This reminds me that I’ve never heard California. I was blown away, though, by the contrast between their self-titled album and Disco Volante. It really felt like completely different bands.
Then again, the same is true about Faith No More as well.
Picked this up last night (used!). Space Oddity is weirdly haunting and it got a little dusty during Desperado.
I grew up listening to a completely demented LP titled Delirium in Hi-Fi. It was recorded in France circa 1957 and features lots of old-school recording effects.Very weird and engaging. Our copy of the LP got horribly beat up, so I was thrilled several years ago to find that it had been reissued. There’s a sample link at Amazon, unfortunately for only one track. I found more samples here. This thing has to be heard to be believed.
I don’t know if this qualifies, but I love this album (well a couple of songs released on tape and record):
Monte Video and the Cassettes - Monte Video.
I remember seeing the weird video of Shoop Shoop Diddy Wop on channel 66 (Chicago) in the 80’s back when some of those new over-the-air- channels were trying to be a poor-man’s MTV.
This song was on there, too: Sheba She Sha Shoo
I think I’m gonna have to dig this one out and listen to it again…
The play was amazing. Did you see it?
Flaming Lips: “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”, and “At War with the Mystics” are both lush psychedelic rock albums. There’s a newish band named MGMT whose album “Oracular Spectacular” is produced by the guy from the Lips that is also pretty weird.
I was going to call the Portsmouth Sinfonia! Not so much weird as good in a strange way. It has been a long time since I heard that album. One of those songs was stuck in my head, complete with off-key notes, for years.
I don’t consider "A Lamb Lies Down… " as weird. I played that to death as a tape and my CD has been used pretty hard too. That is just plain old Great music, in the same vein as King Crimson or various Fripp or Eno titles.
For weird, how about anything by the Residents? try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commercial_Album Any thing on the *Ralph Records * label is … umm … intresting.
I forgot, my fav album of all time: Strangitude, by Ozric Tenticles. Some may say it’s weird.
I would suggest Tuxedomoon as some odd but enjoyable music.
Magma’s Mekanïk Kommandöh. It’s sometimes called "room clearing prog. There are some sections that drag a bit, but they’re balanced out by sections that I absolutely love.
I’m a fan of the Dresden Dolls, it’s weird stuff.
Zappa’s good too, though I mostly have his live albums and things tend to make some what of a sense in there. “Hello Suzy Creamcheese” moment from his debut WAS kinda out there. I loved it. “This is your conscience speaking, Susy”
Another great weird one: Coheed and Cambria’s Good Apoll, I’m burning Star IV series (there were two “IV” albums part one and two).
Part one is REALLY REALLY WEIRD as it’s basically telling the story of the graphic novel of the same name written by one of the musicians in the band… and well… you should just try to read it for yourself.I love one song on it because it’s basically a discussion of the author of a story who had driven himself mad, and is at that point arguing with his hallucinations which have manifest into the form of a Demonic 10 Speed bicycle, and no I’m not kidding.
From the Wiki: Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood and Burial)
It’s got one of my favorite lyrics in a song ever in the form of a conversation between the protagonist and his demonic hallucinatory Bicycle:
*
“Yeah, well the only thing love’s done is put you in this position; I say kill her off!”
“Yeah, but you say a lot of things… and how does that work? You’re a bicycle”*
Speaking of Zappa. I was quite fond of Joe’s Garage – which was truly weird.
Hi. It’s me again. The Central Scruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutinizer …
I had it on cassette – a double cassette, even. I’m gonna have to re hook myself up with that one one of these days.
I’ve always liked the album:
God Bless Tiny Tim
One of my most favorite albums ever, Doseone and Boom-Bip’s Circle. To (try to) put in into a genre, I like to think of it as “prog-hop”. Each song blends into the next and span all worlds of styles and sounds. Boom Bip spins some absolutely beautiful soundscapes. Once you finally start to make sense of Dose’s trademark absurdly abstract lyrics(and get past the nasally delivery) you find there is a bit of a story coursing through. Things get really weird in the tracks(though not just exclusive to the two) “Sleep Talkin” and “Gin”. The former being a dreamlike sequence dissolving into the nightmarish latter; spoken word tracks composed of disjointed non-sequiturs, L/R channel playing, and cool sound effects.
I don’t think it would be unreasonable to say that Doseoneis the hiphop world’s version of Mike Patton; anything he touches is guaranteed to be wonderfully weird.
There’s a fair bit of great 1960s stuff that fell under the mainstream radar at the time:
The Monks were a bunch of GIs based in Germany who ended up playing really dirty garage music with monk-like tonsure in 1965.
Here’s The Monks in 2006, where the hair is a bit more naturally monk-like:
The Monk’s “Black Monk Time” album is essential.
Another band that are a bit out there from the same time period and really underappreciated are The United States of America. Here’s “The American Metaphysical Circus”:
and “Coming Down”
Stereolab, for one, have heard the eponymous album “The United States of America”.
Lastly, The Silver Apples. Here’s “Ruby”
and here’s “Oscillation” (much more recent performance)
the original album is from 1968 and, again, essential.
Suicide are not all that well known and very eccentric. Here’s “Ghost Rider”
From Suicide’s first album.
Finding that last video I found Soft Cell and Jim (Foetus) Thirwell doing the same song:
There’s always Nurse with Wound:
and Cabaret Voltaire
and Incapacitants, who play louder than My Bloody Valentine, so that means they are just below Space Shuttle volume levels. They are shit though, even although it is impressive for a couple of old Japanese blokes. Just search on Youtube for them, and turn down whatever speakers you are using.
:eek:
Put me down for Leningrad Cowboys with the Red Army Choir. All done with a very straight face and an interesting mix of insane and impressive. Their version of Tom Jones’ Delilah is an absolute favorite.
Linky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhIMEMDYxZE
The album version is better…
“Lizard” was one of the first things I thought of when I saw the thread. It’s been years since I’ve heard it, but IIRC one of the first songs on Side 1 has the band playing in regular 4/4 or 3/4 time, but the piano playing in something bizarre like 4/6, so that the band and the piano only come into sinc once every 3 or 4 bars.
**The Butthole Surfers **very first e.p. (selftitled, but I think the hardcore fans call it “Brown Reason for Living”) was pretty weird at the time. I still listen to that every now and then.
**Robert Calvert’s **“Lucky Leif and the Longships”, a concept album about what the U.S.A. would have been like if it were founded by the Vikings instead of later British colonists.
And of course Skinny Puppy, who were just plain weird, even for industrial music.
Already mentioned, but worth mentioning again:
Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. Sounds like six instruments playing six different things. What an awesome album.
Pretty much anything by The Residents. My favorite of theirs is the album Not Available. I’ve probably played it a thousand times.
Renaldo and the Loaf is also very strange.
I have some cassettes from an obscure musician named John Trubee. The music and prank phone calls are wonderful.
I am going to go ahead and asssume that
Weird Al
They Might Be Giants
Bob Rivers
And more of their kind are somewhat excluded from this list. Would that be a correct Assumption?
In that case, let me Posit these in their stead:
(I own all of the following)
Garfield: Am I cool or what? A collection of R&B hits including Pointer Sisters, Lou Rawls (I believe) and others, WITH vocals from Lorenzo Music, as Garfield.
The Best of Nicktoons: Including Ren and Stimpy’s Happy Happy Joy Joy, The Log Commercial and 38 or so other songs from Old School Nicktoons. (CatDog has just the Theme Song on the disc, as a sneak peak at the Newest Nicktoon. Copyright 1998. - Spongebob was yet to be created.)
The Worst Band in the Universe : By Graeme Base I actually have yet to listen to this disc in depth. It came in a book (Base is a Kids Author who writes and does Wonderful full page Illustrations rich in detail. His other books include Animalia and The Eleventh Hour) - The Book with the same title was at the dollar store one day, and the Disc came with it.
Phallus Dei by Amon Duul II. Weird improvisational stuff, regarded as the seminal Krautrock. Because it is so improvisational it varies wildly between OK and just plain brilliant. I had to stop listening to it because some parts get into my head so badly I can’t get them out.
Surprised no one has mentioned John Cage. I have one of his albums. Not sure which. It’s… strange.