PESKY KID
When does a child become an adult? For some, we remain kids, channeling the ether, or perhaps carrying the torch of the Lost Boys into everything we do. Pesky Kid is a multimedia artist and band who have been steadily stacking releases across all genres through Underflow Records. Neither R&B nor proper pop, Champagne and company offer an off-kilter amalgam of sounds and styles through their own meta-madness lens that defies genre in favor of examining the often-overlooked beauty in everyday simplicity. There’s no right or wrong answer or path on the way to aging gracefully, but luckily there are artists like Pesky Kid who are able to bring fantasies into reality.
“Benny” is the proper debut project for Benjamin Champagne as Pesky Kid. Beyond his beautiful beat tapes (2NE1, Maargaariitaaviillee) and snappy singles (Rowdy One, Sweet N Low, Is YoU are yOu DoWn?) lies another dimension of Pierre St. Jupiter. Much like where the sea meets the mountains, “Benny” offers an off-beat and heart-on-the-sleeve perspective to life as a creative in the 21st century where the kitsch meets the legit. Just like a proper party defies cliques or ideologies or identities, the music of Pesky Kid offers a melting pot of sounds and ideas through “Benny” in which we can hear nostalgic tinges of the past blended with unheard echoes of a future yet to come. Venture into the vibes of a sincere prankster opening his heart for the love, the jokes, and the hurt to pull you into the shenanigans for a dance.
PRESS:
Pesky Kid ft. Quells – Real Love [Video]
Zone Nights
“Real Love” : Une Alchimie Musicale Par Pesky Kid Et Quells
ExtravaFrench
”Pesky Kid x Quells – “Real Love”
We All Want Someone To Shout For
“Pesky Kid x Quells "Real Love" - Sognante e coinvolgente”
Indie Italia
“Pesky Kid Serves Up His Yummy “Sweet N’ Low” Single Premiere”
V13 Media
“La nueva canción de Pesky Kid: ‘Is YoU are yOu DoWn’ que encenderá tu playlist”
Zone Nights
”PESKY KID • The Genre-Bending Post-Modern Electro Pop of Benjamin Champagne”
Review Magazine
”The Test Drive: Pesky Kid - Benny”
Jammerzine
Pesky Kid is a multi-media artist who has dabbled in a bit of everything, currently hoping to unleash “beats for self-actualization.”
A product of the DIY world, Benjamin Champagne ran a small club for over 5 years and helped produce hundreds of shows. In that space he cultivated art shows, workshops, resistance lectures, law briefings, parties, yoga, sound baths, drum circles, you name it. During those years Champagne also worked for Fusion Shows, The Crofoot and Audiotree producing larger professional concerts for many years, also touring the country as a sound engineer. A pedigreed producer, he currently manages a large theatre and works for the Saginaw Art Museum.
pesky kid = Benjamin champagne
Michigan-based producer, artist, poet, multi-instrumentalist, event organizer & trickster
The music of Pesky Kid is a product and reflection of all culture. He utilizes organic and inorganic sounds, samples, acoustic instruments, electric whatsadoodles, or anything that produces fun sounds. Playing a little bit of every instrument, Champagne says future releases will contain different musicians and more vocals. In complimentary fashion, Pesky Kid produces zines, poetry, collages and dupes: images from the internet that are cut up to resemble the real thing but are far from it. Releasing his debut “2NE1” in 2020, Monsieur Champagne followed with “Maargaariitaaviillee” in early 2021. His first single with vocals “Rowdy One” dropped on November 19th, 2021 - marking the beginnings of a new era in Pesky evolution.
Pesky Kid = Benjamin Champagne & whatever other people & projects he’s working on at the time.
“The Pesky Kid aesthetic is cut, copy and play. This is all to get at the heart of what it is to be human in modernity.” Champagne says.
“But at the end of the day it’s all sexy and fun. What’s the point of cutting everything up and examining it if we aren’t having fun?”
A man of many monikers: Pesky Kid, Pierre Saint-Jupiter, Lava Lamp Devotional Choir, Slow Learner, Holy Goof, Benjamin Champagne.
Pesky Kid is a “joking way” to think of himself much like Socrates called himself the Gadfly. The term "gadfly" (Greek: μύωψ[1], mýops[2]) was used by Plato in the Apology[3] to describe Socrates' acting as an uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, like a spur or biting fly arousing a sluggish horse.
During his defense when on trial for his life, Socrates, according to Plato's writings, pointed out that dissent, like the gadfly, was easy to swat, but the cost to society of silencing individuals who were irritating could be very high: "If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me" because his role was that of a gadfly, "to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth." This may have been one of the earliest descriptions of gadfly ethics.
Pesky Kid = Pierre Saint-Jupiter, Lava Lamp Devotional Choir, Slow Learner, Holy Goof = Benjamin Champagne.
