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00:00After an alternative sign from the United States, it's a required taste.
00:14Is this the chicken market?
00:18You can go insane waiting for a phone call that never came.
00:22But I did get a phone call from an old lady asking, is this the chicken market?
00:35Hi, I'm Erwin Chucid. This is WFMU in Jersey City, New Jersey.
00:39I want to introduce you to some musicians that I call outsiders.
00:43This underground genre contains some of the most marginal, innocent, shockingly original music you've never heard.
00:50A perfect antidote to polished pop.
00:53I find it very, very easy to be true.
00:57I find myself alone when each day is true.
01:02Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you.
01:08Because you're mine.
01:10I walk the line.
01:12First up, we've got scat singer extraordinaire Shuby Taylor.
01:16If the outsider music world needed a poster boy, it's Shuby.
01:20Everyone at FMU had a similar reaction when we first heard Shuby's music, which is that, you know, I don't
01:27want this to sound condescending, but it's ridiculous in many ways.
01:33There's nothing like it. It's so over the top.
01:47I also really like this note, too.
01:52The Shuby Taylor tape has been circulating for about ten years or so, and we never had any idea whether
01:58we'd ever find this guy.
01:59We didn't know if he was dead or alive.
02:01I just had to meet the guy who would make that kind of sound.
02:05I just had to know why.
02:07When I met Rick Getz over the summer, and he swore that he would find Shuby Taylor, I said, man,
02:14good luck in your hunt.
02:15I really hope you do find him.
02:17I was not that hopeful by the time I started calling Harlem.
02:20I called up, hi, I'm looking for a musician named William Taylor, was how the phone call always began.
02:26I said, yes, I know Shuby Taylor. Matter of fact, he's my father.
02:29Well, I don't know if you know this or not, but he's actually got a quite loyal and growing fan
02:37base.
02:37I don't know if you or he were aware of that.
02:40He's telling me how he's been looking for him.
02:42Like, he works for the radio station and whatnot, and they've been playing his music, and he's getting some fans.
02:48They like his music.
02:50His entire life was looking for justification and for reinforcement that what he was doing was valid.
02:56He used to just stand on the street corners and play his sax and do his scatting, and he didn't
03:02have no bucket there asking for money.
03:04He wanted people going to work and coming from work to just feel a little good about themselves.
03:09People did laugh at him.
03:12I guess it did get to him, but he kept right on with it.
03:15He never gave up.
03:17Never gave up.
03:20Hey, hey, my man.
03:21Boy, this hasn't been easy.
03:23Mr. William Taylor, Mr. William H. Taylor, otherwise...
03:26He's known as...
03:27...shooby-tail.
03:28The human horn.
03:29The human horn.
03:31That's him.
03:31That's me.
03:32Don't stop me.
03:33I'm through.
03:38This is something I hate to do.
03:46He is a love.
03:52When you first hear his music, there's a natural impulse to laugh, to say, this is ridiculous.
03:59What is this, you know?
04:00But if you continue listening, you can recognize that there is great virtuosity there.
04:06There's a great talent.
04:07What he's doing is uncopyable.
04:29You can't do it anymore, though.
04:34No, I don't do it anymore, though.
04:35No, I don't do it anymore, because I had a stroke.
04:40I wrote in 1994.
04:43Oh.
04:44These are the birthday cards and the letters.
04:47I wrote letters to all the people who wrote to you.
04:50That's right.
04:51Dear David, I want to thank you for your well wishes on my birthday.
04:54It's good to be appreciated for my music after all these years.
04:58God bless you.
04:59Right.
05:00William Taylor, a.k.a. Shoebie Taylor, the human horn.
05:03Give it a horn.
05:05It's authentic.
05:05It's real.
05:06It's you.
05:07That's right.
05:08He's so happy.
05:10He's so proud.
05:11He's saying, somebody likes my music.
05:13I've got fans now.
05:15Shoebie, I've got some fans.
05:17He is so thrilled.
05:19Let him hear the Shoebie.
05:20I will.
05:21Absolutely.
05:21Let him hear the Shoebie.
05:23Let him hear the Shoebie.
05:28These people deserve attention.
05:29They want attention.
05:31We should give them attention.
05:33We should pay attention to their music.
05:36Remembering at all times that by its very definition,
05:39outsider music is marginal.
05:41You can make a documentary about it.
05:42You can write articles about it.
05:44But this stuff is never going to go platinum.
05:46It crawls along the edges of culture,
05:49beyond the periphery by definition.
05:51There are just people who see and hear things differently
05:55and express themselves in a creative way very differently,
05:58and who don't really have a grasp on the conventional ways
06:03of expressing oneself creatively.
06:06They're in cities.
06:07They're in little towns.
06:09They're on trains.
06:10They're, you know, living in cold water flats.
06:13They're living in mansions.
06:14They're in mental institutions.
06:16They're working day jobs.
06:17And then going home and creating something that's just out of this world
06:21in some ways incomprehensible.
06:22His hobby was taxidermy.
06:26Wormy, squirmy, axidermy.
06:30Psycho!
06:34Psycho!
06:36He never entered into matrimony.
06:39He killed everybody at the ceremony.
06:43Psycho!
06:45I want to sell a million copies, or more.
06:49I want a hit song.
06:51You know what a hit song is?
06:52I want it.
06:53Where is it?
06:54I need it.
06:56I got to accomplish something.
06:58Bingo is a sextagenarian rock poet from Flushing, New York.
07:02He exclaims his lunatic rhymes in various New York City clubs,
07:06wherever they'll let him on stage.
07:08He's often backed by local rockers who enjoy working with him.
07:11He's unpredictable, he's funny, and he's real.
07:17I am Bingo Kazingo, and I canonize myself as the god of love.
07:23I am the love god.
07:24I'm the greatest.
07:25Have you heard?
07:26I'm a sadist.
07:27You can go insane.
07:28Waiting for a phone call that never came.
07:31I think I hear the phone ringing.
07:33But it's only ringing in my brain.
07:36I thought I heard you calling my name.
07:39But I did get a call from an old lady asking,
07:44Is this the chicken nugget?
07:48It's a true story.
07:49I got a wrong number from this woman.
07:53They called me three or four times.
07:55I guess she was looking for a caution.
07:56Chicken market.
07:58That's the point of the song, is it?
07:59The point is, is this the chicken market?
08:03Are these the people?
08:04Is this the chicken market?
08:06Does it make sense?
08:08Does the world make sense?
08:09That's what it means.
08:10You can go insane.
08:11You can go insane.
08:12Waiting for a phone call that never came.
08:15I'm waiting for a phone call all my life.
08:20No, I don't get that phone call.
08:22Where the hell is the phone call?
08:23That's gonna make me rich or something like that.
08:28That's gonna make me a big shot.
08:30I'm waiting for a phone call.
08:32Maybe you're not appealing to the masses.
08:34Maybe you're sound.
08:35The masses.
08:35I am the masses.
08:37Who do you think I am?
08:38I'm the masses.
08:40But the record company is saying who the artists are and the masses are.
08:45As far as I'm concerned, I'm just as good as they are.
08:50Maybe greater.
08:51Maybe my CD is greater than all the other CDs in the world put together.
08:57I've been using that line for a long time.
09:05It's high noon.
09:07It's a last chance to rule.
09:09And a cowboy movie in my head.
09:11And a deer in from the bottom of the deck.
09:14And the two jokers are life and death.
09:16But I've got a wrong bunch of my dreams.
09:19And a queen of hearts in my heart.
09:21And everything's okay.
09:23At the O.K. Corral.
09:28And all the horses say,
09:30John Wayne, you're full of it.
09:34But anyway,
09:36Everything's okay.
09:38At the O.K. Corral.
09:42What's wrong with Em?
09:50I had to reevaluate over the years my estimation of many of these artists.
09:57Who I used to consider incompetent or inept or wrong in some ways.
10:04So wrong they were right.
10:07Gradually, my reevaluation, I came more to treasure these people.
10:12To honor them.
10:13To respect them.
10:15And to celebrate them.
10:22Alvin Dan is a talented songwriter who has, with great determination, produced music for 20 years.
10:28With no recognition.
10:51You said earlier, a little wilder than I looked.
10:55But what is an artist supposed to look like?
10:58You know?
10:59You do what you think you want to do at the time.
11:02What you're feeling.
11:03Not what you're looking.
11:07Over the years, I've had a lot of good times and a lot of bad times.
11:11I've gone through a lot of suffering.
11:14Had a lot of things not turn out the way I wanted them to.
11:17My first wife and I got married at the age, I was only 19 years old.
11:22And it ultimately ended up in a divorce.
11:24And I was in an automobile accident.
11:26And it cost me the job that I had at the university.
11:30And I ended up just about losing everything.
11:33I went through a bankruptcy.
11:35I lost my apartment.
11:36My car was totaled in the accident.
11:38I was in the emergency room at the hospital.
11:40So I was always in the position of, will I be able to continue?
11:46I don't want to lose this.
11:48And I don't want to just throw it away.
11:51And so all of that was in the back of my mind.
11:54And when I'm singing the song, that all comes through.
12:04Throw your dreams away.
12:10Save them for another day.
12:16Your dreams are more, it seems, than just your mind and place.
12:30Save all your plans and schemes.
12:36Bring them through to consciousness.
12:43Your dreams, your plans, your schemes will help you find success.
12:55Let your mind dream.
12:58Let your mind scheme.
13:00Let your mind out to play.
13:04Save all your dreams.
13:06Save all your schemes.
13:07Don't throw your dreams away.
13:24Guitarist, bass player, drummer, keyboard player.
13:28Four musicians from the Buffalo Philharmonic and Chicktuaga Symphony Orchestra doing the strings.
13:34Uh, a flute player.
13:38And a harp player.
13:41And that was it.
13:44And who paid for that?
13:45I did.
13:46It sounds like, I mean, that would have cost you, cost a lot of money, wouldn't it?
13:49It did.
13:51Spend a couple thousand dollars just on those two songs.
13:58So what do you think of the studio, huh?
14:00It's neat.
14:01You see these lures over here?
14:03You can change the acoustic effect in the room with these things.
14:06Oh.
14:07By the way that you direct them.
14:09And there's some on the other side there, that whole wall.
14:12And if you need more reflection, or less reflection, the way you turn them will give that to you.
14:17Al has talked about his music to me, but I had no concept of what it was.
14:23It's an insight into the man.
14:25His music speaks of him.
14:41If one person other than myself enjoys that song, then it was a success.
14:48Because that song gave that person a few moments of pleasure they might not otherwise have had.
14:53Don't throw your dreams away.
14:58Now at almost 55 years of age, I don't know what my chances are of having commercial success with it
15:06anymore.
15:07But I do know that there's a lot of good material there, and I'm not at all ashamed of any
15:12of it.
15:27So, outsiders, what do you make of them?
15:30Well, when I was approached by Erwin Cusick about it, the term didn't mean anything to me.
15:36I've never met Alvin. We've spoken on the phone a few times.
15:40He seemed a bit surprised that anybody would call him about his music at this late date.
15:45And I explained how I'd come across it, and that I was fascinated with it.
15:49Then I put one of his songs on Volume 2 of Songs in the Key of Z.
15:53Well, when I listened to the Outsider CD, I thought some of the artists were a little strange,
16:02and the quality level seemed to vary considerably from track to track.
16:06Alvin said that the other musicians on the Songs in the Key of Z CD, who shared positioning with him,
16:13were not up to his standards. They weren't as good as him.
16:16So even among outsiders, there seems to be some disagreement about the value of each other's work.
16:21I listened to some of the music, and I thought, wow, I wonder what these people are like.
16:26You know, are they walking on two or four legs? But...
16:30No, it bothered her far more than it did me, actually.
16:33I really did cry. Al kind of laughed it off, and he thought, well, if nothing else, you know,
16:38it gave me exposure, and what have I lost?
16:41But I was hurt in here because of the heart of the music.
16:47When I think of Jesus, I think of healing miracles.
17:03Nitro Monster Truck, four-wheel drive, up to 40 miles per hour.
17:08Powerful Nitro engine, all-terrain vehicle.
17:11It is a truly amazing driving experience.
17:14Every week, construct your radio-controlled Nitro Monster Truck.
17:18Part one in your first components, 99p, out now.
17:24As an infantryman, I'm never alone.
17:26I've got some of the most skilled soldiers in the army behind me.
17:30The intelligence analysts.
17:34The ammo technicians.
17:37The geoterrain analysts.
17:40The communications experts.
17:43Without them, I'd be on my own.
17:46But with them, I'm at the front of one of the most advanced armies in the world.
17:50With millions being spent on new technology and training, there's never been a better time to join the Scottish Infantry.
17:56Go to scottishsoldier.co.uk.
17:59Scottish Infantry.
18:00Never stronger.
18:10Every single artist that I consider outsider sounds very different from one another.
18:16What links them is the spirit in which the music is created.
18:36So you grew up thinking that life was free.
18:40But now you know you're gonna have to be nothing.
18:47You're gonna be nothing.
18:52Now you say you can visualize the pain.
18:56And how fast it grows.
18:58Yet you remain nothing.
19:03You're nothing but nothing.
19:09There is no limit to the heat of the flame.
19:13You wish that you were merely insane, but that's nothing.
19:21Absolutely nothing.
19:23Peter Grudzian has been performing openly gay country music since the early 1960s.
19:27He was out before most people even knew there was a closet.
19:30Peter lives and works in the house where he grew up, in Queens, New York.
19:35Listen to all the tracks and stuff, I don't feel like it's my song and my music.
19:39Have you worked with other people?
19:41I've recorded alone all my life.
19:43It makes me feel like the song is my own.
19:47And I didn't always get along with people that well.
19:50So I never had a band of people backing me up or anything.
19:56I don't have to wait for the drummer to show up.
19:58I use the drum machine that's here on time.
20:01I don't have to play bass players or anything.
20:03I just do all the tracks myself.
20:06And it makes me feel like the song is my own.
20:14There's a big hole in your britches.
20:16Your knees are sharp.
20:19David, it's a youthy years hillbilly.
20:23You white trash hillbilly trick.
20:27You're so young and fair and smooth.
20:32I played country because of my country roots and my country background.
20:36And I sang gay because of my lifestyle.
20:41Do you consider yourself totally gay, Peter?
20:44Hmm?
20:45Do you consider yourself totally gay?
20:46No, I'm bisexual.
20:47Get a picture of Barbara now, too.
20:49I am his fiancée.
20:52Is that going to destroy the image?
20:54No.
20:55I'm, you know, totally heterosexual.
20:58Was her his hobby.
20:59I fell in love with his music when I heard it as a kid.
21:03I thought he was, not the gay part, but I just felt he was really remarkable.
21:08Did I show you my clone?
21:09I didn't get to show you my clone, did I?
21:12No.
21:14No, this is supposed to be a march in California after the Stonewall raid,
21:20which I never marched in California and my clone was in it.
21:24Right here.
21:26There I am.
21:28And this is the actual shirt I wore in that period.
21:32As you can see, it's a navy jersey and it doesn't button in the front.
21:36The one my clone is wearing is a tie-tie shirt that buttons in the front.
21:42And that's not my shirt.
21:44So it's, it's not me.
21:47It's my clone.
21:48And this is, this is what it looks like, just like me.
21:53Paid goons started the riot.
21:56The Stonewall kids were shocked.
21:58These paid goons, they were hired to see the bar was torn apart.
22:03Twenty years later, they put my clone on TV.
22:09They even dressed him up so that he would look just like me.
22:14They harass me and they torture me, thinking I will kill myself.
22:19But instead I outsmart them with the music that I sell.
22:24As his illness interfered with his music.
22:27Tragically.
22:29Absolutely tragically.
22:31Obviously his paranoia.
22:33He's, he's running at the ceiling now.
22:35His is affecting his music.
22:38A lot of us.
22:43It's her opinion.
22:44No, of course, of course, of course.
22:46It's my opinion.
22:48What do you feel about it, Peter?
22:50Well, I feel I had, that there was basis for my paranoia.
22:55It wasn't imagined.
22:57It affected my music because it's me.
23:01And I write about what my experiences.
23:04I felt like I was sharing what was being done to me.
23:08And I was, I was, I was letting people know.
23:14You know, what I was going through.
23:21It's just been happening for me since around 1995
23:24that I even knew my album was a collector's item.
23:28These people at Parallel Worlds got in touch with me.
23:31Through them I found out that my album was selling around the world
23:34and it was a collector's item.
23:35And it's only around since 1995 that I know that I'm being recognized at all.
23:40You know, I was just working blind all, all my life.
23:42The soul of man will someday have to burn.
23:48And you're the one who calms the angry sound.
23:54You're the one who bathes my lips in brandy.
23:59And you're the one who feeds me.
24:05Kentucky.
24:07Kentucky.
24:08Candy.
24:13Kentucky.
24:22I'm just joking.
24:23I don't think they necessarily do it to become famous, to reach an audience.
24:27They hope to reach an audience.
24:28But I don't think that's their prime motivation.
24:30They just, there's something inside that needs to come out.
24:39Next up, we've got B.J. Snowden.
24:41She's a schoolteacher from Billerica, Massachusetts.
24:44She writes her own songs.
24:46She's not a very polished singer or piano player, but she's a very inspiring performer.
24:51I've yet to see any jaded New York clubhopper leave one of her concerts without a big smile on their
24:56face and a warm glow in their heart.
25:14I would like to just be known all over the world and make a lot of money at something that
25:25I enjoy doing.
25:27You know, I'm sort of sick and tired of, like, working at jobs where I have to, you know, listen
25:33to these bosses who can't stand me and who belittle me.
25:38You know, I want to do my music.
25:41I think that's why I'm on this earth, for my music.
25:44And that's what I really want to do.
25:47I don't want to work for anybody.
25:49You know, in 1989, my mother and my son and my Uncle Eddie and I all went up to Canada.
25:59We went all over the Canadian provinces.
26:03Very pretty, very pretty out there.
26:05Very clean, very pretty, you know, a lot of woods.
26:10I like the country so much that I decided to write about it.
26:14I heard a melody inside my mind when I was there.
26:18And when I got home, I said, I got to write this out.
26:20I have to write it out.
26:21So I did get the music together and bingo.
26:30I made cassettes first and I sent them out.
26:34And then when I got hooked up with this company in New York City, Venus Records,
26:40then they decided to put it out in CD form.
26:43And that's what happened.
27:05Do you have an idea of how many albums you have sold?
27:10Do you know how many?
27:11That's a very hard question.
27:13I don't know, maybe a hundred.
27:15I don't know.
27:15Do you have any idea of how many CDs I sold?
27:19I really don't.
27:20I don't really sell that many.
27:22Madre!
27:23We have to leave.
27:24It's eight o'clock.
27:27It's time for us.
27:28We've got to leave.
27:29It's eight o'clock.
27:31I was such a fool to fall in love with you.
27:37The big mistake I did was to say I do.
27:42I'm getting anxious.
27:44Come on.
27:44Love was sweet and sour.
27:47By the minute, every hour.
27:51Then came all the fears and tears for so many years.
27:59I would like to, you know, maybe get into writing for pitches.
28:02Also performing like I'm doing, but being known by more people.
28:06Right now, I'm in the subway.
28:09I want to later become a surface car.
28:23I love a lot of the extended chords that he does.
28:28I didn't really analyze it.
28:30I don't know if they were 11th or 13th.
28:32Oh, he does a lot of 13th, sharp 11th.
28:34Yeah, that's probably what it was.
28:35A lot of sus fours.
28:36Yeah, yeah.
28:37He does a lot of that.
28:38It's so nice to have it not the typical triadic harmony.
28:40And you're a way out of that, too.
28:43You have such good counterpoints.
28:46Everyone is having fun.
28:49Everything is under the sun in New Brunswick.
28:53New Brunswick.
28:561,500 miles of shoreline.
28:59Great place to wind and die in New Brunswick.
29:05Everybody has different types of music.
29:07And you should try to push to the people who like your type of music.
29:10You know, you just keep plugging away.
29:13Don't give up.
29:14That's my three words.
29:17Don't give up.
29:18The province.
29:28And Canada.
29:52The genesis and the future of outsider music, to me, it's just part of the continuum.
29:58There's always been outside of music.
30:00You know, we just didn't record it because there wasn't the technology to capture it.
30:04It existed 100 years ago.
30:06I'm sure it existed 50 years ago and 10 years ago and now and 10 years from now and 100
30:10years
30:10from now.
30:11As long as you have the curiosity and the persistence, you will find these people.
30:16I'm a New Yorker.
30:18I'm a New Yorker.
30:19I was born in the Bronx 5,000 years ago.
30:22I drove an oxen, but it was too toxic.
30:26So I moved to Brooklyn looking for an honest man and a crooked woman.
30:31Bar lights, car lights, star lights.
30:34I'm singing in Grevitz Village tonight.
30:40Mariah, Mariah, how are you?
30:42I want your papaya.
30:43I want your pee, pee.
30:45Take off your clothes.
30:46I love my embryos.
30:47It will make my millions and millions and trillions of stem cells.
30:50It's so hairy.
30:51It's so scary.
30:52I want your carry.
30:54Hey, who's this?
30:56A crazy shouting old guy was what I first thought when I first heard it.
30:59But then, as I started to listen to it and hear the lyrics, I realized that he's really
31:05clever.
31:06And then, you know, then I guess really genius after time goes by.
31:10Just meeting him and being able to work with him has been great.
31:13They played our song on Dr. Demento last week.
31:16What?
31:17The Dr. Demento show.
31:18Yeah.
31:19Yeah.
31:19I think he's definitely a comedic genius in my mind.
31:22I mean, as far as humor goes, he's brilliant.
31:25And he's got a great way with words.
31:26I think there's some part of his, the language part of his brain, just sort of has a magic
31:32power.
31:39We went to Washington, D.C.
31:42So that was about a week before the swiper, the swiper, the swiper, the hyper, swiper,
31:49swiper, griper, whatever it's called.
31:52The sniper.
31:58It seems like a lot of popular culture has gotten very sterile.
32:02And I believe that these outsider artists like Bingo, they're outside of all that and
32:05they have something special to offer.
32:06They have personalities to offer.
32:08They have a sense of humor to offer that's not smeared or smoothed out by anything else.
32:12You want the real stuff, you want the raw stuff, you know, he's definitely got it.
32:18We're on the outskirts of Paris and we're going to do a show in a couple hours with my robot
32:27friend show, but with Bingo.
32:29We're kind of finishing it all off, more or less.
32:42What luggage have you brought with you?
32:44What'd you say?
32:45What luggage?
32:46What bags?
32:47No, just songs.
32:49Hello, France.
32:51Land of romance.
32:54Well, if I get all the lines right, I feel good for one day.
32:59After that, I'm frustrated again.
33:01If I get my name in the village voice, that's good for a week.
33:05So then I feel good for a week.
33:06But then I'm frustrated again.
33:08I don't speak good.
33:10I don't talk good.
33:14But I sing.
33:16Then I feel good.
33:18I want to get you to someplace quiet where you can sleep for a little bit.
33:21Nah.
33:22What do you got coming up next?
33:25Next?
33:26Well, we're going to, the record's going to come out in a few months with you out of the
33:31computer on it.
33:33So that'll be pretty good.
33:35The last record sold, you know, it'll be a few thousand.
33:37What?
33:38The last record sold like a few thousand copies.
33:41So the new one should do better.
33:44Yeah, right.
33:45Exactly.
33:45Because it'll have you on there.
33:46What's this?
33:47Here's your wonderful bed.
33:49That's a bed?
33:50I don't.
33:50How do I know that's a bed?
33:51That's a bunk.
33:52It's a bunk bed.
33:56So I'll come and get you in a little while.
33:58I don't know.
34:15I don't know.
34:34I'm not sure that anybody needs to have outsider music in their life as part of a well-rounded
34:40musical diet.
34:41If most people did hear it, I'm not sure they would like it, I don't think they'd take
34:45it seriously.
34:46I'm not going to say that it's a great loss in their life, but I think that there's something
34:50to be gained by hearing the impossible perform.
34:57You're at a computer, and if you see me first, you say hello, and if I see you first, I'll
35:08say hello.
35:11Hi.
35:12Hello.
35:13Hello.
35:13Well that's about it for today, I hope you enjoyed The Outsiders.
35:18Keep your ears open, you never know what you might find out there.
35:28We all believe nonsense at 10 past 3 after Stuart Murdoch from-
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