Eccentric music suddenly has a strange new focus. There's even a name for it. Thanks to a radio jock and music historian called Irwin Chusid, the intriguing genre of Outsider Music is making alarming inroads on the American consciousness. Chusid, a plainspoken fanatic, presents his Incorrect Music radio programme on WFMU and also puts together concerts featuring his favourite artists. This month, he presented an evening of Outsider Music featuring David Johnston, B.J. Snowden and Peter Gruzdien at the Tonic Club in Norfolk Street, New York. None of his star turns is likely to be a household names - and with very good reason.
Outsider Music is quite mind-boggling. It is raw, innocent, insane, oblivious and inexplicable. At the core of any listener's response will be one simple question - what was the artist thinking of? It's a question which can reasonably be put to a mainstream performer (and some may even attempt to answer it), but scrutiny of an Outsider will yield no clues whatsoever. Motivation, ambition and intent will remain a puzzle. As Chusid puts it: "We can listen to Outsider Music. We can analyse, appreciate and extol it. But we can never fully understand the odd compulsions and stupefying inner visions of those who create it."
In his book, Songs in the Key of Z, Chusid profiles a dozen of these Outsider wonders. Some you will have heard of - Captain Beefheart, Tiny Tim, and The Legendary Stardust Cowboy -- but the real stars are those who come from planets even further afield -- performers whose music, Chusid boasts, is "too strange for radio".
Before sniggering too much, however, there is one obvious problem here. There is a very real fear that some of the artists in question may not be so much endearingly eccentric as worryingly ill. Sleeve-notes, written in a brash, New York style, suggest that some of these performers are in fact struggling with reality in very serious way indeed. In which case, some of this music is not quite as funny as it seems. It's hard to know. These are all people who have made records, released them and enjoy what they're doing - and at least three of them played that gig in Tonic a few weeks ago. That said, we need to be careful with the work of someone like Jack Mudurian, for instance. He sings a 45minute medley of just about every song ever written and is, according to the notes, a resident of Boston's Duplex Nursing Home. Wesley Willis, says Chusid (as if it were good news), is someone who drools, spits indoors and gobbles heavy medication. The song is hilarious, certainly, but even so . . .
Better to stick to the sure-fire eccentrics. Eilert Pilarm, the Swedish Elvis, is something of a revelation. He sings Jailhouse Rock in a brogue entirely Swedish and in a language not quite English. And for him, as for many of his fellow outsiders, tempo is a town in Fermanagh. Likewise The Shaggs - a 1960s group much lauded by Frank Zappa. They were three sisters best-known for Philosophy of the World - an LP on which every beat is missed and every chord is the wrong one. And as for Congress-woman Malinda Jackson Parker singing about malaria and repeating the word mosquito 204 times in three minutes . . .
The three stars of this month's Outsider evening in New York also feature on the Chusid-produced CD, Songs in the Key of Z. Daniel Johnson is a Texan songwriter whose Walking the Cow is fairly unbelievable - as is the fact that he's had his songs covered by Sonic Youth and Pearl Jam - or maybe not? Peter Gruzdien is one of country music's few openly gay artists. He came out lyrically some 40 years ago - a career move in Nashville almost as inadvisable as his stunning gay anthem There's a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere. And top of the bill must surely be B.J. Snowden. Her songs, performed with Van Halen-obsessed son, are sweet, innocent and full of love. Perhaps her greatest moment is the stirring In Canada:
In Canada, they treat you like a queen.
In Canada they never will be mean.
In Canada they treat you like a king.
You'll feel welcome.
It makes you want to sing.
What it all means depends very much on the listener. Chusid says: "If you're interested in Outsider Music, it's safe to assume you're a fairly unusual person, inquisitive, perhaps a bit outside the mainstream yourself. Outsider Music, by definition, offers little interest to the vast majority of your fellow citizens, they have neither the time nor the curiosity for it."
And that is entirely understandable. Life is too short, after all. But that said, there will be those who will take strange comfort in Songs in the Key of Z. They'll be in a minority, but it'll be a happy group even so - perhaps not very different in attitude from the people who made the music in the first place. This is democracy in action. If Mrs Miller wants to sing like Mrs Miller, then fair play to her. If Shooby Taylor the Human Horn wants to scat for three minutes, that's his business.
But there is a fine line, and you'll discover it half-way through the disc. If you find Eilert Pilarm - The Swedish Elvis - hilarious (and I do) then maybe you have serious potential to be a committed Outsider. You might consider making Outsider Music of your own. Perhaps you might even find yourself on the next volume of Songs in the Key of Z. All it takes is a tape recorder and a certain gift for (let's put it this way) sonic exotica.
Yes, many of these artists are, suggests Chusid, "the product of supernatural possession, drug fry and psychosis," but he also insists that the true mark of the Outsider is earnestness and passion. These are bizarre musical oddities who are cavalier with melody and rhythm, yet somehow make up for it with originality and inventiveness. How touched they really are will remain a mystery. The question "Just what were they thinking of?" will linger forever. I recommend you take even the smallest peek outside - you might actually like it. After that, you're on your own.