Klaus Nomi

Klaus Nomi was born on January 24, 1944 in Bavaria, Germany and came to prominence in New York City as a performance artist and counterculture icon in the 1970’s. Nomi’s act involved highly charged operatic howling over electronic arrangements and grandiose set treatments complete with colorful strobe lights and smoke pyrotechnics.

Highly enigmatic, rumored a-sexual, and familiar to the likes of Jean Michel Basquiat, Kraftwerk, and Keith Harring, Nomi was an icon in the NYC club scene during its heyday. He achieved more “mainstream” exposure when he performed with David Bowie as a guest on Saturday Night Live in 1979. He probably most well known for his heavily charged, dramatically ceremonious cover of Lou Christie’s “Lightnin' Strikes” and for “The Nomi Song”, a composition written for him by Kristian Hoffman of the Mumps.

Nomi unfortunately became one of the first high profile fatalities claimed by the AIDS epidemic that ravaged the gay arts and culture scene in major cities across the world. He succumbed to complications of the disease at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City on August 6, 1983 at the age of 39. His legacy as a performer has since been preserved and acclaimed, and he has been the subject of many documentary films and tributes from the likes of Morrisey, Soft Cell’s Mark Almond and Courtney Act, Drag Queen and winner of Celebrity Big Brother UK.