Straight from the heart, Bo. 
Though, you’ve some strong *competition *in here.
Awesome, dude - of the trillions of live bands I’ve seen and played with, The Locust (aaawwww…http://www.kindamuzik.net/gfx/locust-live2-0404.jpg…) are one of the most abominably insane live acts I’ve seen. When I saw them in 2002, I thought they mopped the stage with Dillinger Escape Plan, and if you know DEP, that’s sumpin.
PLAY ALL THIS SHIT AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE…
- quite singable.
James Chance and the Contortions
- NYC no wave classic.
- pissed that I could not locate ANYWHERE:( Cindy The Shack Girl, which is, unequivocally, their greatest song.
- like to see these guys but apparently they can’t get past the border.
For those in a fast mood, I give you Braindrill
- drummer not quite as crazy as he normally is - a bit laid back, here.
really - you don’t want me to get started. That shit’s easy listening compared to other shit.
fine as expected offerings, Snowboarder Bo.
missed edit window - the James Chance link - just pick the top video Contort Yourself when you get to that youtube page.
Years ago I became aware of one extreme case of electronica where even the voice is artificial.
Double odd, in the sense that it is an artificial singer and weird music:
I thought it was odd to have an artificial singer, and I though that just trying to replicate a singer’s voice was odd, but not so extraordinary. But then some of the guys using the vocaloid tool figured out that they had an artificial singer so they should use it to do bits that would be impossible for human singers.
I like 2 examples:
The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku
Perfect for the end of the world background music when all communications around the world fall silent IMO.
Hatsune Miku - "裏表ラバーズ(Two-Faced Lovers) Drama between lovers, unintended pregnancy, described at 100MPH (How an android/artificial being like Miku gets pregnant is not explained :) )I can’t believe that I, or anyone else here, hadn’t thought of this sooner.
Styx’ “Plexiglass Toilet Choir”, a song people usually do not believe exists until they hear it, and maybe not even then. 
It was a “Dr. Demento” favorite for many years.
Juan Munoz/Gavin Bryars Ensemble: A Man in a Room, Gambling #8
Wonderfully odd and oddly soothing on a dark, rainy night.
You hit on something very important here.
The weirdest stuff is the stuff you can almost recognize, which is familiar enough to draw you in and keep you engaged but which is off somehow. It’s similar to the uncanny valley effect: If something is a random agglomeration of parts, there’s nothing to it. It isn’t scary. It’s just a mess. However, if something is mostly human-like, but moves in fits and starts, or unnaturally smoothly, and has recognizable eyes which just… never… blink or look away, it’s going to keep you up nights.
Similarly, music which a music theorist finds weird because it has reticulated sevenths in every place a normal, sane composer would use an arpeggiated inverse chord with twenty-thirds, well, to the normal, Clapton-fearing, non-music-theoretical person, that’s just going to sound like a piano being fed to a wood chipper. It won’t have enough of what that average person would recognize as structure to sound like anything at all, let alone anything notably weird. It’ll be as normal as road construction, and about as musical.
OTOH, the B-52’s are a pop band. They make pop songs. They make pop songs with weird musicianship and bizarre vocal qualities and singular lyrics, but they still have something for the average person to hang their head on. Similarly, Wall of Voodoo’s cover of “Ring of Fire” isn’t nearly as experimental as Stockhausen, but it’s weird as opposed to unintelligible.
As I remarked in this thread ( http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=726870&page=2 )
In a completely different vein, I think that Charles Ives’ Variations on “America” is wonderfully off-the-wall. He basically takes “My Country 'tis of Thee” and – how to put this – makes it sound like other pieces of music. He apparently composed it when he was 17. He said that they wouldn’t let him play it very often, because it made people laugh, and it got stored away until organist E. Power Biggs rediscovered it in 1949. The original piece was for organ, but it was later orchestrated.
Walter/Wendy Carlos did something similar with Pompous Circumstances, which take the Elgar classic and forces it into the form of other familiar pieces, including the opening to “Also Sprach Zarathustra” from 2001. All played on the synthesizer, of course. It’s on his album Water Carlos, by Request
This oddity just came to mind. You won’t want to waste your time listening to the whole immemorable song, but cue into 1:10, and listen to the little bridge, where the singer harmonizes her voice with a screechy instrument, to give the effect of a voice synthesizer, which I though was wonderfully clever.
Just remembered Chickenwolf.
Mike Patton released an “album” of himself grunting, screaming, and other vocal nonsense, followed by a more musical but still quite abstract album of strange, atmospheric soundscapes, followed by an album of covers of Italian pop songs from the 50s and 60s, backed by a 40-person orchestra and 15-member band. Not to mention his half-dozen other bands and side projects. He is one very talented and very strange man.
the weirdest I personally have come across is Emil Richards: New Sound Element Stones (1966). It was at the beginning of the synthesizer movement, and features offbeat beats.
The album was given to me by a friend when I was about 12, and there was a sticker on the shrinkwrap that said “3/$1.00”. Even 45 years ago, it was in the cheapest of the cheap bargain bins.
My brother gave me a vinyl LP years ago featuring Stuart Margolin (Angel from “Rockford Files”) crooning several songs. I couldn’t make it past the first track. ::shudder::
I’m partial to The Pretty Little Dolly, myself…
I imagine this one is pretty well known, but I love it. Butthole Surfers - Lady Sniff.
One of the most profoundly “making me see the light” songs of the 80s for me.
The Nihilist Spasm Band (London, Ontario) has been doing their thing for a while now. They’re really into home-made instruments, like taking a kick pedal and connecting it to a bracket that can hold loud, clangy things like stop signs for the pedal to slam against. (Its ensuing racket, I can assure you, is fucking annoying, hence ironically entertaining.)
https://weirdcanada.com/2015/11/inferred-views-the-nihilist-spasm-band/
[I like how in the lower (colour) photo everyone’s beaming, but in the upper one (in an earlier incarnation) everyone’s all hipster serious, except for possibly those two smirkers on the far right.]
bolded for the thumbs up.
To further qualify that quote - sure, there were individuals well before '65 experimenting musically, but definitely not in a co-op context like these guys.
Man, I just knew someone would beat me to Who’s Afraid by The Art of Noise. Long a favorite of mine. Ignore the video.
Anhedonia– Andrew Liles
cows with guns … its a sort of parody of the “cowboy balladeer” but I thought it was funny as hell for a while …and I request it on a lot of country stations but only one station ever played it for me and that was because the morning guy was mainly comedy skits and such