Read the first part of Kris Needs' Fifty Outsiders, a departure point for your own investigation into outsider artists. 1. SUN RA Claiming to come from Saturn, Sun Ra was an outsider all his life, whether experiencing abhorrent racism growing up in Alabama to fearlessly reconstructing jazz, pioneering the modern independent label releasing (literally) countless albums on his El Saturn imprint. Ra left this planet in 1993 but is increasingly hailed as one of the last century‘s greatest musicians and composers. 2. MOONDOG Through the 1950s and ’60s, blind New York street legend Louis Thomas Hardin, AKA Moondog, ’The ...

For three nights at the Great Escape festival in Brighton - the biggest showcase of new bands in Europe - the Guardian hosted a New Band of the Day stage, curated by the author of our daily column, Paul Lester For more coverage of the Great Escape, including a special Music Weekly podcast, click here Trippple Nippples One of the best things about the New Band of the Day stage was the setting: a seemingly remote but centrally placed venue called the Warren situated in a secluded side street, with a pretty little beer garden outside where you could catch up with ...

Where have all the outsiders gone? The savants, the nut jobs, the angel-headed hipsters fit to burn the heavenly cosmos of night? All are sadly lacking in the UK right now, with chequebook indie and dollar sign Grime bulldozing the fragile archicture of our pop heritage. Sometimes it feels like only a few genuine, bona fide outsiders are left. Luke Haines , therefore, is an endangered species. Creative lynchpin for The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder, his new book 'Post Everything: Outsider Rock & Roll' seems to profile the music industry just as the post-Millennial malaise set in. ClashMusic caught up with Luke Haines to define the fall of the outsider... - - - You’re obviously looking back on your own work now, do you see yourself sitting in a tradion of outsiders running through British pop music? Yes, absolutely. I’m not comparing myself, but people like John Cale, Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers, especially those kind of people on Harvest Records maybe in the early ‘70s - which was a bizarre kind of setup where by people were seemingly allowed to do whatever the hell they like and there didn’t seem to be that much interest into taking off into the mainstream. In a way Hut Records was a bit like that with me, because I was very much shielded from the accountants. I think I’m one of the few people in rock ‘n’ roll to have an A&R; man who actually let me do what I wanted to. Remember, I was on Hut for 10 years ...

Enfant terrible: the favoured term of writers who seek to envelope youths, of immense promise and questionable mental lucidity, in a cloud of castigation. Or, alternatively, just a stick used by bitter elders, to beat against the reputations of youngsters who enjoy themselves under the acidic gaze of celebrity. Whatever your take on the term the sentiment is the same, people are fascinated by those who seem to have so much at such a tender age. Still to reach his 25th year, Ty Segall is an Enfant Incredible. Joined by deliciously dissonant, pop loving psychedelics, White Fence, Hair continues the ...

The Mallard are an inside-out-echo-laser-garage-psych-rock trio from San Francisco. Their home fried songs harness the naked abandon of 60s punk (think earliest Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd), but inject the form with a deranged spirit all their own. Close attention to texture and dynamics allow the band to explore unusual terrain to grant access into unexpected realms of beauty and terror This is their video for "Yes on Blood".

With "Wave Goodbye" it's almost time to stop calling what Ty Segall is doing "garage rock". At this point, he's turned up the volume so much, and created so much distortion, that we aren't in the referential territory of Syd Barrett and Sky Saxon, as we are with White Fence, nor are we even really in the same arena as the Yardbirds in Blow Up. If there are any major groups that Ty Segall has decided he wants to reference in "Wave Goodbye" it's B...

Having shown off their takes on the Pet Shop Boys ' "Rent" and "Heart" for a Record Store Day single, Sunderland's Field Music have announced that they will release an album of covers to coincide with their UK fall tour. The tracklist is still to be announced, but it will feature both previously released covers as well as new ones, like their take on Syd Barrett 's "Terrapin". They've also covered the Beatles, Roxy Music, Leonard Cohen, and, of course, the Pet Shop Boys in the past. David Brewis explains in a press release: "Over the years we've ...

Field Music: "Terrapin" (Syd Barrett cover)   Having shown off their takes on the Pet Shop Boys ' "Rent" and "Heart" for a Record Store Day single, Sunderland's Field Music have announced that they will release an album of covers to coincide with their UK fall tour (dates below). The tracklist is still to be announced, but it will feature both previously released covers as well as new ones, like their take on Syd Barrett 's "Terrapin" (above). They've also covered the Beatles, Roxy Music, Leonard Cohen, and, of course, the Pet Shop Boys in the past.

Paul Weller is set to release his new single 'When Your Garden’s Overgrown' on May 21st. Once typecast as the torch-holder of hairy knuckle Brit-rock, Paul Weller's recent output has displayed an increased element of risk. Taking inspiration from electronic music, Krautrock and post-punk the songwriter has pushed his music into new directions. Yet some elements remain the same. Due to release new single 'When Your Garden’s Overgrown' on May 21st, Paul Weller recently revealed that the song was partially inspired by the life of Syd Barrett. The iconic songwriter behind The Pink Floyd's wonderful dalliance ...

Field Music have confirmed plans to release a new covers album, featuring re-workings of Syd Barrett, Roxy Music and more. An awkward, self-contained unit Field Music recently returned with their new album 'Plumb'. A fascinating take on de-constructed pop, the band are now set to follow this with a new covers compilation. Kept to a limited edition, the compilation is set to feature recordings made over a number of years. David Brewis said recently: "Over the years we've been handed excuses to try all sorts of covers. Sometimes we've been quite faithful and other times we've completely ...

The term ‘space rock’ would probably lead to thoughts of Hawkwind for many of us or something of a progressive nature. Spiritualized get tucked into said genre which, given the first analogy, is somewhat unrepresentative. Their seminal 1997 album ‘Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating Space">In Space’ did indeed showcase a band who were prepared to stretch boundaries and imaginations, but much of the material since has been far more accessible. Chief protagonist is Jason Price (AKA J Spaceman), a guy who’s battled against ill health for far too long and, in no small way, this latest release ...

Awww how nice Ty Segall and Tim Presley seem to know how much we love hard fuzzed 60's nuggets around here and they've teamed up for a collaborative LP to celebrate the form. No stranger to 60's motifs himself, White Fences' Presley usually floats in the cracked mirror headspace that Syd Barrett seemed to swim in, but here the addition of Segall's scuzz-natted guitar leads and garage charm take the project into far tougher territory than the Fence has ever wandered on his own. The pairing seems serendipitous all around as both artists play off of ...

zwei singles sind die vorbereiter auf das erste full length des irischen quartetts, das am 18. juni auf school boy error "family" veröffentlichen wird (ob oliver sie am 10. in paris gesehen haben wird?): the cast of cheers : the cast of cheers - animals "musostics" heißt das zu erwähnende album, der release erfolgte am 06. april, bureau b zeichnet mit verantwortlich für das solowerk joe watsons, den man u.a. von stereolab kennen sollte (auch: the high llamas, monade, mary hampton...): junior electronics : junior electronics - mike mcconnell by bureau b "sohin" heißt das album, hat ein feines cover und wird am ...

Ever wonder who took that album cover of Queen? Mick Rock is his real name, and that's not his only iconic photo. Think Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground, Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd — and more.

White Fence is songwriter Tim Presley’s love letter to Love…and Syd Barrett and Nilsson and Dylan and The Zombies. As rock retro-isms go, White Fence has gone the distance and created a time capsule as time bomb. The hallucinatory, warbly lo-fi recordings sound as if they’d been recorded in 1968 and vaccuum sealed until now. Unlike lots of other bands playing an “update” to Stoned psychedelia or Southern Blooz or AM Gold Americana, White Fence isn’t updating anything. The tracks recorded in Echo Park within the last 2 years, quite literally sound like haunting lysergic transmissions ...