EGO PLUM

COMPOSER & ARTIST EGO PLUM was born Ernesto Guerrero and named after one of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution, Ernesto "Che" Guevara. EGO is also the grandson of Frida Kahlo and of Russian revolutionary leader, Leon Trotsky who was assassinated in Mexico in 1940. In 1994, a teenaged Ernesto adopted the senseless moniker, EGO PLUM, in a moment of Dadaist inspiration and has since legally taken the name. With the same revolutionary spirit of his grandfather and birth-given namesake, Ego has waged a D.I.Y. war against the modern conventions of popular music utilizing an arsenal of unconventional influences: The cartoon jazz and spastic stop & go arrangements of RAYMOND SCOTT and CARL STALLING, the ground-breaking New Wave of OINGO BOINGO, DEVO, & B-52'S, the haunting film scores of ANGELO BADALAMENTI, BERNARD HERMMANN, & DANNY ELFMAN, and the melodic pop sensibilities of XTC, the BEATLES and BEACH BOYS.



Through several critically-acclaimed CD releases on his own imprint, and as musical director of his own 10-piece group (THE EBOLA MUSIC ORCHESTRA), EGO PLUM has continued to push the boundaries of music by creating cinematic compositions with a carnival-esque & surrealist sensibility that are simultaneously unclassifiable and of the pop stratum. BIG TAKEOVER MAGAZINE described his latest album with the Ebola Music Orchestra to be "as poignant as it is absurd," and AMPLIFIER MAGAZINE claimed, "there is no place in a record store where it fits."



"Cinema must serve as a counterbalance to the attraction of alcohol and religion. The movie theater must replace the tavern and church." -Leon Trotsky



In early 2000, EGO PLUM began to parlay his acclaim as a recording artist into a burgeoning career as a film composer. Writing music for several student films at first, then short films, fashion shows, and finally an independent feature in 2004, EGO was able to hone his compositional skills and realize his passion for cinema and it's music. 2008 will find EGO PLUM leaving the confines of the underground music scene and bringing his unorthodox sound to the most popular children's entertainment brand on the planet: NICKELODEON. Ego composes the musical score for Nickelodeon/Nicktoons' newest animated series,: the strange & hilariously bleak "MAKING FIENDS," which debuts in October 2008.



"NINO ROTA, RAYMOND SCOTT and SALVADOR DALI run away to join the circus

which turns out to be run by a legless mute ringmaster who walks on his hands,

juggles with flaming whips and cues the clowns via telepathy. Ego Plum is a musical

genius."

-DAVID J (BAUHAUS • LOVE & ROCKETS)



"Within the dimension of this outré rock opera/concept album, Tom Waits cabaret

meets Looney Tunes cartoon music, and Oingo Boingo theatrics blend with Slint

complexity to create a work that is as poignant as it is absurd."

-Big Takeover Magazine



"If the MYSTIC KNIGHTS OF THE OINGO BOINGO would have stayed together, they

would have sounded like this to the 2nd power! Amazing."

-JOHNNY "VATOS" HERNANDEZ (OINGO BOINGO)



"Think of those calliope sounds that wafted just over the horizon when you

were a kid. Now imagine Tim Burton and David Lynch pooling their resources for

the purpose of making that carnival actually happen. Swirl all that around in

your head for a moment or two, let your mind evolve a soundtrack that's part Raymond

Scott, part Merrie Melodies, part Oingo Boingo and part Kurt Weill. On their first

full-fledged album, The Rat King, Ego Plum and the Ebola Music Orchestra not only

recreate the sullen dangers of the carnival — they reinvent them.

-BCMUSIC Magazine



""He's got talent. But I think the [Ebola Music] Orchestra will piss most people off."

-Mark Mothersbaugh (DEVO)



"Plum’s two previous albums of self-described “circus punk” were merely a prelude

to the expansive and weird-scenes-inside-the-jazz-mine cacophony of the Ebola

Music Orchestra’s wailings and flailings on The Rat King. There is no place in

a record store where this fits; ask for it by name then get ready for the musical

version of a roller coaster with an acid flashback soundtrack.

-Amplifier Magazine



"On Ego Plum's first recording with the Ebola Music Orchestra you'll find fractured

fairy tale new wave molded into a sinister circus soundtrack. Oingo Boingo, DEVO,

Pere Ubu. but the more I listen the more I hear the Residents and XTC. The twisted,

avant-garde bits bring the listener to the dark carnival midway that has become

a primary artistic metaphor for America's hidden underbelly. But it's the XTC-like

harmonies and hooks that place Ego Plum and the Ebola Music Orchestra in the field

of clever pop music. As such they can trace their roots back all the way to the

Beatles and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

-Sepiachord



"Beautiful, dark, dreamlike waltzes and twitchy pogos blare through an air

filled with images of fire dancers at nighttime carnivals in abandoned buildings



-NONzine



"Ego Plum's a maestro of a musical menagerie of misfits. He's a demented visionary

who puts together "able-bodied" and "disabled-bodied" performers on stage to create

a smorgasbord of sight and sound that's like a David Lynch film unfolding live

before your eyes. THe music itself is, well, Plum weird - like an unholy mixture

of circus music, Kurt Weill, Frank Zappa and the Residents."

-NEW TIMES LA



"Ego Plum fits the bizarre brief as snugly as a slightly undersized pair of

pants - uncomfortable in all the right places, yet strangely arousing."

-BIZARRE MAGAZINE



"This local combo, if it is one, offers a Residents/DEVO/Beefheart instrumental

weirdness of, yeah, more psycho-cirkus sounds (pump organ, marimbas, sinister

waltz times) but spills into medieval noir, samurai pizzicato, Turkish sambas

and a Roman holiday on ice. It can take you some place unclean and enlightening."



-LA WEEKLY