked up characters, but you have to let them speak on their terms.""
This exploration creates compelling characters such as the nameless rapist of ""Doppelganger Body Donor"" who cannot confess his sins, or the character from ""Dresden"" who seduces Jewish tourists as revenge for the firebombing of his city during World War II.
It also allows him to write an achingly beautiful song to his daughter in ""Ara Belle.""
As a practicing Zen monk who meditates daily, it might seem odd for Davis to write these harsh characters, but his beliefs actually drive his style.
He can look at something without ""crude assumptions"" of identity and what's ""good"" and ""bad."" By stripping away these concepts, Davis said his music comes across as authentic, much to the delight of his fans.
""We all as human beings appreciate authenticity. We really like to see the real thing, not fucked around with, not sugared up and appropriated by the censors.""
This cadre of unique characters makes Davis' concerts unique. He plays smaller venues, such as coffee shops like Madison's Mother Fools, which allows the 6'3'' Davis to tower over his audience. There is a unique dichotomy as Davis' audience usually chill in their seats or on the floor while his energy bounces off the wall.
Each show also showcases the uniqueness of Davis himself. One moment he might talk about the curative powers of Stevie Wonder's soul, the next moment he talks about how you shouldn't drink your own urine, (reason: it tastes bad).
During one of his tours, he brought Vidyuddeva, a Zen priest. After playing several songs, Davis went off stage and let the priest come on to lead a 45-minute discussion about what it means to be human.
If other musicians did this, it might lead to an uproar, or at least a general feeling of confusion, but Davis' fans engaged Vidyuddeva as they talked about existence.
Although Davis is very spiritual and has practiced Zen for over a decade, he said he's not trying to push a ""Zen platform""—he's not even certain if something like that could exist.
""I am very interested in taking the names and categories and assumptions away from everything and just take the direct experience of what shows up and it's just a big fucking mystery of a scale we cannot comprehend.""
Through his work with Ken Wilber, a philosopher and mystic who founded the Integral Institute, Davis said the inclusion of the Integral Philosophy has helped him become more human, one who can engage his ""mind, body, spirit and self in nature."" It's also given him a venue to produce his online TV show ""The Stuart Davis Show"" on IntegralNaked.org. The show is setup in a standard talk show format, but Davis and his various personas play the different characters. A normal show will start out with Stu as a Zen-Buddhist interviewing Stu as an alcoholic rock star. Occasionally it might jump over to Stu the musician, or Stuart Davis, the mid-20th Century painter who's upset because he can't have sex (since he's dead).
Not only does Davis involve himself with music and online videos, he's also working on a fictional memoir of his life called ""Sex, God, Rock 'n' Roll."" Additionally, he occasionally auctions his paintings on his site, and he's developing a language called ""Is.""
Davis expounds broadly about the language and its multi-faceted uses, but he summarized it succinctly ""[With Is,] I was interested in building a language that would truly fuck with your head and your assumptions and filters and the basic ways in which our perception and experience of reality are influenced without us knowing it.""
Musician. Painter. Writer. Director. Lexicographer. Philosopher. Much more could be written about Stuart Davis, but viewing one of his live shows is the best way to get a feel for the original punk monk. It just might be a religious experience.
