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miko2I have a love of music that is so bad it's enormously entertaining. For example, I've always loved Pat Metheney's "Forward March" which is intended to be the absolute worst high school marching band performance in history (and it is, it is). Or for example, I have an overwhelming fondness for the cd "Sacred Cows" by the Swirling Eddies, in which they take some of the stupidest songs ever put forward by Christian pop artists, and play them as badly as they possibly can be played. (Songs they cover include "Baby, Baby" by Amy Grant, the unbelievably simplistic "God Good, Devil Bad" by DeGarmo & Key, and "I Love Rap Music" by some Christian rap group, I forget who that was -- the Swirling Eddies version gets the lounge-lizard treatment).
There's also the "Golden Throats" series from Rhino Records, which collects hilariously bad song covers by Hollywood/media stars. I have volumes 1 and 4, I believe, including William Shatner's mind-blowing cover of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds". Leonard Nimoy takes a turn at "Proud Mary", and when he sings "Pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans" in a bored monotone... well, it's kinda scary.
There's also Leonard Nimoy's "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" which comes with a scary video. If you have never seen that, you're missing out... on something.
This week on NPR "Open Source" did a show on Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" and as part of the show, they played versions of that song by Nancy Sinatra and... oh I forget the other guy, but they were both incredibly bad. One of the things that gives that song such meaning is the pain you hear in Bob Dylan's voice. Bland pop singers may have voices that are technically better than Dylan's, but they drain all of the meaning from the song by singing it as a standard pop tune.
ANYway... the thing is, clever musicians who are purposefully bad, or media stars who make bad singers/musicians, are one thing. When you get someone who is unintentionally bad, and has never been famous, but still insists on making music... you get what some people have dubbed "Outsider Music". And having listened to some sound clips on Amazon.com recently, I was intrigued enough to pick up volumes 1 and 2 of "Songs In The Key Of Z".
Wow. Some of the stuff here is unitentionally hilarious. Some of it is actually fun to listen to. And some of it is downright scary... like the guy who screams the same two lines over and over and over for three minutes.
Some of these "outsider artists" are actually people I know. Tiny Tim, for example. Captain Beefheart... I'd never actually listened to him but I knew who he was. Thoth. Thoth was a band some of us got to listen to at one of the Confurence's down in California. They were a "primitive" music group that were actually quite interesting, and Keith and I each picked up one of their cds, and later I found another cd of theirs in a Half-Price Books store. But apparently the main guy is now performing on his own, still under the name Thoth, and has taken his "primitive" music concept to new heights (or new lows). Although really, the song they include from him is still pretty interesting to listen to.
But you've got some truly odd people here... a Liberian congresswoman who likes to sing about the dangers of mosquitoes... several singers who can't hold a tune but continue to churn out new music... just weird people in general, most of them too far out of touch with the real world to even understand how far off from "normal" music they really are.
One of my favorites -- I even ordered a full cd of just his music -- is Wesley Willis, a large schizophrenic black man from Chicago who claims to have written 35,000 songs (he's released at least 28 cds/tapes so far). Considering that he'll write about anything, and that his songs consist of four spoken lines, the chorus/title sung/screamed four times, four more spoken lines, same chorus, four more spoken lines, the same chorus, and then a "coda" of sorts that is almost always him saying "Rock over London, Rock on Chicago", and then repeating an add slogan like "Wheaties, the breakfast of champions". Well, it seems quite likely that he really has written 35,000 songs, since he can probably assemble a new song of this sort on the fly at any given moment. But you gotta love a guy who writes songs like "I Whupped Batman's Ass", and the, for variety's sake, "I Whupped Superman's Ass" ^_^ He also writes songs about concerts he's been to or musicians he likes ("Stabbing Westward", "Urge Overkill", "Elvis Presley"), writes about local events like people that have been shot and killed or people who have been jailed for cromes they committed... he sings about fast food ("Rock and Roll McDonald's", "I'm Sorry I Got Fat"), and weird animal stories ("Vampire Bat", "The Chicken Cow"). He writes about his own Chronic Schizophrenia, and about how Kris Kringle Was A Car Theif. He writes about anything that enters his head. ^_^
So basically, I've been listening to scary music and non-music all day. ^_^
There's also the "Golden Throats" series from Rhino Records, which collects hilariously bad song covers by Hollywood/media stars. I have volumes 1 and 4, I believe, including William Shatner's mind-blowing cover of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds". Leonard Nimoy takes a turn at "Proud Mary", and when he sings "Pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans" in a bored monotone... well, it's kinda scary.
There's also Leonard Nimoy's "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" which comes with a scary video. If you have never seen that, you're missing out... on something.
This week on NPR "Open Source" did a show on Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" and as part of the show, they played versions of that song by Nancy Sinatra and... oh I forget the other guy, but they were both incredibly bad. One of the things that gives that song such meaning is the pain you hear in Bob Dylan's voice. Bland pop singers may have voices that are technically better than Dylan's, but they drain all of the meaning from the song by singing it as a standard pop tune.
ANYway... the thing is, clever musicians who are purposefully bad, or media stars who make bad singers/musicians, are one thing. When you get someone who is unintentionally bad, and has never been famous, but still insists on making music... you get what some people have dubbed "Outsider Music". And having listened to some sound clips on Amazon.com recently, I was intrigued enough to pick up volumes 1 and 2 of "Songs In The Key Of Z".
Wow. Some of the stuff here is unitentionally hilarious. Some of it is actually fun to listen to. And some of it is downright scary... like the guy who screams the same two lines over and over and over for three minutes.
Some of these "outsider artists" are actually people I know. Tiny Tim, for example. Captain Beefheart... I'd never actually listened to him but I knew who he was. Thoth. Thoth was a band some of us got to listen to at one of the Confurence's down in California. They were a "primitive" music group that were actually quite interesting, and Keith and I each picked up one of their cds, and later I found another cd of theirs in a Half-Price Books store. But apparently the main guy is now performing on his own, still under the name Thoth, and has taken his "primitive" music concept to new heights (or new lows). Although really, the song they include from him is still pretty interesting to listen to.
But you've got some truly odd people here... a Liberian congresswoman who likes to sing about the dangers of mosquitoes... several singers who can't hold a tune but continue to churn out new music... just weird people in general, most of them too far out of touch with the real world to even understand how far off from "normal" music they really are.
One of my favorites -- I even ordered a full cd of just his music -- is Wesley Willis, a large schizophrenic black man from Chicago who claims to have written 35,000 songs (he's released at least 28 cds/tapes so far). Considering that he'll write about anything, and that his songs consist of four spoken lines, the chorus/title sung/screamed four times, four more spoken lines, same chorus, four more spoken lines, the same chorus, and then a "coda" of sorts that is almost always him saying "Rock over London, Rock on Chicago", and then repeating an add slogan like "Wheaties, the breakfast of champions". Well, it seems quite likely that he really has written 35,000 songs, since he can probably assemble a new song of this sort on the fly at any given moment. But you gotta love a guy who writes songs like "I Whupped Batman's Ass", and the, for variety's sake, "I Whupped Superman's Ass" ^_^ He also writes songs about concerts he's been to or musicians he likes ("Stabbing Westward", "Urge Overkill", "Elvis Presley"), writes about local events like people that have been shot and killed or people who have been jailed for cromes they committed... he sings about fast food ("Rock and Roll McDonald's", "I'm Sorry I Got Fat"), and weird animal stories ("Vampire Bat", "The Chicken Cow"). He writes about his own Chronic Schizophrenia, and about how Kris Kringle Was A Car Theif. He writes about anything that enters his head. ^_^
So basically, I've been listening to scary music and non-music all day. ^_^
