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Even if his name weren’t letterpressed on the album cover, David J’s silhouette would instantly give him away. The slender frame, short-cropped hair, and angular features set off by a slim pair of glasses. After years of treading the boards as a member of pioneering British bands Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, the 66-year-old is perhaps one of the most recognizable figures to emerge from the post-punk scene of the late ‘70s.
His look may not have changed appreciably in the past five decades, but as an artist, David J has maintained the perfect balance of mercurial and curious. Ask him what he’s listening to these days, and he’ll rattle off a list including ‘90s one-hit wonder Primitive Radio Gods and modern jazz weirdo Alabaster DePlume.
Or, take a spin through the nearly three dozen tracks that make up Tracks From the Attic, a massive collection of demos and home recordings being released this week through Independent Project Records. The richly varied collection touches on his many musical influences, leaning heavy on psychedelic beauty and folky introspection with a bit of thorny snark poking up through the haze, like the wonderful “Oh No! Not Another Songwriter!” Each of these songs is a page from the diary that he wants to share with you, David sings. Even though you might not really want to hear it/He’s gonna lay it on you. Some recordings are crystal clear; others are lousy with tape hiss and age.
“I’m just always moving on to the next idea,” David J says, speaking over Zoom from his home in Los Angeles. “Pretty much all these songs were only played the one time, and that is the time they are captured on cassette. I just moved on and they got left behind.”
The compilation spans 20 years, starting in 1984, when David was still finding his footing following the breakup of Bauhaus, and running chronologically to 2004, a period when he was preparing to stage his first play, Anarchy in the Gold Street Wimpy. They weren’t so much rough drafts of material that he would complete for future projects but rather a necessary release of creative energy.
“It flows and flows,” he insists. “I never sit down without an idea. I’m just wrested by a compelling one, and quite often it’s very inconvenient. I go, ‘Oh God, this is a good one. I’ve got to get it down in some way.’”
Some slivers of this material have snuck out to fans through David’s Patreon, but otherwise these quick hit tunes seemed destined to languish in a box of cassettes until a friend, worried they may get lost forever, offered to digitize them. Conveniently, this was also around the time IPR reached out about working on a project together.
David J’s willingness to let these rough sketches and occasional flubs see wide release on Tracks From the Attic is very much in keeping with a welcome lack of pretension in the artist’s creative life. As comfortable as he is playing to a sold-out Roseland Theater with Love and Rockets (as he did last year), he is perhaps more satisfied performing in people’s living rooms or at a tiny bar in Ilwaco, Wash. (which he did in 2017), or at the upcoming event celebrating this new release at the Bodecker Foundation space, which will find David playing two sets of music and in conversation with IPR co-founder Jeffrey Clark.
“The bigger the bands got,” he says, “the more appealing it is to me to play in those little places. I love the intimacy of it. The focus. How special it is. And I like meeting audience members in that environment. I really value these very heartfelt stories that people tell me about what the music means to them. It’s a lovely thing.”
SEE IT: David J plays at the Bodecker Foundation, 2360 NW Quimby St., bodeckerfoundation.org. 7 pm Friday, May 3. $20 to livestream, $50 general admission, $100-$600 VIP.