Jack

At home with Jack

By N. Terry O'Desine

A Homos and Gardens special report from Butte, Montana

Unless you're a fan of his distinctive blend of country, hip-hop and rap - with just a hint of homage to early Bobby Vee - you may not have heard of Jack O'Dowd.

But you will.

Because, with a new multi-million dollar contract with the Gaiety record label in his back pocket, here's a young man who's going places.

But before he gets there and spends his new-found wealth on the traditional trappings of rock superstardom - the big mansion in the West Hollywood hills and the little country place tucked away in Fort Lauderdale - Homos and Gardens went to check out the already-notorious lifestyle of the bright young kid who's been called "Montana's answer to the Jackson 5".

As down to earth a guy as you could hope to meet on the streets of his home town of Butte, Jack met us at the entrance to his apartment block and led us inside.

Yet, as we made polite small talk and made our way along the hall, he radiated an indefinable charisma.

For most people a front door serves an entirely functional purpose.

But for a conceptual musician and artist like Jack O'Dowd, a complete Renaissance boy whose talents range across virtually all forms of 21st century art, it necessarily makes a profound statement.

A trio of exquisitely chosen postcards - their colours carefully selected to invoke an almost chiaroscuro effect - hang affixed to the surface like precious jewels. Meanwhile, below them, a blank white space makes its own profound O'Dowd-ian statement to the world: impose your own vision on this space it seems to say, while simultaneously echoing Dante's warning to abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Incredible.

Need we go on?, asks our brain.

Because already, even before stepping inside, we know that we are in the presence not of a mere boy of the rarest beauty but of a young man of profound artistry.

Once within the apartment, we enter another world entirely.

O'Dowd immediately realigns our artistic compass, knocks away our aesthetic assumptions and, in a manner worthy of Salvador Dali or René Magritte, challenges the no doubt bemused good folk of Butte to rise to his level.

Others may see the superficially grubby carpet as a sign of indolence. But Homos and Gardens readers, with an eye for a constructivist statement when they see one, will recognise the artfully strewn debris as a profound yet witty statement on the impermanence of Life.

Stunning.

The same theme reappears in the montage of dead rock stars whose pictures adorn the wall.

Look, they seem, oh so clearly, to be saying, I don't care too much for money 'cos money can't buy me love.

Tragic.

Moving quickly on, as if it is too painful for him to contemplate such impermanence, Jack ushers me into his main living area (he nihilistically rejects the term "room" as symbolising bourgeois convention).

Typically it is a mixture of the functional, the spiritually decorative and the prosaic. Early Warhol influenced by, perhaps, Hieronymus Bosch and to some extent, Tamara de Lempicka.

An eclectic mix that simultaneously confirms Jack's present status yet exalts his future aspirations.

Triumphant.

The bedroom - or, rather, the "sleeping area" - challenges our expectations by its very conventionally.

A subtle joke on Butte, if you will.

 "Look at me", it seems to say.

"Any young boy could sleep here.

"And, in a way, he does.

"But, in another way, he doesn't."

Profound.

At that point, something weird - as is so often the case with young Mr O'Dowd - happened.

I was unexpectedly privileged to enjoy a performance.

A spontaneous artistic display that combined Jack's utter contempt for convention with an ironic imitation of urban cliché.

Magical.

How, Jack is asking, does one reconcile the "worship" of an artist with the fact that all artists are, at the same time, being "fucked" by the system in which they operate?

Taking a picture of one of his musical idols from the wall, O'Dowd chooses to show us the obvious - yet immensely superficial - answer.

Magnificent.

Once the performance is over, Jack O'Dowd is an artist clearly in need of solitude and the opportunity to examine his own deeply stirred emotions.

And, as he shows me to the door and ushers me into the hall, he utters words even more profound and memorable than those I have been privileged to share in his company for the past hour.

"Fuck off."