Jerico DeAngelo

Anthony Joseph Eisenschmidt (born January 22, 1967), known professionally as Jerico DeAngelo and Jerico of the Angels, is an American multimedia performance artist, singer, songwriter, composer, actor, and art-video maker. He is noted for his contributions to the New York City art world for being among the first to incorporate human blood-drinking during performance art with his original music recordings.

DeAngelo's songwriting career includes a Grammy Award-nominated credit for his song "Aim Your Arrow High" (Album: To a Higher Place, Artist: Tramaine Hawkins, Columbia Records, 1994).

Early life and career Jerico DeAngelo was born Anthony Joseph Eisenschmidt in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. DeAngelo's parents recognized that he was musically gifted and encouraged the development of his many artistic talents. and they projected slides of their psychedelic transcendental paintings against DeAngelo's nude body both on stage and for the Japanese photographer, Yoshi Ono.

DeAngelo's Into Infinity multimedia performance art incorporated live musicians, dancers, paintings, videos, photography, and fashion design weaved with original song records. DeAngelo's music and song recording element of Into Infinity was created with the recruitment of over 50 writers, singers, musicians, producers, and other recording artists from around the world–– with most productions being performed and co-written with Scotland-born Laray Collins. The recording project was executive produced by Collins and DeAngelo.

Stage, film, and video DeAngelo's professional stage career began in his early teen youth in professional music theater and comedy productions. DeAngelo performed in a series of experimental videos Abdoh created with video maker Adam Soch. The videos were incorporated into Reza Abdoh's plays debuting at LA Public Theater and shown in video installations in the 2018 MOMA PS1(New York City) exhibit. Over the years, DeAngelo has credited the avant-garde play director Reza Abdoh (1963-1995), for whom he befriended and worked with, for being one of the biggest influences on his artistic style.

DeAngelo's film acting history started under his earlier name, Anthony Christian, with the acting role of Jake in the cult classic feature and B-Horror film, Shock em' Dead (1991), Since then, he has appeared in hundreds of walk-on roles in major feature films and played himself on an Unsolved Mysteries episode about the disappearance of the Village Voice reporter, Susan Walsh ("Desperately Seeking Susan").

In Susan Walsh's real-life story, Walsh became a missing person while writing an article for the Village Voice about New York City vampires, in which DeAngelo was interviewed as one of the article's main subjects at the time. The case has remained unsolved. The song was co-written with notable 20th-century songwriters Denise Rich, Michael O'Hara, and George Lyter.

DeAngelo's alternative musical style is a fusion of numerous genres, including R&B, hip-hop, baroque classical, tribal house, alternative rock, gothic, experimental EDM, new age, dubstep, and pop. The eclectic mix of influences in DeAngelo's music and visual-arts earned him the label of an "artistic anarchist" by a reporter for Los Angeles Entertainment News.

Video and filmography Source:

Sleeping with the Devil, Cast, 1990 (Museum of Modern Art, 2018) Train Project (Reza Abdoh, dir. 1991, Adam Soch, Camera) Shock em' Dead, Cast,1990 Unsolved Mysteries, Cast, 1996 Octavia St. Laurent, Queen of the Underground, Producer, 1993, (Winner 2010 Pill Award)

Discography Sources:

Into Infinity (1995) Flow Affair (2010) SBLMNL MPCT (2013) Undead A-Go-Go (2014) Tame the Wind (2016) Aim Your Arrow High (Columbia Records, 1994, Grammy Award nominated album) Hot Planet (Progressive High Records, 1998) I Would Walk Through Fire (Wave / Sony Entertainment, 1998) Octavia St. Laurent, Queen of the Underground (OsiriStar Records, 2009)