Sunday 25 September 2011

So Long, Frank Larry and Pip

It seems rather churlish of me to have not paid tribute to Larry Fischer, whose first album inspired the title of this blog, and whose music made me laugh all the time I was feeling his pain. He died earlier this year, to almost no media attention.

A deeply troubled individual, his "An Evening With Wild Man Fischer" album has been out of print for over forty years. There are some people I have met who agree with me that it was better than anything its producer, Frank Zappa, ever recorded himself, and the consensus of opinion seems to be that it is his widow, Gail, who has prevented its re-release since then.

The link to the album which was the first post I did on this blog seems to have died, so I'll have a go at finding my rip of the album and putting it up again (along with the Science Songs album which has been requested).

Since I signed off last, two of my favourite maverick artists have also checked out, Pip Proud, who I came across when a friend bought his "Adrenaline and Richard" album while in Australia purely because the shopkeeper had put a sticker on the cover reading "the worst album ever made", which might not be far from the truth. His music comprises a flat nasal drone over an almost mechanically strummed acoustic guitar which never quite sounds in tune. He appears to have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity towards the end of his life, although he was far from in good health for the last few years.

Also gone is Frank Sidebottom, who I saw several times at festivals in the late eighties and early nineties. He was a bit like George Formby would have been if Formby had sung with a clothes peg on his nose and wore an enormous papier mache head on stage. He was a marvellous performer, I feel sad when I think about him now, but only have to hear his music to put a big smile back on my face. He made an album called "Frank Sidebottom Salutes the Magic of Freddie Mercury and Queen and also Kylie Minogue, You Know, Her off Neighbours", which is an extraordinary listen, but was impossible to find when it was released. I recently found it posted on another blog, I'll put a link up to it when I've a few minutes to find it again.

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