PLANET CHOCKO – art/music/movies/beyond

All Hail BRUTE FORCE!

March 30th, 2013 by chocko

“Brute Force” (2012), trailer
Director: Ben Steinbauer

We first met Brute Force a.k.a. Stephen Friedland after a short documentary about him a couple months ago at Maysles Cinema in Harlem, NYC. The short doc focused on the artist who came to the brink of stardom in the late 60’s with his Apple Records song “King Of Fuh” which got him admirers such as George Harrison and John Lennon of The Beatles. Apple Records put the “Fuh King” song on the shelf due to it’s obscene lyrics and Brute Force left the music business and worked as a paralegal in NYC. Bar None Records rereleased hs 1967 Columbia debut, “I, Brute Force – Confections of Love,” in 2010 and Apple Records released “King Of Fuh” on a 2010 “best of” compilation. The audience at Maysles Cinema were treated to a set of funny songs by Brute Force and and his daughter Lilah, aka Daughter of Force. The man definitely is an entertainer…he started off his show with some yoga poses including the “doggie surrender pose” and played some hilarious, catchy songs including “Tapeworm Of Love”- a melodic punk song, “To Sit On A Sandwich,” the mighty and majestic “King of Fuh” and the eco-friendly “Pamela Sweet Dreamer” which features some crystal clear falsetto vocals. The man writes awesome, witty songs!

The Planet Chocko Crew got a chance to meet with Brute Force a couple of weeks later at Veselka in NYC where we chomped on stuffed cabbage and pierogies and talked a bit about the usual topics: the environment, heavy metal music and sitting on sandwiches. Our conversation went all over the place. One moment we’re asking him about his place of birth, Jersey City and then he starts talking about Area 51 – home of captured space ships and aliens. It is hard to keep up with him and I suspect he is from another planet too. We initially talked about his performance at Maysles and he seemed a bit apologetic for picking on members of the audience that got up to leave in the middle of his set. “If you let anger creep in, it really turns off everybody. People are not there to feel anger, but be entertained. If you’re going to make anger or arrogance part of it, it best be funny.”

Brute talked about his famous doggie surrender yoga pose which he does at shows. It’s an unflattering pose which has Brute on the floor with an exposed belly with arms and legs raised. He then discussed the animal world and egolessness. “Giving up your ego, you’re communicating on the most primitive level with the immediate goal to raise consciousness.” He cites his song “Pamela Sweet Dreamer” which is about ecology and a lady who collects aluminum cans.

He then gets distracted by the quote on his teabag, “The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose” a quote from the French Renaissance writer Michel Eyquem de Montaigne. This must have sparked up a memory of getting married in 1969 and moving to Ojai, California in the valley. “I used to grow great marijuana when I lived in California. Those were the days, my friend.” He got really into it, describing drying plants and using cow dung as fertilizers. He began to talk about water and felt it has a consciousness of its own. Brute Force then schooled us on The Gaia Theory and the idea that our planet is an organism.

We tried to get him to talk about music and asked about his song “To Sit On A Sandwich” which was inspired by a picture of a beautiful model sitting on a hamburger. “That song was heavy funny – absurdist lyrics, funny, satirical, mocking civilization yet funny and melodic.”

The question about the origin of his name came about. Brute Force recalled joining the doo-wop group The Tokens (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) in 1964 playing keyboards. The time came to record his own stuff. “We were recording in the city and we were recording a song called ‘The Fall’ which is a dance song (he then starts singing at the table). I’ve been searching for a pseudonym for myself which will lead to the topic of identity. The name Stephen Friedland did not satisfy the description of a rock artist. I came up with Crude Brute. The Tokens were there and Jay Siegel blurted out ‘Brute Force’ and that was it.”

The anger and rage inside of Brute Force starts to reveal itself. “If I had chosen to stay with the name Stephen Friedland, I would have been shown more respect by the public relations people at Columbia (Records) who wrote complete bullshit about me in their press reports.” When “The King Of Fuh” record became censored, and after noticing it wasn’t in the market and nobody was playing it, Brute stepped away from music from the 70’s to the mid 90’s and only listened to classical and country music. Nowadays he still enjoys Bob Dylan, Carole King and Randy Travis. He also really digs heavy metal bands like Metallica.

Mr. Force also recalled his father who came from Russia in 1910, became an attorney and was in New Jersey legislature in 1930. His father built a home in Deal, NJ-right on the sea. He then tells us of the time a younger Brute Force and a friend, Ben Schlossberg participated in an expedition to swim across the Bering Strait from Alaska to Siberia. The concept behind the expedition was “to create a ‘Swim-cident’ to draw attention to the closeness of hemispheres, thereby the closeness of the people.” This was during the time of The Cold War and the Vietnam War.

Brute Force then schooled us on the the fantasy of nationality and his idea of one borderline, the edge of Earth. He also shared one of his favorite ideas, “the endlessness of your mind and that your mind is connected to the universe and the universe is in my estimation, an endless system.”

We ended the conversation with talking about the short documentary “Brute Force” by Ben Steinbauer (Winnebago Man). Brute said the production is still in effect, there’s so much more footage and they need to gain distribution. Definitely see the documentary if you get the chance. It is a charming portrait of a misunderstood, creative and funny musician who almost got really famous. His music is worth checking out. Buy his albums immediately. You will not be disappointed. Be on the lookout for Brute Force shows in the NYC area. Go to his shows and be prepared to laugh and have a good time. Thank you Brute Force!

CHECK OUT SOME VIDEOS BELOW:
Brute Force performing “Hello” and “The World is Filled With So Much Bullshit” at Maysles Cinema (Thanks pcimprezzive!)