Music of the insane

[danbronson]

I came across a website made by a guy who appears to have schizophrenia. Could be a number of other things of course (including hard drug use, which I think is equivalent to inducing temporary insanity), but schizophrenia seems to fit the bill. Find his youtube video describing his 'supernatural' experiences and you'll see what I mean.

Vladtra Studio Online

I find the music absolutely fascinating. Some of it comes across as terrible to me (some of the rapping I listened to). But some of it has an absolutely original take on melody and tone that I have never heard before (especially the instrumentals). Occasionally, I find it riviting to be honest. I feel like my brain functions differently while listening. And I wish I could create something that would give others the same (not the same, but an equally strong and unique) feeling with my music.

I was thinking about Kurt Cobain earlier today. And how shocked I was when I first heard Nirvana. Some of his music very successfully creates exciting tones, grooves and melodies. I feel like Kurt had a rare gift for that. And it's no secret he wasn't mentally healthy (heavy drug use didn't help either).

One of my favorite bands, for these very same reasons, is Ween. Especially in their earlier stuff, they completely ignored convention and created some of the most bizarre and amusing music I've ever heard. It's a known fact that their music is (at least occasionally) drug inspired and I'm sure this plays a huge role.

Healthy, drug-free people are capable of creating good music of course. But it sounds healthy and drug-free to me. And I am fascinated by the other side of the coin, so to speak. In fact, I vastly prefer it, as it's a nice way to escape the mundane sameness of day to day life for a healthy, clean person like myself.

My conclusion (and I hope I am wrong about this) is that you have to lose something to gain the ability to create music from that perspective. I can enjoy listening to it, and even begin to understand it. But to actually create this music that I hear, that blows me away, seems impossible to me. I think this is a tragedy. I want nothing more than to be able to create music like this, but I am not willing to sacrifice my sanity for it. Still, I'll keep trying. But so far, the results have not been promising despite all my supposed 'talent'.

[ark]

Just to be provocative, I'd like to direct your attention to this, a live performance of a piece of music that was written around 1930 (!). Frank Zappa credits this piece with persuading him to pursue a career in music.

[rob S]

wow

[CompEq]

ark, thanks for posting that! Some of the parts are reminiscent of The Black Page (or vice versa). I dig.

[danbronson]

Originally Posted by ark

Just to be provocative, I'd like to direct your attention to this, a live performance of a piece of music that was written around 1930 (!). Frank Zappa credits this piece with persuading him to pursue a career in music.

That was quite incredible. Far too 'put together' to qualify as insane. Crazy is more like it! In any case, I'll have to get ahold of some of Varese's music.

[vincentvangogo]

How about this one?


YouTube - Eek A Mouse - Schizophrenic

[kafka]

Listen to anything by Raymond Scott, and then tell me you need to be insane or stoned. Or anything by Debussy.

[danbronson]

Originally Posted by kafka

Raymond Scott

Aha! You win!

I get a similar feeling from this guy's music to the other artists' I mentioned. Well this is good news, you don't have to be insane or on drugs to make completely unique music.

[Bryan Talbot]

Hmmm... I don't know about potential schizophrenia or drug use - certainly plausible - but I listened to "Immortal Mixer Flow," and to be honest, it sounds like something I would have done in my darkest teen years, and I mean that in a good way. If I'd had access to today's means, that's the direction I probably would have gone.

Interesting stuff. Maybe he's just not a happy person.

[danbronson]

Originally Posted by Bryan Talbot

Hmmm... I don't know about potential schizophrenia or drug use - certainly plausible - but I listened to "Immortal Mixer Flow," and to be honest, it sounds like something I would have done in my darkest teen years, and I mean that in a good way. If I'd had access to today's means, that's the direction I probably would have gone.

Interesting stuff. Maybe he's just not a happy person.

That song's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The melodies in that song fall halfway between making sense and being random notes. Each one has a decidedly different tone than the last. Each tone is totally alien sounding to me, but they are the right tones for the job. It sounds like the guy is either a complete hack, or really knows what he's doing. One thing I'm sure of, I feel like I 'get something out of it'. I feel like I've been effectively communicated to through music, like I heard a little bit of someone's (twisted) personality, despite how simple/basic the music was.

Now watch this. Same guy:
YouTube - vladtra's life of darkness

[Revmen]

Wesley Willis comes to mind. RIP.
YouTube - Wesley Willis - Suck a Cheetah's Dick

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by vincentvangogo

How about this one?


YouTube - Eek A Mouse - Schizophrenic

Great little vid! But it's probably the most laid back Eek A Mouse track I've ever heard.


Below is a link to a latter day acoustic version of one of my favorite songs about craziness, performed by the guy who wrote it, Andy Pratt, who seems to know a little something about the territory. I've never seen him live, so I'm not sure if he's hamming it up or... well...

Pratts first two albums, I think, are freakin' brilliant: dark, cynical, funny as hell, literate, weird, with some great playing and production. (The second one made Al Kooper's legenary list of 100 greatest rock albums.) After those, though, he got discovered by Arif Mardin et al and they started dumping strings and big budgets on him, he became involved with the born again movement and eventually became a niche Christian artist -- though he still plays some of his old songs, which can be pretty provocative on some levels. (It would appear he once ran with a fast, jaded back bay Boston crowd. I believe his family was well connected and, I'm not positive, but I think he's a Pratt, as in Pratt & Whitney.)

Anyhow, this version is solo acoustic and it's cool -- and Pratt does look more than a little tweaked -- but it's a far cry from the really cool, really nutty arrangement on the album version (Andy Pratt, 1971, his second. The first is from '69 and is a very odd, very cool jazzy, bossa and blues influenced thing, Records Are Like Life. I think I must be one of a small handful of people who bought the vinyl new and it was so obscure I just about did a spit-take when I turned on the radio one day in '73 and heard someone I would have sworn was Pratt -- and it was.) But dig up the album version if you can (it's on the subscription services and I'm sure it's on iTunes). It's so cool.

YouTube - Andy Pratt - Who Am I Talkin To



But -- surely -- the gold standard of singluar oddness has got to be iconoclastic outsider icon, Jandek. He's the ne plus ultra of oddness.

[GYMusic]

YouTube - Frank Zappa / Amazing Mr. Bickford "Dupree's Paradise"

[Stitch333]

Everyone might want a Vincent van Gogh painting on their wall...
but few would want the insane, dismembered-ear-holding artist in person on their living room sofa.

[Sigma]

i d d a thread on "crippled" people and music and got a warning..shouldn't "insane" be changed to mentally ill?

[richardmac]

Well, it depends, doesn't it, on how much one values traditional melodies. If you value them, you're not going to like, um, insane music. The linked Varése piece was interesting in how it used rhythm and time signatures. It totally lacked any melody whatsoever and 99% of the general public who heard it would call it crap. But it wasn't written for 99% of the general public.

I am, though, in that 99%. To the OP - being different doesn't necessarily mean being more creative.

[Sigma]

Originally Posted by richardmac

Well, it depends, doesn't it, on how much one values traditional melodies. If you value them, you're not going to like, um, insane music. The linked Varése piece was interesting in how it used rhythm and time signatures. It totally lacked any melody whatsoever and 99% of the general public who heard it would call it crap. But it wasn't written for 99% of the general public.

I am, though, in that 99%. To the OP - being different doesn't necessarily mean being more creative.

some of Steve Reich's stuff can make you feel insane

[leebridges]

Originally Posted by danbronson

I came across a website made by a guy who appears to have schizophrenia. Could be a number of other things of course (including hard drug use, which I think is equivalent to inducing temporary insanity), but schizophrenia seems to fit the bill. Find his youtube video describing his 'supernatural' experiences and you'll see what I mean.

Vladtra Studio Online

dude...check out his "music theory explained" article. that's some crazy shite. if you can figure that out, maybe you can succeed in making music like this guy.

[dropblacksky]

Originally Posted by ark

Just to be provocative, I'd like to direct your attention to this, a live performance of a piece of music that was written around 1930 (!). Frank Zappa credits this piece with persuading him to pursue a career in music.

If I were on acid that piece would have freaked me out...either that or answered all the questions in the universe for me.

I just want to know what the sheet music looks like for the piano part...

[Branjovi]

Originally Posted by ark

Just to be provocative, I'd like to direct your attention to this, a live performance of a piece of music that was written around 1930 (!). Frank Zappa credits this piece with persuading him to pursue a career in music.

Gail Zappa recently spoke at the local university (UK) and there was a performance of this piece by a UK percussion ensemble. There was also a performance of "The Dog Breath Variations" and a Stravinsky piece by a wind octet (iirc).


of course being the Zappa freak that I am, I have had a CD copy of "Ionisation" and other works by Varese for many years.


but speaking of music that makes you think and feel differently, check out this guy:
Kyle Gann's Home Page

most of his music is based around just intonation and different tuning systems. some crazy sounding stuff, but some is it quite soothing.

[Kiwiburger]

I find Syd Barret's music to be refreshing. What is 'sane' anyway? Constantly repeating the same things that have failed to produce the desired results, and yet expecting better results anyway, should be a sign of madness. And yet that's how most 'sane' people operate. As soon as somebody dares to try something a little different, suddently he's the 'insane' one ... go figure ...

[beebay007]

This band, the Que (MySpace.com - Que - Woodbridge, AU - Experimental / Trance / Acousmatic / Tape music - www.myspace.com/quexperience), when I first saw them live, I thought that for sure these guys take drugs and that it inspires their music. Since then I have become close friends with these guys, and I know that they aren't into drugs at all. But the music still sounds like they are.. And they're not mentally ill either (or at least not much).

[A440]

Maybe it's the method of creating the music that defines it's 'sanity'. Lot's of music can sound 'crazy', plenty of avant-garde classical music for example. However, if there's a systematic, ordered, intelligence behind it then presumably it's the music of the 'sane'. By the same token, a disordered, unbalanced mind may create 'insane' music.

Funny thing...on the first listen, or without a briefing on how the music was created. The listener may not be able to tell the difference between 'sanely' and 'insanely' created music.

[Jim Williams]

Does Brittany Spears qualify?

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Stitch333

Everyone might want a Vincent van Gogh painting on their wall...
but few would want the insane, dismembered-ear-holding artist in person on their living room sofa.

Oh yeah.

[gearaddict]

Originally Posted by ark

Just to be provocative, I'd like to direct your attention to this, a live performance of a piece of music that was written around 1930 (!). Frank Zappa credits this piece with persuading him to pursue a career in music.

C'mon..that sounds like a bunch of children banging on diffrfent perc...no matter what it did for zappa!!

[princeplanet]

This thread is of interest to me because of a recent recording done with someone deemed certifiably insane. This is a great story, he booked the studio for a day (whilst incarcerated) for his "day leave" day. He found some musicians on the street the very morning of the session a real motley rag tag bunch from who knows where. So I'm in the A room mixing some other stuff while the 2nd engineer is doing the crazy guy in the B room. At the end the 2nd comes in scratching his head and says
"Whoah!, you wouldn't believe how weird my day was!" We had a laugh and left it at that.

A few weeks go by and a get a call from some other guy asking if I'd mixed the (name deleted) stuff, I said we never heard back. He said we're crazy if we don't cos the guy is a genius, turns out he's a respected and published poet who also works as a proof reader. But his biggest point of difference is that he's a bona fide nut job.
Occasionally, the story goes he "loses" it and starts to insist he has meetings and conversations with powerful politicians whom he advises on all sorts of top secret issues. He gets so adamant that if he's in a bar (which is most nights when not in a psych ward) he inevitably ends up in a vicious fight with whoever disbelieves his stories (everyone).

So anyway, the day he came to the studio he was under strict instruction to not drink alcohol or take any other drugs which could interfere with his medication! This was a shock, cos apparently on the day he drank 2 bottles of vodka and took lots of "ice" and smoked lots of pot! Little wonder he had absolutely no recollection of the recording day whatsoever, what the songs were about, who the musicians were, nothing!!

So I dig it out and decide to mix it free of charge, in the name of art an' all..... Never laughed so much! But also thought it was great, basically dead beat/street poetry about his problems with mental health, even a little ditty entitled "Day Release" which was made up on the spot, stream of (un)consciousness diatribe about how he got to be locked up in hilarious detail. The music was improvised on the spot obviously, there's even a couple of my favorite songs where he threw on the bass and "accompanied" himself right off key and way out of time playing something like 2 1/2 against 4 on one open string, out of time with the band, out of time with his poetry, heck, out of sync with the cosmos! It's one of my all time favorites and I really hope this "album" gets released, the guy has what it takes to spawn some kinda cult following. His version of the National anthem is a gem as well. PM me if you wanna know more, I think someone is setting up a website for him.

[macc]

The most bizarre - and utterly brilliant - modern electronica I have heard.

I mastered their new album. It's pretty bonkers. It's brilliant.

FORMICATION

Even more demented is their forthcoming free EP on net label Pinecone Moonshine, 'The Supreme Spirit of Decay'. Far and away the most insane music I've heard in a long long time. It literally made my girlfriend's little sister (she's 10) cry after 15 seconds' listening

I wish it was out now so you could hear it, but sadly it isn't.

They are brilliant though.