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- All right, this is kinda long, but here goes nuthin’. . . . .
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- I am reading the “all-good-songs albums” threads and I am seeing soooooo many of the same old stuff. Like the Beatles. Yes, they’re great, I like a bunch of their songs, but we’ve all probably heard them a hundred times (if we are adults).
What I want to know is, what artists do you like that are “odd-ball”, in some way? Exhibit A: Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
NO!!! . WAIT!!! . . . COME BACK!!! Lemme explain. . . . . . . . . . .
- I am reading the “all-good-songs albums” threads and I am seeing soooooo many of the same old stuff. Like the Beatles. Yes, they’re great, I like a bunch of their songs, but we’ve all probably heard them a hundred times (if we are adults).
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- Dexy’s Midnight Runners had an oddball collection of instruments, that managed to still sound pretty good. 'Course, they had dorky Dutch-boy painter outfits and only one hit song, but it sounded pretty nice, at least, , the first hundred times or so. But they had, what? A violin, a banjo, an accordion, what the hell else? Most wanna-be rockers wouldn’t even get up on stage with those instruments. They did it so well that you tended to forget about the wierd instruments, and that’s impressive. That’s what I’m looking for here; no “Stray Cats Syndrome” (lead guitar, bass, drums). - Dexy’s Midnight Runners were top 40, but they were rare in that regard. Most odd-balls never appear on the hit-radio radar, and I’m asking because this is the stuff you will most likely never run across on your own.
- One I recently found on the sample CD for a Rio 500 MP3 player is Besharah’s “Twister” (search “world music”) downloadable MP3 from http://www.jazzpromo.com. (I did buy the CD) I’m not much for classical music, but I have found that classical musicians regularly hit harmonies that garage-rockers can only fumble with , , , so, so, so totally unKisslike.
- Who’s Next? - MC
Wierd music? Tons of it:
Lol Coxhill – “I am the Walrus” (the weirdest song ever put to record)
Bonzo Dog Band – just about anything they wrote. “The Sound of Music” and “I left My Heart in San Francisco” probably had the highest weird quotient, but there was also “Shirt,” “Noises for the Leg,” “Tent,” “Humanoid Boogie,” “Dr. Jazz,” and many others.
Spike Jones – much to choose from. “Cocktails for Two” has a slight edge.
Procul Harum – “Mabel”
Beatles – “You Know My Name, Look Up the Number”
I love Ed’s Redeeming Qualities. They are a “garage folk” band. They feature instruments such as a baritone ukele, violin, various shaker percussion (rice in a coffee can, alarm clocks, etc), drums, sometimes a bass, guitar, accordian, and the clarinet. All these at varying times.
The Ukelele player and the guitarist/violinist both have master’s degrees in the English field (literature and fiction, I believe) and their lyrics really show them.
One of their pages that is pretty good is http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/5953/erq.html. There is a lot of information there.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Pretty much ALL the music I listen to is “weird” by the standards of the Man in the Street.
I’ve got Gyorgy Ligeti’s RAMIFICATIONS for String Orchestra on the PC CD player at the moment, and the other discs on the shelf include Fats Waller, Herbie Nichols, Mary Lou Williams, Wynonie Harris, C.T. Griffes, Morton Feldman, Arnold Bax, and Glenn Gould’s only recording as a conductor (of Wagner’s SIEGFRIED IDYLL).
But sometimes late at night I’ll put on the music from The Ernie Kovacs Show and dance around the kitchen.
PENGUIN CAFE ORCHESTRA, WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
“Rubber Band and Telephone” kicks ass.
I like electronic music. Not all of it, but enough to make me weird.
Walter/Wendy Carlos
Jean-Michel Jarre
Rick Wakeman
I have no taste, and proud of it.
A lot of my music qualifies as rather weird, but two CDs stick out.
Industrial Monk – electronic/rap/industrial versions of the venerable Gregorian Chants.
Edda – an incredible oral telling of parts of the Poetic Edda, an incredibly medieval Icelandic poem, perhaps the greatest source for northern mythology.
Satisfied?
MR
Harry Nilsson great songwriter
Wow, another Spike Jones fan! I thought my father and I were the only ones.
“In some secluded rendezvous…”
And another Spike Jones fan…
[peter lorre voice]
“My old flame, I can’t even think of her name… I’ll have to look through my collection of human heads…”
[/peter lorre voice]
residents and renaldo and the loaf.
The Shags
Ween, if drug induced weirdness counts.
I also love bagpipe music, which most people find mighty wierd.
Almost all my music is considered weird to others (but then again some of my friends are painfully normal).
No one said Weird Al? Now he’s pretty weird. Ever hear the song “Albequerque?”
rummages through music
Eels.
Space Ghost’s Musical Barbecue! Woo hoo!
They Might be Giants
I LOVE Gypsy music and any Latin American music too, which some people consider weird.
Most of my friends, and especially my girlfriend, thinks my CD collection is entirely weird to begin with. But hey, it’s really not that bad. Although I do like some rather obscure metal and/or prog rock bands that probably could be considered weird, or at least rare, over here.
- Shadow Gallery
- Savatage
- Camel
- Fates Warning
And stuff that’s really not that weird, but is perceived as such anyway:
- Rush
- Dream Theater
- Yes
- Ozzy
Then there’s the mainstream music that just doesn’t fit into my musical scheme at all. But I still love them.
- Abba
- Pet Shop Boys
- Talk Talk
I’ll second the Wierd Al thing. Actually my friends all loved the “Albequerque” song, especially the part where he gets the box of one dozen starving crazed weasels. We play it sometimes to frighten younger siblings. Actually just about any song from the old Doctor Demento shows would fit in just as well.
Other than that…well, I’m working on a full Cd of stuff from the Sifl and Olly show, that’s probably wierd.
I’m a Wierd Al fan too.
But…
I’m suprised nobody has mentioned “Art of Noise”. True pioneers in the field of electronic and sampled music. They were techno before techno was popular. My favorites are Close to the Edit, Peter Gunn with Duane Eddy, Crusoe, and Eye of the Needle.
They still are my favorite group.
Drag, the Art of Noise rock. Paranoimia with Max Headroom and Kiss with Tom Jones are great songs.
“But sometimes late at night I’ll put on the music from The Ernie Kovacs Show and dance around the kitchen.”
—And you wonder why I Like Ike?
Gee, this morning I was listening to Nora Bayes singing “Fido Is a Hot Dog Now” (1910). I have a fondness for novelty songs of the 1900–20 period, and have lots on tape. They just don’t write ‘em like that anymore: “When Father Laid the Carpet On the Stairs,” ""Lovin’ Sam, the Sheik of Alabam’," “I’ve Got a Bimbo Down on the Bamboo Isle,” and my all-time fave, “Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars.”
Ya want weird? I’ll give ya weird.
Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs. Three albums that make up one . . . album? I’m not really sure what to call it at that length. The weird thing is that it works like a full-length album. Just a really long one.
The Ukrainians - Pizni iz the Smiths. Four Ukrainian folk music covers of Smiths songs. A lead singer who sounds more depressed than Morrissey.
Mmm, I know I’ve got more, those are the ones that just leap to mind…