John Mendelsohn (musician)
| John Mendelsohn | |
|---|---|
| Born | Washington, D.C. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | writer, journalist, musician, graphic designer |
John Ned Mendelsohn (born in Washington, D.C.) is an American writer, journalist, musician and graphic designer.
He was born in Washington but moved with his parents to southern California aged six months. He lived briefly in the San Fernando Valley, but mostly on the coast, first in Playa del Rey, and later above Pacific Coast Highway just south of Topanga Canyon Blvd. He studied at the University of California at Los Angeles, thus avoiding military service in Vietnam. He began contributing music criticism to the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone while still a student. The best known of these early contributions are the negative reviews that appeared in Rolling Stone of each of the first two Led Zeppelin albums; the review of the second album fully displayed the sarcastic wit that would become the trademark of Mendelsohn's writing style with lines such as "Jimmy Page is the absolute number-one heaviest white blues guitarist between 5’4" and 5’8" in the world." Mendelsohn cited the British critic Nik Cohn as a major influence on his own writing, calling him "screamingly funny" and confiding that "my own star began to rise very quickly after I perfected my imitation of him".
While continuing to contribute rock album reviews, Mendelsohn made an earnest effort to launch a music career in the early 1970s. With bass player, Ralph Wm. Oswald, with whom he'd played in a succession of ragtag college groups (including recording a demo album with a nascent Sparks), he formed a serious version of their group Christopher Milk in mid-1970. With Mendelsohn primarily serving as lyricist, the group recorded for United Artists and Warner Bros. Records before disbanding in 1973. Mendelsohn next resolved to become a musician and composer. He released an EP on Greg Shaw's Bomp label, John Mendelsohn's the Pits, in 1975. Rhino released a package comprising his authorized autobiography, I, Caramba, and a compilation of song demos, Masturpieces, in 1995.
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