Blelvis

|current sounds| Liz Janes- Done Gone Fire*



Not that Phillip and Zach weren't great company, but I forgot to mention the best part of our Thursday evening revelry: Blelvis! Yes, indeed, the black Elvis Presley who knows all 1,112 songs in the King's catalog (not to mention countless trivia). He approaches the three of us walking past Adams Morgan on 16th Street with a cheerful, "Sideburns!" (referring to Phillip's chops). He introduces himself, give his spiel, and proceeds to challenge us to name any obscure Elvis song. Now, Blelvis couldn't have picked a better trio of music nerds than us (in fact, most of us were ready to reach into our wallets at his very name), but we were all admittedly at a loss. He moves on quickly asking us to give him any word and he'd find a way to associate it with an Elvis song. He prefaces Zach's word, "angry," with, "I shouldn't say this of the King, but this song sucks, but I know it," and rattles off a verse. For my word, "quiche," he asks, "Is that a fruit of vegetable of some kind?" "It's an egg-based pie." "Oh, cuz Elvis has lots of food songs." Then he sings something about a papaya (pa-pie-ya). Stretching it, but clever. And on Phillip's "monkey" pick: "Now this is a Chuck Berry song, but Elvis sung it, too."

Blelvis just kept walking with us along 16th and wanted to clarify that he could've been "Bladonna or Blibberace, but I am Blelvis!" I really wish I could've run home to grab my mini-cassette recorder before we parted ways. We appreciatively handed him some bills and reveled in the incredible spectacle. And now you can, too... or at least a snippet courtesy of the Rock n Roll Psychosis public access TV show filmed in 1988: Blelvis Lives.

*my review on Tangzine back in the day