For those not up-to-date on potential world destroyers, this was a concern when Conn presented us with his last record, "Rise Up." But alas, it seems we're safe.

"Well, that turned out happily, for me and probably for everyone," Conn says. "It turned out to be incorrect. I'm not the Antichrist. One of the things about that: It was just a suspicion of mine. I always believed that the proof is in the pudding, and there was no pudding with being the Antichrist. I have no magical powers; I can't fly, can't spit fire. It was a relief, to be frank, because I don't think I would have made a very effective Antichrist. I don't really think I have the evil instinct, I'm more of a 'get along go along' kind of guy."

Conn doesn't want to talk about his past visions of evil anymore, and you won't find a scrap of them on his latest record, "The Golden Age" (Thrill Jockey). In fact, this record marks a kind of "born-again" Bobby Conn, one who cares less about the promotion and gimmick side of things and more about the music. "You have to understand that with my first two records," Conn says, "the whole idea that anyone would listen to them was a total novelty. So I tried to have as much fun as I possibly could with the promotional end of things, the PR machine. Frankly, the idea of promotion and PR and celebrity disgusts me. So I was just seeing what would people swallow. I realized pretty quickly that people will swallow anything. Especially if it makes for entertaining copy. And after you've been the Antichrist, where do you have left to go? I don't know what kind of stunt there is left to do except make hopefully good records that are interesting in and of themselves, rather than being some sort of character."

On "The Golden Age," Conn shows two songwriting sides. Conn, the musician, has an obviously sharp ear for pop music through the twentieth century, and his compositions can either mock the past or improve on it. No matter the songs' lyrical subject, Conn keeps the music rich and multifaceted, more alive with the seventies soul and R&B arrangement theory than his Bowie-esque leanings from past efforts. It is very intentional. "I'll never get over the fact that Dusty Radio 1390 is gone. For me, that's the standard of songwriting that hasn't been matched for a long time. I hold Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield and even Holland-Dozier-Holland pretty much the same way that I hold AC/DC as far as brilliant pop songwriters. Not just spiritually or soulfully, but musically on a technical basis; there's so much going on in that music that makes it a lot more interesting to explore than most rock music at this point."

Conn's music, however, belies his practice as lyricist. Against backdrops of focused pop music, Conn's lyrics make William Cullen Bryant's "Thanatopsis" sound like Dr. Seuss, culminating in a final song ("Whores") that really brings life's boom to the head; among other images of society's lower rung is a sad, lyrical portrait of a toothless prostitute. "I'm folding together maybe too many things at once [in "Whores"], but it's an observation of people in the neighborhood where I used to work and how they got by. And how, in order to do any kind of work that's demeaning, or that's perceived as being demeaning, you have to really have a pretty diluted internal dialogue to get you through the day. It's just extrapolating that, seeing how far I could push it."

One thing that hasn't disappeared from Conn's music, however, is the trademark falsetto that he's not afraid to throw around. As a man—one who's done an occasional falsetto for three records now—isn't it tough to get on stage and belt it out? "I seem to be able to hold my pitch a little better up there," he says, stuttering his answer with laughs. "I don't know if that's obvious. I guess at this point it's kind of like a trademark," he laughs again. "I didn't really mean it to be, it just sort of ended up that way."

"But mainly," he explains, "it's just easier to sing intricate melodic lines that way. Also, the falsetto, it cuts through the clutter, changes the mix. You can always be heard when you're up at the frequency that dogs can hear. I've taken a steady diet of Curtis Mayfield, and even Mick Jagger's 'Emotional Rescue' is funny, but effective at the same time."

So is this record, Conn's most musically accessible to date, his stab at joining the rock star roll call, or is the musician side of Bobby Conn above that desire? "I think every musician is trying to be a famous musician, or else they wouldn't bother to make records. But I don't think my music fails if I'm not selling records, that's for sure. Basically, I'm taking the vocabulary of music that I have familiarity with, which is one that's pretty common to anyone that grew up in the Midwest. Basically, I'm just trying to document what I consider folk music of the day."

Should we expect a departure for New York, like so many others recently? "No," he emphatically responds. "For me, Chicago represents an ideal, but I'm biased because I've been here for so long. Economic factors mean that creative work in New York is kind of narrowly focused toward all the media that's based there, and it's kind of stale and boring. The most exciting stuff that's being generated there is coming out of the Bronx and Brooklyn, or from suburban places around the country, not the bohemian neighborhoods in big cities like the Lower East Side of New York."

Bobby Conn celebrates the release of "The Golden Age" January 11 at the Empty Bottle, 1035 North Western, (773)276-3600.

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