Blog: Music For Maniacs

As much as I like covering the whole spectrum of strange music, from experimental composers to thrift-store records, I am pleased that this year has begun with a bumper crop of outsider musicians: Bernie Sizzey , the return of John North Wright , all thanks to good Maniacs working to bring these musicians to the public eye and providing us wiht their fascinating back-stories. And now, thanks to Rich from the great Kill Ugly Radio show up in Portland, the master of the Electric Jews Harp, Bruce Hodges. Rich sez: [...]

I received an interesting comment on the John North Wright post, and, as it is not the first such comment we've received here, I thought I'd not just let it hide as a post comment, but turn it into a post of it's own, as I believe the commenter probably speaks for many, and I'm sure some of you would like to chime in as well. radioman said: "I can see the appeal of this kind of stuff, yet, at the same time, it feels almost as if one is back in the 1700s, laughing [...]

Amy Beth is an Elvis impersonator who sounds NOTHING like Elvis. She does, however, make a great cat-being-run-over-by-a-steamr oller impersonator. And if she does indeed have her own band, they do a great impression themselves - of cheezy drum-machine karaoke backing tracks. "Heartbreak Hotel" like you've never heard it before. You've been warned: My ears, my ears! Hey you masochists, you can buy a whole album of this stuff, y'know. What, you want more?!? Here's a dog of a "Hound Dog," complete with canine [...]

Freddie Fisher & The Schnickelfritz Band were a great novelty band from the 1930s, pre-dating Spike Jone's debut in 1942, and if their music has a familiar sound to readers of this blog, they should - most of the members left band leader Fisher and formed the Korn Kobblers . A nice person has posted an album of Fisher & Co. songs of wildly-varying sound quality, but hey, it's free, so who can complain? Gonna have to find an album by these guys. For further study... Freddie Fisher & The Schnickelfritz Band

Bubo, Tuco & Tumbo are one and the same, making inexplicable instrumental (with vocal gibberish) thoroughly obscure music that is by turns, annoying, fascinating, grating, compelling, always highly original, and frequently rewarding. They exist in that rarefied world of abstract esotericists like Zoviet France, or Nurse With Wound. I literally have no idea how most of this music was made. It's not jazz, tho it sounds improvised at times, and doesn't sound especially electronic - there's an organic hands-on feel to these steadly-thumping rhythms that just go shambling on along like some Rube Goldberg device (perhaps [...]

As I wrote back in '06 : In 1995, The Phoeniz (AZ) New Times received a demo tape from one John North Wright . The tape began with the growly voice of a middle-to-senior aged man announcing, ""Hi, I'm John Wright. Uh . . . all these songs are copyrighted 1985, words and music by myself. Uh, conceptually, they form the songs for a, uh, rock video opera I have written in my mind. It's set mostly in Hawaii and the Orient. It's called Teenage Volleyballers." [...]

Hyperscore is software originally intended by its creators at MIT's Media Lab as a toy for children - they would draw and paint on the monitor and music would result. But then Media Lab's Tod Machover introduced it to disabled folks like one Mr. Dan Ellsey of Boston. Quoth this LA Times article : "Born with cerebral palsy and unable [...]

Had a request from a reader in Morocco (!) for a few albums originally hosted by the late, great site Bellybongo. Tho I don't have albums by Lynn Rockwell or The Trilogy (anyone?), I am glad I had this little wonder. Deb Hyer played ramshackle one-man-band versions of late '60s/'70s easy-listening hits on garage-y guitar, sleazy electric organ, and one-note duck-quack sax. And then there's his singing - he may have been from Kentucky, but his sense of pitch was all over the map. Actually, t [...]

TAKE NOTE! Update your address books, because in a month or so, my only email address will be: mrfab3@hotmail.com Yep, hotmail - the first email address I ever got, back in the 1900s. Remember the days? Horse-drawn wagons...gals in bonnets...barn dances...how we got those barns to dance I'll never understand (boom- tish !). Anyway, I'm getting rid of hosting m y own bandwidth - everything's blogspot, mediafire and divshare from now on. Will save me plenty of $, so if there's [...]

• Greg Bishop - Mr_Fab_1_8_12

Today's post is a big one, but this is a big discovery: a prolific outsider artists' complete works now available for free download. Meet Bernie Sizzey (aka Bernie aka Solitaire): mental patient, transvestite, drug user, coprophiliac, and, more importantly, singer/guitarist/keyboardist/ lo-fi home recorder and songwriter for 30 years now of everything from instrumental ambient space-rock, to unrepentant lysergic trip-outs, to confessional ballads detailing his life in catchy, upbeat songs that are never feeling sorry for themselves. He hasn't been dealt the best hand in life, but you won't hear him complain. (Well, unless maybe he runs out [...]

"Compost" is the aptly-titled 16 minute free download mini-album courtesy of of Nova Scotia, Canada's J fm. He grabs samples of pop music detritus, throws 'em in a grinder and makes hazy lo-fi audio mulch. Fans (like me) of the L.A. Free Music Society's woozy tape-loop shenanigans from the likes of Tom Recchion and Dinosaurs With Horns will dig this. Mr. J fm sez: "i just record onto a tape from my sp404, i carry a solid lil dictophone around and grab samples anywhere i can, everything's game. those sounds get treated, trashed and put into [...]

Oh, my overflowing in-box! Now that I'm back from vacation, I simply MUST tell you about: - Yrs truly, Mr Fab, will once again be spinning all the platters that matter for that internet host with the most, Spacebrother Greg, on his Radio Misterioso program this Sun. Jan 8th, 8:00 PST on killradio.org : two solid hours of as many strange sounds as we can cram in, including lotsa stuff I havn't posted here so you probably don't know about...yet. - RIAA's last (?) ever album " The Wonderful [...]

Here we are, back from vacation, ready to...go back on vacation. So let's warm up these darkest depths of winter with one of the most expensive exotica albums ever. Yep, this one goes for hundreds of dollars on ebay, and I have no idea why. For one thing, it's not a music album so much as a tourist souvenir record, complete with nerdy narration. As such, it's a fascinating time-travel back to '60s kitsch America, but the one-man organ band ain't exactly on t he order of Les Baxter's complex arrangements (tho Princess Carloa's "Hawaiian [...]

...is by the Stone Temple Pilots guy. Listen to it streaming here (if you dare). The first song had me thinking that he just might pull it off, but then...it was hard to listen to "I'll Be Home For Christmas," which you can listen to/download HERE without spitting out my eggnog in laughter. The absurd crooner vibrato and wavering pitch of the former rocker/junkie/jailbird is backed by "sophisticated" orchestrations, pseudo-calypso, cheezy Casio drum-machine lounge , and even the whitest [...]

The Elvis Experience with Buddy Love is a curious bit of Elvis-iana from Spain. Apparently it's yet another E impersonator, but one that raises a number of questions: why does he go by Buddy Love, the name of a Jerry Lewis film character? What's with that picture (taken from his MySpace page)? Is he doing a Buddy Holly impression on "True Love Ways"? And why does he start this CD-R (presumably sold at shows) with four obscurities, then a Peggy Lee cover, instead of Elvis classics? Maybe those songs where big in Spain. "Edge Of Reality" is totally great, [...]

Jeff Kolar 's "Start Up / Shut Down " is a free 'net-label two-track single creating solely from: "Window and Macintosh operating system event sounds. This project features remixed material sourced from Microsoft Windows (3.1, 4.0, NT, 95, 98, Me, XP, Vista, 7, 8) and Macintosh OS (10.0 Cheetah, 10.1 Puma, 10.2 [...]

Like I said : "During the upheaval of the late '70s/early '80s punk days, there was a real changing-of-the-guard feeling that led many groups of the time to cover classic oldies from the sacred rock 'n' roll canon in an irreverent (if not downright disrespectful) fashion." Part 1 and Part 2 of this series have been two of my most-downloaded collections, so here's a third batch - with suggestions from some of you - of wild 'n' wooly '70s/'80s devolved covers ranging from hardcore slammers to New Wave synth nerdiness to art-damaged tune destructions. You'll probably recognize [...]

Jazz legend Charles Mingus needs no introduction, and if you don't know the name of writer Jean Shepherd, you probably know of his works, e.g. the 1983 film "A Christmas Story." None of which will prepare you for this 12 minute hunk of twisted circus jazz and dark humor, the kind of spoken word/music surrealism that Joe Frank does, but this was done back in 1957. From Mingus' album of the same name, prepare thyself for..."The Clown."

I can think of no better way to spend seven-and-a-half minutes then with this stupendous stop-motion animation/sound & audio collage by Los Angeles' Janie Geiser . Like if one of Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes was animated by the Brothers Quay: Halfcast Podcast, who made all those bee-YOO-tee-ful outsider-music videos for us last month, have returned with a hilarious Yuletide chestnut featuring the late, beloved Wesley Willis . Merry Christmas! The use of the also late, great Del Rubio Triplets [...]

Gnarboots are a completely ridiculous band from Central California that play a variety of styles with a surprising amount of skill, considering the fact that they're a buncha immature smart-asses who take nothing, including themselves, seriously. A stance I support in theory - the problem is that sometimes amusing oneself doesn't always translate into amusing others. This album, however, is a loveable mutt that I liked even better on second spin. The Dead Milkmen of a new generation ? Sayeth they: "...it is a weird album and we [...]