John Maus: “I Thought My Legacy Would Speak For Itself”

Despite the flash flood, Union Pool is packed on Thursday night for John Maus’ sold-out show. It’s his first New York performance in over five years. The experimental-pop musician always possessed reclusive tendencies, but that intensified when photos circulated of him and his longtime musical accomplice Ariel Pink standing outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the pro-Trump riots. Many assumed the pair attended in support of Trump; Pink worsened the situation with a self-pitying appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight in which he referred to Trump’s “unprecedented success as US president.” Maus, in his typical cryptic fashion, posted Mit Brennender Sorge, a 1937 encyclical by Pope Pius XI widely interpreted as a critique of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, and then more or less disappeared. He was slated to play George Clanton’s Queens festival ElectroniCON in 2023 but was ultimately dropped from the lineup amid backlash.