Hi, everyone. Out the East Side Tano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well. And it's time for yet another starter pack video where I come through and give you guys some recommendations to get you started on getting into a certain genre or style of music.

The one in this episode, which I think is a bit difficult to encapsulate, but we will do our best, is outsider music. We have eight different releases to recommend to you in this genre. I also have my good friend, Giggens, who will be accompanying me on this conversation.

Yeah, hopefully this convo gets you going in your ongoing personal music journey, and you enjoy the releases we are tossing your way, and your brains remain tingled by them. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much for watching. Let's get into the conversation. Boom.

Daniel Johnston - Songs of Pain

AF: Okay, we're here. The conversation is starting. Me, Giggens, outsider music. We have eight recommendations for you in this genre or umbrella term. I feel like this is one of the more difficult starter pack convos that we've had because there's really no strict musical or aesthetic borderline saying what exactly outsider music should or shouldn't be. It's more of a contextual thing. There's no singular set of rules telling us what an outsider artist has to sound like. So there is a lot of different bases being covered among all the albums that we are talking about in this video. So go into this with as open a mind as you possibly can. I guess we will say that. We're going to start off, though, with a pretty big classic in the outsider realm, not only in terms of records but also artists. You decided that first, for all of your picks, you wanted to talk about Daniel Johnston's Songs of Pain. This is an interesting album for the genre because it's also a popular album. Daniel Johnston is a widely celebrated and also deeply beloved songwriter and highly influential, too. People like Kurt Cobain, obviously, gave him plenty of nods over the course of his career. Before we get into this record and what exactly makes it special musically, what to you is defined as outsider music, and what do you feel makes this record qualify for that style?

G: Outside of Music for me has always been something that isn't perceived as radio friendly or follows the common constructions of what a pop song should be. It's unexpected. There's twists and turns. It's usually recorded poorly. It's not always the case. But back in the day, it was people in their basements who couldn't get a record label who would make their own cassette tapes and hand them out. For me, it's like people who just aren't expected to be famous or popular. You have people with weird voices or weird guitar tunings or they sing about far-out stuff, things that you aren't going to hear on the radio about dancing or love songs. These are songs about stealing a blender, or why did you brush your teeth weird? There's weird songs. For me, it's always been like, I wouldn't even say the experimental. I would say how the other half lives. What else is out there?

AF: Yeah. I mean, it's hard to say that outsider music is strictly anti-commercial or anti label because Daniel Johnston, and some of the other records that we're going to talk about here, proved that there are instances, especially in the internet era, where stuff that is outsider music scales and actually gets really popular. So pretty much all the albums and artists that we're talking about in this video have very strong cult followings and people who are very passionate about their stuff. And look, over the course of the time in which many of these figures have been relevant, they've sold more copies of albums, and some artists out there who are struggling to try to be the next pop star.

G: Exactly.

AF: You know what I mean? I wouldn't necessarily say outsider music is always obscure, but it challenges what are conceptions of what popular music could be or sound like. It could be popular, it could not be popular, but I think what's important is that it's going about things in a way to where it's clearly not that concerned with whether or not the music that is being created, the art that's being created, is commercially appealing. Be that through a conscious choice, or there are some artists here who... I don't think they could make a super huge commercial pop release if their lives depended on it.

G: Exactly.

AF: Even with all the resources available to them because it's just not them. It's just not what is in them. It's just not what they want to do or feel inclined to try to do. So with that being said, why did you go with this record? What do you feel makes it significant for this style? And what do you feel makes it a great recommendation for a video like this?

G: Yeah, with Daniel Johnston, you hit the nail on the head there. He does create songs in a pop idiom, like his guitars are always in tune, or he's playing piano, or whatever he's going to play. He definitely has an idea of how the pop song structure goes, but because he's singing from such a naive... They say the word child-ish tendencies.

AF: Yeah, that's been a comparison.

G: Yeah, he's got a very open, honest voice, and what he sings about, you know he doesn't really care what the listener has to think about or what they're going to say about it. He's putting his heart on his sleeve, and that's all that matters. That's what I feel like is the most important part of outsider music is who cares what the audience says. But this record, it's what they call lo-fi, so it's recorded to a little tiny cassette recorder. What's even more interesting is that back in those days, he would specifically record the record to a tape and give to a friend or someone who was interested, years before he realized you can give one copy and get it mass distributed. There were maybe even dozens of versions of this album floating around in the early '80s. But it's pop, but it's from the heart, and it's digestible, I would say. Whereas some other acts we're going to talk about later on, maybe even like Jandek, some of that stuff is really hard to get into. But if you want to hear something that's just different enough, but comes from an oddest place. Songs of Pain is a great place to start. He sings all about love or the lack of love. Eventually, he'd go on to sing about things like Casper, the Friendly Ghost, and all the creations he would draw. But it really is like hearing someone just fresh out of high school and those awkward feelings that you have. I feel like if this album came out even 20 years later, it would have been much more celebrated than it was even at that time. But it's become a cult record in that time. But I go back to it often. His voice is a little... It breaks at times. His playing could be a little stiff at times, but he's got a knack for melody, and he knows what courses are, and he knows how to do build ups. For me, it's a fascinating listen and probably the most digestible. But I think when you get into Daniel Johnston, you get into his backstory, too, with mental health issues and all the problems he had over the years, and you get a better feel for the guy who he was and what he went through. It was a great documentary, if you haven't seen it, called The Devil and Daniel Johnston. If you guys are watching this, check that out. But yeah, Songs of Pain was his first record. I think a great place to start.

AF: Okay. Yeah. I mean, out of all the records that we're talking about in this video, the songs on this one definitely adhere to what you would expect in terms of normal song structure a lot of the time, making it pretty digestible. I think on the surface, what makes it feel the most outsider is that, as far as the recording quality, it's very demo-ish. The performances aren't always perfect. As you were alluding to earlier, especially for the time period, I think this would pave the way for styles of popular and underground music in the '90s and 2000s to come later. But for the early '80s, Daniel's songwriting was very raw and sincere. I think for a lot of creators and writers on some level, would feel almost embarrassing to say and admit the things that he was getting into emotionally on these songs. But obviously, creating in the space that he was and sharing these tapes with who he was, that probably put him in a place where he was maybe, and also taking mental health issues into account, too, probably less guarded creatively than some people would be if they knew off the bat like, oh, millions of people are going to hear this.

G: Yeah, right.

AF: Because of that, there's really almost an interesting incubator feel to the writing and creativity on this record because there is an intimacy to it that you just, not just for this time period, but just generally, don't get on albums that are just super mainstream pop releases. I feel like these days, issues of mental health and all sorts of personal emotional struggles. Yeah, vulnerable stuff. It's a bit more normalized, for sure.

G: Much more now. Yeah.

AF: But Daniel Johnston is breaking down that wall on this record in a way, and most of his other records, too. Yeah. Continues to make him a standout and unique songwriter to this day. It's no surprise with the bravery with which he created these songs, that he would not just have a cult following, but also be an artists-artist. While it may not be the most mainstream type sound, there are a lot of songwriters that look to him as a shining example of the emotional displays he was putting on with this record.

G: I would almost say subconscious bravery, because I don't think he even knew he was being brave. He was just singing about his life. That's more endearing.

AF: Yeah. No, for sure.

Wesley Willis - Greatest Hits

AF: All right. Let's continue on to the next recommendation we want to make for you guys. I picked Wesley Willis' Greatest Hits. Which is his 1995 compilation that dropped via Alternative Tentacles Records. Wesley Willis was a Chicago legend, a songwriter, an artist of many stripes, but it's really his music that helped define him and make him popular. And I'm sure in this weird internet meme era, some people have in their travels online have stumbled across tracks like "Rock and Roll McDonald's" or maybe some like sample or reference or something. But if you haven't, that is one of many great and classic Wesley tracks off this record. I mean, he has multiple albums, but I feel like the greatest hits really serves as just a really good depiction of his trademark sound and just the variety of stories and emotions that he would explore with it. You have those classic techniques, almost like keyboard demo instrumentals.

G: You push the button and it comes on.

AF: Playing in the background on these songs. And over those beats and over those instrumentals, Wesley would just go on these insane musical rants and descriptions about things like McDonald's or people who in music or history, he found quite interesting or heroic in some way, be it Eazy-E or Elvis or whatever.

G: Superheroes.

AF: Yeah, superheroes, too. Or he would tell crazy stories. I mean, not just superhero in a place of reverence, but there's a song in here about whooping Batman's ass, which, over the course of his catalog, is not the only superhero whose ass he whooped.

G: Spider-Man gets it, too.

AF: Yeah, if you take his word for it.

G: I'd believe him.

AF: Yeah. No, me too. But he also explored themes of mental health, also talked about his schizophrenia, his demons as well on tracks, too, and did it in a fashion where he's veering between singing, yelling, rapping, and howling. He just does it all, even though the instrumentals, a lot of the time, are static or even literally repeated. The instrumental on "Rock and Roll McDonald's" is essentially recycled or slowed down or retooled in some fashion for other tracks, too. It's really his storytelling and his over-the-top vocals that make it interesting every time. It's maybe not necessarily the most musically appealing album we're talking about in this batch today, but it is in its own way, a really creative and interesting, bold and hilarious bit. There's a very strange and unique formula to it that only he could pull off in the way that he did. It just makes him a very wild, entertaining, one-of-a-kind artist. Is there anything that you wanted to add to the insanity of this record?

G: Yeah, I think his energy and his excitement is what makes the performances that much more earworthy. The fact that he does recycle music many times or themes many times. I whooped blank blank blank's ass. I love that with each new person he picks on, the excitement is still there. You don't get bored of hearing that because you know he's stoked on it, so it makes you stoked to hear it, and you're part of you're in on it, if you will. But yeah, he's definitely want to check out. If you want something exciting and quirky and fun, Welsy's great.

AF: Like the Daniel Johnston record in a lot of ways, very unfiltered. Completely. Totally unfiltered.

G: Yeah, he did not care.

No, did not care. Would talk about anything, whether it was a bad experience or like, hey, I had a good trip on a plane. I'm just going to tell a whole story about my good, positive experience flying to California.

G: 35,000 feet.

AF: Right. I mean, a very interesting record, a very wild collection of tracks, and for sure, a prime piece of outsider music. And I think probably one of my first introductions to what I guess you could conceive of as outsider music, because I first came across Wesley Willis during that early internet period of the 2000s and just finding out about weird music on the internet through downloading and that thing. And through that and Dead Kennedys and Alternative Tentacles' Records, getting deeper into his stuff and just finding out more about his very unique style, but also story, too. And we can't get into every single one as we're doing this video. But I feel like in a weird way, a prime component of outsider music is I feel like a lot of its biggest and most relevant artists always have a very unique and wild and interesting life story in terms of how they got to where they are, the very unlikely lifestyles that they led.

G: They're never boring.

AF: They're never boring. And I feel like it always becomes a really prime piece of promoting the music and getting it out there. Like, oh, this guy was like... I mean, we'll get into Moon Dog in a minute. All these people had really unique tales. And I mean, a lot of popular artists do. But with the outsider artist, it's never conventional.

G: It's always something completely wacky, bizarre.

AF: It's always something completely wacky, bizarre.

G: Or sad.

AF: Yes. There's sometimes a very strong component of sadness there. Or tragedy as well, which I think further adds to the mystery in a way, because you're sitting there wondering, man, how the heck did this person even end up in a recording studio? Right. Or recording much of anything.

G: Who found these people?

AF: Everything that they had to go through in order to get to that point. So yes, Wesley Willis, Greatest Hits. This is a must listen as far as getting into outsider music is concerned to me.

The Shaggs - Philosophy of the World

AF: All right. Next, you wanted to talk about another pretty big, relevant classic in the outsider genre. Also, a backstory to this, too. That would be this Shagg's Philosophy of the World record. If you want to go into the background of this one a bit to kick this off, we can, because I feel like it's a pretty relevant part to understanding the music and why it sounds the way that does.

G: Yeah, I mean, the backstory is actually really unfortunate and pretty sad. These sisters had a dad who, long story short, this guy's mom read his palm one day, said, You're going to have two sons after I die. You're going to have three daughters that form a popular band, and these things were happening in his life. So he followed through with his mother's prophecy. Unfortunately, these girls wanted nothing to do with music at all. They couldn't care less about being in a rock and roll band. And they were formed in 1965, and they were a band until their dad died about 10 years later. So they were forced to do this for a long time. And they just couldn't get it together. They weren't musically inclined, which is not to say that they're bad. They're just, one, they had zero interest in it, and two, they just didn't want to do it. So there's a couple of things factoring in there. But the Philosophy of the World record happened after the group had been playing many shows and the dad was still determined to get them famous. And it happened. I mean, his prophecy did come true.

AF: It did come true.

G: But He was apparently a real POS and did some really awful things to these girls, and most of them dipped out of music after their dad died.

AF: And understandably.

G: Understandably, yeah. But this record is fascinating because you have a group of kids, basically, early 20s, who wanted nothing to do with the limelight, being in a band, being famous. It's a beautiful mess. This record is all over the place. The guitars are not in tune. The drums are all over the place. There's bass sometimes. Vocally, it sounds like if Nico was on Ambien, it's just the most wild trip of a record. For a lot of people, myself included, "My Pal Foot Foot" was the first song I ever heard by them. I think that was on a CD that I got with this great book called Songs on the Key of Z by Irwin Chusid, who was a writer back in the day. It was all about outsider musicians, and I got that in high school or something. But hearing that song for the first time, I was like, what is this? This is true outsider. Nothing makes sense. When they recorded the record, they had studio musicians come in to try to fix things, and they couldn't fix anything because everything was all of a shop. Nothing was in tune or in a tempo. But it's an interesting album. There's songs about relationships, there's songs about Jesus and God, there's songs about imaginary friends. It's a really bizarre little record. You want to enjoy it for the weirdness of it, but then you also know the backstory, and it's like, damn, these girls got forced to make this thing. They hate They hated this album. It got reissued in 1980 on Rounder Records, and at the time, the girls thought they would have to fund it not knowing how reissuing work these people wanted to put it out for them. But long story short, Dot Wiggin from the group has done her own band over the years, and I actually got to see them one time, which was crazy because I had no idea who it was. I got to the show late. I went to see Neutral Milk Hotel one time, and there was this group on stage playing wacky music, and then they played "My Pal Foot Foot." I'm What the hell is this? It turns out it was the Dot Wiggin Band. But yeah, I would say quintessential outsider music, philosophy of the world, the Shaggs.

AF: Yeah. I mean, in its own sad way, it's just a weird social experiment. Completely. It's literally what happens when you just force children to record an album, but do it in a way where they're left completely up to their own devices in a way because they had no help. Because I mean, it's not to say the backstory is funny, but a funny component of it is when you look at the greater context of the record and what the dad was forcing to happen, seemingly, he knew even less about writing songs and making it in the music industry than his children did.

G: Absolutely.

AF: Because the thing is, we're not talking about a Jackson 5 here, where you have this family affair going on, where the adults are in the room who actually have some conception of, this is what should be happening. This is what needs to be... This is what they need to be doing musically and performance-wise in order to actually make some commercial success happen. I feel like their dad on some level just expected, well, if I just give these kids instruments and I just make them do it.

G: That's what it was.

AF: They'll just make the next hit album.

G: It'll just happen.

AF: And that's not how child artists are born. It's like, What child artist, especially in the world of music is successful just completely on their own with no real help or support from adults in terms of the creative or the writing process.

G: I hate to bring this up, but look at the Beach Boys story with Murry Wilson. He had some songwriting history there, but he knew the industry and how to help the band get together and arrange shows and all this stuff. But yeah, these girls had nothing. He would book shows at the town hall on weekly Friday nights, but that's it.

AF: Right. As a result, you end up getting these songs that they are and they sound like they're just written from the perspectives of children. They're just singing about...

G: Who don't know how to write songs.

AF: Their first thoughts about God because they're being exposed to religion in the world around them. They're singing about their imaginary friends and that sort of thing because that's what children would do if you force them to record songs by themselves.

G: This was their whole world. Yeah. That was their philosophy.

AF: So, yeah, I mean, the album, pretty much in its own way, is obviously entertaining and interesting, but it proves the question of whether or not kids just know how to write pop songs by themselves instinctively. It seems that they don't really.

G: You've heard the Beatles? You can do it.

AF: They need at least a little bit of help.

G: A guitar tuner, at least.

AF: Right, something. But yes, going to this record, knowing and understanding that. And once you do, I'm sure you'll hear an odd beauty in it because there is a unique innocence to the fact that these kids were unfiltered in their own way and left to just obviously, they were made to do this, but as far as the creative process goes, they were, I guess, allowed to be kids in that well, I'm a kid, and I'm going to write songs that a kid would write. And it just ended up just becoming a legendary album in this lane of music.

G: Very hard to find original copies of. Extremely hard to find. Of course. Yeah.

Tonetta - 777

All right. Next, what are we cooking with? We have Tonetta 777. Yeah, I mean, some of the releases that I picked for this are a bit more recent and are reflections of some more outsider stuff from the internet era. And Tonetta is most definitely an example of that, though I think he would have been an outsider in any era that he made his music in. But it just so happens that he hit it big in his own way in the earlier years of YouTube, because around the early 2010s to mid-2010s. He started to get a buzz off of writing and recording these songs, putting them on the internet, and attaching them to these videos on YouTube, which there are some examples of now still, if they're getting taken down for being a bit too salacious, where he is almost nude, sometimes wearing a thong or a bikini or just something very skimpy in a mask like the one that you see on the cover of this record, though Tonetta has worn many masks when performing, a wide variety of them. And it's just like dancing, lip syncing, doing a bit of a jig. Maybe there's some backdrop or something, maybe some very low-grade video production effects going on.

G: Yeah, Windows moviemaker style.

AF: No, exactly. And the guy was, from what I understand or remember, deep into his '60s as he was recording this stuff. Very unlikely in terms of, again, life story, the person doing it, and also the songs, too. The songs themselves, the writing, can be pretty lude, salacious, offensive, wild, over the top. We're talking about lots of songs about sex, very odd sexual dynamics, body parts, lots of things that I probably shouldn't be getting into unless I want this video to get demonetized.

G: Saying his name might be too much.

Yeah, even that, too. This was also in part due to the fact that the main brain being behind the Tonetta project, when performing as Tonetta, envisioned himself as, okay, I'm being a character. I'm playing or dabbling in this masked person, this gender fluidity in order to talk about a lot of topics and sexual ideas and feelings and experiences that I think on some level he saw as being beyond himself, though, obviously on some level when you dig into a performance style that is this elaborate and you're masking yourself up, there has to be something within you that's coming from.

G: Something bubbling inside.

AF: But I feel like being in character in the fashion that he was, gave him permission to let his freak flag fly. I think on some very low, low, low-grade level, he is still active in some form or fashion, because like a lot of outsider artists, he wasn't limited strictly to music as far as his creative output. There were a few videos of his and songs like "Pressure Zone", for example, that went very viral on YouTube. But as soon as he hit that exposure point, a lot of his videos, and his original YouTube channel got taken down because YouTube was like, holy shit, what the hell is all of this? What is going on here? We didn't know this was happening.

G: No one told about this guy.

AF: And as a result, a lot of the original uploads. And at one point, he was very prolific, very prolific, dropping tons of videos and songs every week. The guy was really a workhorse in terms of the music he was putting out. And it wasn't really until that viral success that we started to see releases like this, which are essentially a compilation. They're three volumes of the Tonetta 777 a compilation series. I know he's released some music since then, but none of which, from what I understand, has had a big formal vinyl release in the way that these records have. I don't think you could probably get a copy of it. I'm not even sure if this is on streaming. Most times I've ever caught a Tonetta song these days. It's mostly been on a YouTube reupload or something. So you might have to do just a smidge of digging for this. But yeah, just a very lewd, crude, strange, sexual songs, just very odd and outsider artist to its core, for sure. So Tonetta, 777. That's my next contribution over here. Do you want to move on to the next one? Do you want to add any Tonetta thoughts?

G: Yeah, we could jump on.

AF: Do you want to add any Tonetta thoughts?

G: You pretty much summed that one up.

Weird Paul - In Case Of Fire Throw This In

AF: All right. Okay. Next, you had chosen this... I haven't heard of this guy before.

G: Weird Paul?

AF: Weird Paul, yeah. I've not heard of Weird Paul before. I mean, I've seen images of his face around. It's funny how when you showed me this, I was like, oh, I've seen this guy. It's weird how his face gets around. He's got an odd look.

G: And you've probably heard his songs in passing used as memes.

AF: Probably.

G: I mean, these days, I would say he's most popularly known for his songs like "Fartloose" instead of Footloose. Everybody cut Fartloose. "Pot of Macaroni" was a massive song, and "Peanut Butter Recall" was a classic. But yeah, Weird Paul, he's like a thrift store aesthetic guy. He records his TikTok and YouTube videos on a camcorder, uploads them to his computer, and then puts them up. So they look like VHS riffs. But he's definitely in the world of outsider stuff, I would say, only because of that thrift store aesthetic. He's stuck in a certain period of time. But he's been making music since he was a teenager in the '80s. And this record here, In Case Of Fire Throw This In is definitely kid in high school coded. There's learning how to play guitar feelings on this one where the riffs are static or chunky, but then sometimes it sounds fantastic, depending on what he learned that day. There's songs about getting a haircut, not wanting to cut the grass, stealing science equipment from your classroom, not wanting to go to work, stuff you feel when you're in high school. But it's fun. It's exciting. His energy is there. He was a huge Ramones fan, so a lot of them are very punk-inspired, and his vocals are Ramones-inspired throughout their album as well. He's put out a bunch of albums since. He's got a lot better, of course, musically. He plays a bunch of shows, and he's definitely known online as the alternative rock guy, if you will. But yeah, I included him specifically because of being a more modern artist as well, like Tonetta. But this guy is, Weird Paul, still active. But we're at the point now where what really does equate for outsider, and does popularity have something to do with being a musician because he's so easy to look up and find his stuff now. Whereas some artists, you have to... Like Daniel Johnston's work, most of it's only on cassettes still. You could buy CDs, but it's hard to find. The Shaggs album is hard to find on reissue. So it's almost like, where do we stand with what's considered outsider at this point? Because it's changed so much from what it was originally considered. It was bad music that people sometimes enjoyed, ironically. Now it's like, oh, there's good music out there, but it's lo-fi recorded or only on Bandcamp or only on a YouTube upload. You like that Cindy Lee album last year was only on a YouTube upload. Is that outside of music?

AF: In some ways, it does qualify. The internet and the social media age have definitely created a new paradigm for these artists and what you could call this style of music. Because like in the case of Weird Paul, even though this person isn't on a label, if they're putting in the legwork to be uploading and engaging regularly building on social media on some level, and they're building a fan base on that front, it may not be commercial in the traditional sense that Sabrina Carpenter is commercial, but it's still gaining an audience, and it has an appeal to it. And there's people out there who are passionate about it and talking about it and sharing it. And it's definitely getting more exposure than it would have if we were talking about somebody who's just recording a bunch of home tapes in the '80s, and maybe there's six copies max of a certain record, and they're just passing it around to people they know.

G: But he's one to check out. His stuff's on Spotify, but check out his Bandcamp. But really cool stuff.

AF: How would you say he's evolved artistically from this point? Because obviously, this is a very early release of his, to the stuff that he's making now.

G: Yeah, he's much more fluid now, much better artist. He grew.

AF: I mean, does it come off like, was weird or off-putting outsider to you?

G: More comedic. There's definitely some serious songs, of course, but he's definitely got a comedic bent to his music for sure. But structurally in playing style, he's much more confident than he was when you're 16, as anybody would be. But yeah, I would say it's more still rock and roll, but not going to be on the radio anytime soon. But check out "Peanut Butter Recall". That's a good one.

Moondog - Moondog

AF: Also, not going to be on too much radio anyway, anytime soon. We're going to talk about a New York-based legend, a composer of many sounds and styles, and someone who also has a very rich backstory, that would be a Moondog. There's a lot of different records from his catalog that I could have pulled from here, and I went back and forth on a couple of different ones. I went with his 1956 self-titled LP, mostly because I feel like I wanted to do an earlier work, maybe his most popular 1969 album. I feel like in terms of what it's doing musically with its hyper classical instrumentation and quality production may not necessarily come off as outsider music to somebody who's listening to it for the first time. Again, that was pretty deep into his creative career. You can really hear how in terms of... I mean, it's a very good album, but maybe not the best for this list because as far as classical music is concerned, obviously, it's a unique record, but I think a lot of people might hear the album for the first time and think like, well, this is quite formal, and think like, this isn't necessarily the most difficult thing to get into.

G: Well-produced.

AF: Yeah, exactly. Major label. I feel like this album over here is a bit more of a head scratcher and pretty unique for Moondog and unique for its time as well. It's a series of tracks that are, for the most part, these very strange, exotic motifs that are very percussion-heavy, feature a lot of unlikely, and sometimes foreign instrumentation. And the compositions themselves don't so much feel like formal compositions as much as they feel like they're less songs in more places. As I was writing notes on this, I'm listening to the tracks and thinking, this doesn't feel like a song to me as much as it feels like a busy city street.

G: It's an experience.

AF: Or like a jungle or a marsh.

G: It's somewhere else.

into Or like a town square with stalls and shops and people moving about. Every single piece just instantly transports you to a different place, a different time. Being blind himself and experiencing the world in a different way than I think most did, I could see how on this record, he might want to make pieces that were evocative of almost like travel and just being in different spots, being in different areas, being in different contexts, is really what this record feels like to me when listening to it. It's a lot of field recordings in the mix as well. It's often not just instrumentation, but audio recordings of other stuff being thrown into the mix in order to further evoke the feeling of being somewhere. But again, unique sound and record and concept for its time and quite ahead of the curve, like a lot of other stuff that Moondog did. He's often been cited by lots of left-field minimalist and classical composers like Philip Glass and the like, who found a lot of genius in his works. Some of his records have a lot of parallels to jazz and more improvisational music. What flavor and sound you're getting really depends on the record.

G: Classical.

AF: Yeah, no, obviously. But I feel like this album in particular, it's just one of many flavors and directions you would go in the Moon Dog catalog. And again, one of the more left-field releases in the batch here not super formal songwriting. Again, a lot of tracks that feel like vibes, motifs, which as far as commercial music releases during the mid to late '50s was not common.

G: No.

AF: It's like New Age stuff and music that's just there to set the tone or evoke such things feels much more commonplace and more easily accessible now. Whereas somebody like Moondog, who already didn't have a super commercial career and making money busking, for the most part, in New York City up to this point.

G: As a Viking.

AF: Yeah, yes, as a Viking dressed pretty much as a goddamn Viking.

G: The Viking of Sixth Avenue.

AF: Which, I mean, at that point, why wouldn't you give money to a musical Viking?

G: What the hell? Why not?

AF: I mean, that seems like- postwar mentality?

G: Yeah, exactly.

AF: That seems like the best way of going about doing things.

G: It's very changed.

AF: Give it a Moondog. But yeah, I mean, ahead of the curve and pioneering as far as busking, making exotic music, making left-field classical music, left-field jazz music. And this is, again, just more of an evocative vibe type release that touches down on a lot of different sounds and geographical places and cultural influences.

G: Yeah. No, I agree on that, too. And the stuff he did later on in the '60s and before he left New York City in the early '70s, his work was really almost bombastic sometimes or stark or epic sounding. It was really dynamic stuff. It's funny, "Birds Lament", that song, that's probably the first Moondog song anybody has heard. It's been used in commercials. It's been used in all kinds of stuff. He's probably more popular than we think, but yeah, for a guy that made his own instruments, and he was blind and traveled the world and had a whole life, he really made some fantastic art.

AF: Yeah. Of any outsider artist, he arguably had the fullest and one of the most eventful existences.

G: Yeah, absolutely. I would have put it. For sure.

Jandek - Lost Cause

AF: Moving on next to, you wanted to do this Jandek album?

G: Yes.

AF: You're a big fan of Jandek?

G: Yeah.

AF: Sort of explain his context and where this album fits in his very unique and dense catalog.

G: Expansive. Someone once said it best: imagine the Beatles, and then strip away melody, harmonics, dynamics, and then whatever's left is an idea of what Jandek might be. Jandek is probably, for me, the quintessential outsider musician. He's out of Texas, and he's been making records since 1978. At this point, there's almost 80 albums. For the most part, I would say from the late '70s to about the early 2000s, most of them were in his house or in his basement or wherever he recorded. Last 20 years or so, there's been a lot of live recordings. He's playing shows now, which is cool. But he was known to be just home by himself. You get these weird album covers with a weird picture of himself or a landscape, or he was traveling somewhere. He was very well-traveled. But the music on his records ranges anywhere from weird detuned, acoustic, demented folk singing to just a bass guitar or a nine-CD box set of instrumental piano work. This record here, Lost Cause, came out in the early '90s. I picked this one because it wasn't as eerie or weird or creepy or off-putting as some of his music can be. It's actually what I would call a poppiest release that he has, where there's actually a tuned guitar in a conventional tuning tradition. Vocally, he sounds really confident and really assured. There's some songs that are decent blues songs like "Baby I Love You" is a Muddy Waters song. But for as pleasant sounding as this record is, the last track on it, "The Electric End", is a 23-minute explosion with a full band. It sounds exactly like what you would expect. It's just noise rock. It's him screaming for four or five minutes, and then it just trails off into a migraine-inducing trip through hell for the next 20 minutes. But it's a fascinating record because you get the best of both worlds with him being calm and inviting, and then this really manic ending track. But yeah, if you want to enter more of his world, his first record, Ready for the House, you can't go wrong with that one. "Naked in the Afternoon" is one of the creepiest songs. Telegraph Melts has a song called "You Painted Your Teeth", which is a song with him screaming at you for painting your teeth, and the creepiest song ever called "Mother's Day Card", which is a terrifying song. Then a newer album called Rudyard's. Rudyard's is a live record they put out. I call it Jam-deck because he's jamming with these two guys. One's playing a slap bass, and it's the most fun thing I've ever heard. But yeah, Jandek is an amazing individual. He's on his own label, Corwood Industries. For those watching who are nitpicky, I'm just calling him Jandeck. I know that's the project name is Jandeck. If he's jamming with somebody or by himself, it's the project name. He's the representative from Corwood. It's his official title. He doesn't go by Jandek. But yeah, massive discography. I've seen him live a couple of times, which is just mind-blowing. I'm going to save story for another day, but I got to meet him, which was equally incredible. And one of the few times I've been massively star-struck. That's my Jandek story. But Lost Cause, I feel like, is a good middle ground of weird and accessible at the same time.

AF: Okay. I'm sure the viewers appreciate you picking some easier listening in his catalog.

G: But put on "Painted Your Teeth" if you want to keep yourself up at night.

Lil B - Blue Flame [Mixtape]

AF: All right. Last one in the bunch, and maybe a record that some people would scratch their heads at the inclusion of, but I do genuinely feel like Rap Pioneer, Mr. Lil B, does qualify as outsider music, even though, again, he was massively popular during the early years of, I guess, our current social media era. His output and his popularity have waned a little bit in recent years, but nobody stays popular forever. And I feel like he has backed off a bit of the regular and very prolific output that he was once known for. And for the most part, I feel like his very unique impact on modern-day hip hop has already been made. I feel like Lil B, as far as his impact and influence goes, and the mark that he's made on rap music, it's done. He's completed his mission, if there was a mission to complete. And again, Lil B, I do perceive him as an outsider because he managed the entirety of the most significant and important parts of his career totally independently, just completely without a label, and basically made a name for himself by, artistically speaking, just flooding the zone in a way that no artist was at the time. And I wouldn't say he's completely without his influences or his base in terms of where he's coming from musically. Obviously, he had commercial successes prior to going solo, like with the "Vans Song", with that group, The Pack, that he was in. Obviously, in terms of his work ethic and output ethic, he took a lot of inspiration from people like Lil Wayne, with his obviously a very prolific mixtape period. And he was legendary, too, for being able to rap off the dome, which Lil B mostly did on his tracks as well. However, Lil B was provably nowhere near the lyrisist that Lil Wayne was at his creative heights, and never went on to be either, even with having put out countless songs since the release of this Lil B Blue Flame [Mixtape]. Now, this is one of his earlier and more classic mixtapes, I suppose you could say. And Lil B was really all about breaking rules, going against people's conceptions in terms of what they felt like rap standards should be. I think there may be some younger, newer music listeners that hear this tape. And it's weird because I know that Lil B, the sloppy off-the-cuff way in which he raps on this record, in a lot of early tracks like "Wontan Soup" and the persistent adlibs and even how distorted some of the instrumentals are. You may hear this stuff and be like, I hear shit like this all the time now. And it's like, well, yeah, that's the point.

G: It's common now.

AF: Back then, when this project released, people were blatantly offended by records like this. They were like, The rapping is trash. The bars are terrible. He rapped the same word with the same word. He keeps talking about how he's a pretty bitch. I don't know, stuff like that. He would put out music videos where people would just be melting down in the comments over just the fact that he was wearing tight pants or had on women's earrings or an old lady sun hat while just the rest of his outfit is just a t-shirt and jeans or something. People would freak the fuck out-

G: It's all mainstream now.

AF: Over just the smallest things about how he would dress or how he would rap or some random lyrics. He would make a lot of, I wouldn't say parody songs, but tracks where, like many of Wesley Willis' songs, there's almost like a bit to it. He's like, I'm Miley Cyrus, I'm Miley, I'm Paris Hilton, shit like that. And there's just so many catchphrases and memes and repeated inside jokes that the more you listen to him and the more you get into the world of the based God, you start really enjoying those references. And it's like, okay, I get that joke. It's like just being in on a really smart, very entertaining, elaborate gag or troll. But simultaneously, I feel like with so many of Lil B's ideas, especially on a tape like this, with them catching on in the way that they have, you can go back and listen to this and actually just unironically enjoy it. He's set the standard in a way for how a lot of people make their music these days.

G: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

AF: In terms of just being super off the cuff, just being very in the moment, just firing off of pure charisma and just raw intuition, and favoring the most noisy, chaotic, insane, almost like low budget instrumentals that he could find to rap on top of. And he got super popular during this time period, and eventually had producers jumping over each other to produce for him. And went on to help popularize certain production aesthetics, like the whole cloud wrap thing with Clams Casino. If it wasn't for a lot of his biggest, most viral internet hits on the internet, Clams might not have gotten as popular as he did in the early 2010s, and that sound might have not caught on in the way that it did. Even people who made their name in that style, like ASAP Rocky, for example, referenced Lil B in their songs. And Lil B had that moment where he almost had a bit of mainstream appeal and was like a Double XL Freshman. And there's literally videos of this man rapping with Kendrick Lamar and everybody in the room listening to him being like, okay, this is basically decent, but this is also simultaneously a little weird. What's going on? But yeah, Lil B, if you get into his, especially his mixtape catalog, there's just so many projects to listen to. There's literally releases that he's had where there's hundreds of songs on it. It's insane. It's crazy just the amount of stuff this guy would record and just put on a record, regardless of its quality, regardless of whether or not it really added to the overall thing. But simultaneously, he has releases that he refers to as being like, oh, this is my classical album. He's got a very wide catalog of a lot of different sounds and a lot of different everything. But as far as just his straightforward trademark rap style, that bassed freestyle style that he's known for. Blue Flame is one of several earlier mixtapes that were a prime example of that, just like pure Lil B, some of the purest Lil B that you can hear. I'll say that. So, yeah, that's going to be my last recommendation there as far as outsider music is concerned.

AF: And, yeah, that's it. That's everything we're talking about in this video. That's our starter pack for outsider music. Thank you guys very much for watching. It's me. It's Giggens. Those are our recommendations. Anything else to add?

G: Give them a try. If you only do mainstream music, try something weirder and just see how you react to it, because I think that's the biggest thing.

AF: Try something weird.

G: Try something weird. Get weird.

AF: Get weird. That's all we're going to ask of you today. All right, you guys have the best day. Transition, have you given any of these records a listen? I would hope so. We're recommending them to you. If you do, let me know in the comments what you think, or if you've heard some of them before, I'm sure you have. Okay? Okay. All right.

Anthony Fantano, outsider music, forever.