Find if you will a man who had mastered every stringed instrument given to him by the age of 7. Since then he has recorded everything from reggae to country rock, created a unique wood-working style and gotten back together with a sado-masochistic punk a dozen times.
Discography:
- 1979: Call of the Wild
- 1980: Krazy Kong (Demo) Album
- 1986: Organic Bondage
- 1995: Open Toed And Flapping
- 1997: Mound of Sound
Tropes
- Balanced Harem: In Krazy Kong the Protagonist Krazy Kong has a "harem by his side" when his visits the dance-hall on a Friday
- Call-Back: The bit at the end of Moose Loose Kicking from Organic Bondage reprises the melody of Shot of Redeye. I'm In Love Again also seems to do this but less evidently.
- Creator In-Joke: A Shot of Redeye. Red Eye Records. Hmm...
- Deadpan Snarker
- Femme Fatale: The protagonist in Late Night Lady almost dies after encountering the antagonist; a prostitute. He returns to her the next night.
- Genre-Busting: None of his albums really conform to the label of folk, Organic Bondage specifically.
- Is "Late Night Lady" funk, blues, R&B, C&W or tick all above? Let's just settle with Genre Mashup!
- Genre Roulette: One album could contain up to 5 genres. "Judge and the Devil" is a great place to hear this.
- Genre Shift: As could one song and especially in the case of "Please Don't Throw Me To The Christians"
- Indecipherable Lyrics: Drink To Me Only is sped up to twice its speed and it is incredibly difficult to understand what's being said without slowing 'em down.
- Kongcept Album: Krazy Kong. At least the Kong tracks are. The Other Wiki has an article with an interpretation of the lyrics.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The Late Show. "And the mixing desk is picking up the radio" There is a live video where during that line, a radio is pulled out on a cord. It is of course quite loud and makes the point about electronic interference being bad.
- New Sound Album
- Krazy Kong is very reggae-sounding with lots of traditional folk
- Call of the Wild is more country & western sounding
- Organic Bondage is the biggest departure with a much more hard sound
- Open Toed and Flapping is a very heavy experimental folk album but it couldn't be more different from OB if it tried
- Mound of Sound is very ethereal and sparse
- No Fourth Wall: Openly interacts with his audience which includes throwing raw eggs to an unlucky member.
- The Man Behind the Man: Willy is this to John Otway. Subverted since Otway wrote the pair's
only hit.- The Writer Behind the Musician
- Organic Bondage's tracks were written by criminally obscure songwriter Eddie Stanton. These were 'arranged' by Barrett who proceeded to add a writing credit before Stanton's name.
- The best tracks on Call of the Wild were written by also criminally obscure songwriters Mike Gatton and Ken Murray. The distinctive guitar hook on "Late Night Lady" was provided by Roy Hurley. Though the bass part at the end of "Temptation" is Barrett's.
- The Writer Behind the Musician
- Record Producer: Multiple:
- Otway/Barrett albums obviously and his own. Helps that he had his own studio.
- on several albums released, or not released in the case of Eddie Stanton's "Please Don't Throw Me To The Christians", on his own label in the early 80s
- Shout-Out: Kong and the Soup Dragon is a very obvious nod to The Clangers' character The Soup Dragon. The song even mentions the protagonist Kong traveling on a spacecraft of some kind. I wonder where to?...
- Singing Simlish: The Kong Scat on Return of Kong.
- Studio Chatter: During the b-side; Nice To Know You're My Friend, Willy says "Can we do the ending again?" then "I know it's shit".
- Two Guys and a Girl: in Sleeping Dogz with Mary and John
- Uncommon Time. Organic Bondage is full of random measures at the drop of a hat which sound like they were decided during recording
