Nadia (5:00)

I'm waiting for my man $26 in my hand.

Alan Cross (5:14)

Up to Lexington, Lou Reed and Velvet Underground from 1966. Other than Bob Dylan, no one was really singing like that back Then Dylan had a major record deal. But maybe it was because he came from the folk scene. Lou and the Velvets were from the streets of New York City. And were just too weird for mainstream consumption. It wasn't so much Lou's voice, although that didn't help, as it was the band's subject matter. Too much sex and drugs with this rock and roll. Yet Reed's music found its way. And influenced generations of musicians. Who liked the idea being weird. Even if it was just for the sake of being weird. Now, you have to understand that in the late 60s and early 70s. There was a certain everything goes attitude at a lot of record labels. This was before everything became very corporatized and formal. And because rock was still a relatively young art form. That was evolving quickly. A and R people were quicker to take a chance on something new. Because no one knew where things were going. Which brings me to A and M Records. It was headquartered in Los Angeles. And had no trouble with the hippie ideals of the day. You're weird, you're experimental. Great. What you got? Maybe we'll get you a deal. And here's where we meet Captain Beefheart. His real name was Don Van Vliet. And he was a buddy of Frank Zappa's. He ended up attracting the attention of A and M Records. The at the time indie label co founded by Herb Alpert. Yes, the guy from the Tijuana Brass. Beefheart was mainly a sculptor and a painter. But he was enthusiastic for all sorts of artistic expression. Which inevitably, inevitably led to music. He claimed to have never gone to public school, which is not true, but it makes for a great story. He was very dyslexic, and he was a major fan of rhythm and blues. Beefheart and his Magic Band were eventually signed to A and M in 1966. And over the years the label indulged him a lot. Even though he would do things like show up with a loaded crossbow at the offices. Because he was angry that somebody dared critique his work. His magnum opus, the record that critics say is his best work. Came out in 1969. It was a double album featuring 28 tracks. That found favor with certain types of music fans. The Beatles said they liked it because it was so out there. And people who liked disagreeable music. Liked it precisely because it was disagreeable. They loved music that other people considered annoying or hateful. For example, Johnny Lydon of the Sex Pistols loved it. Matt Groening, the man who would later create the Simpsons, loved it. Film director David lynch loved it. Okay, so that last one makes a lot of sense. But anyway, whatever the case, Trout Mask Replica has gone down in history as being a very important rock album. Some critics call it one of the greatest records of all time. Okay, so let me play you something. There is nothing wrong with your equipment. There is nothing wrong with my equipment. This song sounds this way on purpose.

Nadia (8:16)

I cannot go back to your land of gloom where black jagged shadows remind me of the coming of your doom. I want my whole face.

Alan Cross (8:29)

Captain Beefheart in Frownland from Trout Mask replica, released in 1969. And again, that song sounds like that by design. Now, can you imagine a major label dude signing a guy who sounded like that today and then giving him time and money to make a double album? It's fascinating. Tell you something, if you have a party and people are staying past the time when they should have gone home, put that record on the stereo, they'll go home quickly. But I have to stress again the importance of artists like Beefheart. If he could make a record, others thought, well, then, so could I. It's okay to experiment. It's okay to be different. And that sort of thinking gave birth to Sparks. They were formed by Ron and Russell Mayle in Los Angeles in 1971. And if you want quirky rock, you can't go wrong here. Not only did it sound different, wait until you hear Russell Mayle's voice. But their lyrics were very clever, sophisticated even. They zigged and zagged through glam rock, art rock, chamber pop, electronic dance, power pop, and many of the spaces in between. And Ron Mail became famous for his Adolf Hitler like mustache. And I should stress, that's all he had in common with Hitler. Sparks is still together, still making music, but this song from 1974 remains their biggest hit. It's from an album entitled Kimono in My House. And this is called this Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us. Russell Mail and Sparks from 1974. This town ain't big enough for the both of us. When you hear Russell Singh, you know it's him. Same thing with Dave Thomas, lead singer of Cleveland's Per Ubu. They came together in 1975 with Thomas as the lead singer. He's a big bear of a dude, but with a very high pitched voice. It's a bit disarming until you get used to it. Per Ubu never ascended above cult status, but they came close to having a genuine alternative radio hit in 1989 with this song from an album called Cloudland. It's called Waiting for Mary what are.

Nadia (10:45)

You going back to lose knowing? What are you doing? I got on my knees.

Alan Cross (10:58)

The very interesting Dave Thomas. No, no, not the Wendy's guy. Singing with Per Ubu with Waiting for Mary from 1989. Still around, still a cult favorite. We'll continue our survey of unique male voices from the history of vault rock in just a second with a guy who was a giant favorite of David Bowie. In fact, Bowie even asked this guy to perform with him a number of times, including on set Saturday Night Live. Stand by.

Anthony Delaney (11:28)

After Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal is a podcast that delves into the dark side of history.

Maddie Pelling (11:35)

Expect murder and conspiracy, ghosts and witches.

Anthony Delaney (11:40)

I'm Anthony Delaney.

Maddie Pelling (11:41)

And I'm Maddie Pelling. We're historians and the hosts of After Dark. From History Hit, where every Monday and Thursday we enter the shadow of the.

Anthony Delaney (11:50)

Past, discover the secrets of the darker side of history on After Dark From History hit. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Alan Cross (12:00)

The name of this show is Kings of Cork. And we're taking a listen to some of the most distinctive male voices that we've heard over the history of alternative rock. Now, if you're a David Bowie fan, you've probably encountered the name Klaus Nomi. If not, let me introduce you. Klaus was German and he loved opera. He even sang opera in a gay disco in West Berlin before moving to New York. And the more he performed, the more otherworldly he became. Wild costumes and makeup and hair. And when he performed, there was always guaranteed to be smoke and strobes and explosions. It was a mix of opera, vaudeville, technopop and new wave. And there was no one like Klaus Nomi. He became a fixture on the New York underground scene and was embraced by artists such as Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat. And that's how Bowie heard about Klaus and rushed to see one of his live shows. And that led to Nomi's appearance with Bowie on Saturday Night Live. The date was December 15, 1979. He sang backup on three songs. Here's the kind of thing that caught Bowie's attention. This is from Klaus Domi's official debut album in 1981. Now remember, this is a guy. And bonus points if you can figure out what song Klaus is covering.

Nadia (13:20)

And mother's mother rhyme. We're going to twist.

Alan Cross (13:32)

That's Klaus Nomi with the twist. Yes, the Chubby Checker song from his self titled debut album in 1981. Told you it was different. Nomi died of AIDS related complications, making him one of the first celebrities to die of the disease. And sadly, it's tough to find physical copies of his music these days. Although there's always YouTube. Right. Since we're still in the 70s, we need to bring up Tom Waits. I've often wondered how this guy managed to get a record deal, and I say that with all the joyous wonder I can muster. Thank God this guy got a deal. But can you imagine someone with this voice and this approach getting a major deal today? Be pretty tough. But back in 1972, there were labels like Asylum. Asylum was founded in 1971 by a couple of former show business agents at the William Morris Agency. There was David Geffen and his partner, Elliot Roberts. The label came about when one of Geffen's clients, some kid named Jackson Brown, couldn't get a record deal. So Geffen created his own indie label and signed Jackson Browne, and that did pretty well. Asylum was envisioned as a singer songwriter's paradise. And just to be a little bit crazy, I mean, why else do you think the label was called Asylum on purpose? They got Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, J.D. souther, the Eagles. They all became members of the roster. And so did Tom Waits. He'd been working as a doorman at a nightclub in San Diego that liked to feature some, well, idiosyncratic performers of the day. Tom caught the attention of Asylum because, like the other artists on the label, he was sort of folky at the beginning. He was also sort of jazzy, like Joni Mitchell. And because both Geffen and Elliot Roberts were both fans of Bob Dylan, a guy with a super unusual voice, they thought that Waits might be their Dylan. So they were open to experimenting with him. And besides, the California singer songwriter thing was super hot at the time. So you can see all the different elements that had to come into play for a guy like Tom Waits to get a record deal. Now, it could still happen today, and it does, but these kinds of discoveries are almost exclusively the domain of indie labels. And Tom's vocal stylings did change over the years. He began as gruff and soulful, but according to legend, he deliberately tortured his vocal cords with lots of whiskey and cigarettes to make him sound older and more world weary. He's often named on lists of singers who cannot sing. Now, if you're not familiar with Tom, he has a huge body of work that extends back to before his Asylum years. His big Breakthrough was a 1976 album entitled Small Change. And this was a single from the record. And yes, it was written during the years. Tom was a very, very hard drinker. Tom Waits and the piano has been drinking from his 1976 album Small Change. The guy has one of the most unusual and quirky male voices in the history of rock. Around the same time Tom was breaking through with his Small Change album, an unknown band from Crawley near Gatwick Airport in England, was starting to build momentum. In 1976, they were known as Malice. Within a year, they'd call themselves the Easy Cure, and that would soon be condensed to just the Cure. Leading the band was Robert Smith. His older brother and sister had filled his head with Beatles and Stone songs, but they also subjected him to a lot of Captain Beefheart and David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix and Nick Drake. And then when punk came along, it was Sex Pistols, Ramones, Elvis Costello. Young Robert found his niche now. The voice. Robert Smith is a tenor who has experimented with several different styles of singing. He went through his punk period. There was also a soft vocal approach, and finally he moved into. Well, however you want to describe how he sounds today, call it Agonized Lover, with plenty of yelping falsetto and the occasional low growl. Now, Smith doesn't really see himself as a singer, at least in the traditional sense. Here's a quote from him. In the early days, I never cared about giving a performance. I just worked myself up into the state of mind needed for the song, and that would be it. Some of the things I sang were pretty good, but a lot of it was out of tune. There was one point where I thought I was starting to get too predictable. So ever since then, I've tried to sing in different voices. I find it especially difficult to sing in a voice which is far removed from the way I talk. And I can confirm that I've interviewed Robert on a number of occasions, and his speaking voice is very similar in quality to his singing voice, and it's a voice with impressive range. He reaches a very High D, a D6, if you want to get technical. In Friday I'm In Love, the same song in which he goes down for a D3. Let's have a listen, shall we? The Cure with Friday I'm In Love, featuring some very high notes and some very low notes from singer Robert Smith, definitely one of the quirkiest male singers of all time. I have a few more unusual voices to run past you in just a second, and I'll be back with a guy who has done more with his yelpy sort of style than anyone could have possibly imagined. After looking at some of the most distinctive, unusual, and, I guess, depending on your point of view, sometimes annoying female voices in the history of alt rock. We're now doing the same for men, and we've reached the point where we must talk about David Byrne and the Talking Heads. I'd like to begin with this quote from Pauline Kael, the legendary film critic for the New York Times. Byrne himself is the parodist, and he commands the stage by his hollow eyed, frosty verve. Byrne's voice isn't a singer's voice. It doesn't have the resonance. It's more like a shouter's or chanter's voice with an emotional carryover, a faintly metallic wail, and you might expect it to get rather strained or tired. But his voice never seems to crack or weaken and he's always in motion. Jiggling, aerobic, walking, jumping, dancing. They shade into each other. Byrne has a withdrawn, disembodied, sci fi quality, and though there's something unknowable and almost autistic about him, he makes autism fun. Wait a second. Autism fun? Well, Byrne has been diagnosed as having Asperger's syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum. It's the mild end, but still. In fact, if you dig into the history of the Talking Heads breakup, you'll find that their dissolution was more than just banned politics. Two of the other members blamed the death of the group on Byrne's autism. And just so you know, Byrne acknowledges his diagnosis, but says that he's been able to work it out through making music. Now, doctors will tell you that he isn't cured. Instead, he'll say that he has it so well under control that it's nothing more than a personality trait rather than any kind of disorder. I'm not sure if any of this helps explain Byrne's singing style, but now that you know, how can you not wonder? Whatever the case, Byrne was very influential in introducing that yelping sort of singing voice that became very popular with some new wavers in the early 80s. There was Devo, there was Ungo, Boingo, and there was Burn.

Nadia (21:11)

This ain't no discord, this ain't no fooling around no Time for Dancing, More Love and Dummy, I ain't got time for that.

Alan Cross (21:22)

Now the Talking Heads with Life During Wartime featuring David Byrne. And not only is his singing voice quirky, so was his stage image at the time. He was all shifty and jerky. Any list of male singers with unusual voices has to include Leonard Cohen and, like, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Tom Waits. You can't really say that the dude sings. Singing involves hitting notes of a melody. It would be more Correct to say that Leonard Cohen has a vocal style. It's a baritone that got lower and lower and lower the older he got. He's been known to reach down to a low G, and it's also become more gruff and less musical. It's more, I guess, method acting than singing. Or we can just say that the man drones. This is not a criticism. It's whatever it takes to get the emotion across. Right? But let me float this past you. How many women are there with this style? Maybe a better question is how many women would get a record deal if they vocalized this way? Now, don't bring up Janis Joplin or Patti Smith, because they do hit actual notes. Back in the 60s, Leonard tried. He was even promoted as a more musical Bob Dylan. But that was then, this is now. Leonard made a strange breakthrough into the alternative world in 1988 when his album I'm youm Man became a hit. From that record is this song. First we Take Manhattan Listen for the low, low B flat.

Nadia (22:50)

I'm coming Now I'm coming to reward them. First we take Manhattan Then we take Berlin.

Alan Cross (23:08)

Leonard Cohen, very unusual voice, yet his songs transcend what he can do with them. Just listen to what K D Lang and Jeff Buckley did for Hallelujah. One more strange and quirky voice from alt rock, and it belongs to Justin Hawkins of the Darkness. When we first started hearing about the band, and I guess it was 2003, with their permission to land album, the initial reaction was, come on, this is a joke, right? This guy's making fun of Freddie Mercury or Queen. No, Justin was and remains dead serious. It's just that it had been a long, long time since anyone used this kind of falsetto in alt rock, if ever. Wait a second, Hang on. Justin says he doesn't use a falsetto. I. I use head voice for softer high singing, but it's mostly high belt. Journalists call it falsetto, but that is mostly incorrect. If you're a singer, you'll understand what he means. If not, it means that Justin sings so that he feels the tone resonating in his head rather than in the throat or the chest, which is how he gets to all the high notes. The man does have a hell of a range. He can dig down to a low A, an A2 specifically, and as high as an E6. That's over four octaves, which is pretty impressive for a dude. So is the Darkness for real or just some kind of bizarre novelty act? I think if you surveyed the general public, the results might be about 50 50. Here's a sample. And there's an A from the fifth.

Nadia (24:38)

Octave in here somewhere.

Alan Cross (24:53)

Justin Hawkins and the darkness from their 2003 album permission to Land. And that's I Believe in A Thing Called Love. So let's review our list of the quirkiest male vocalists in the history of alt rock. Lou Reed, Captain Beefheart, Russell, Mail from Sparks, David Thomas from Per Ubu, Klaus Nomi, Tom Waits, Robert Smith of the Cure, David Byrne from the Talking Heads, Leonard Cohen and Justin Hawkins of the Darkness are ten kings of Quirk. If you are looking for more information on this show, Best Email me at alanancross ca. Try and set you straight with whatever your questions may be. Or you can go straight to my website ajournalofmusicalthings.com there's tons and tons and tons of stuff archived there. I also have a daily newsletter that you should consider subscribing to. It's free and you'll never get any spam from me, I promise. Just sign up at the website and I'm on Twitter and Facebook and Google and Instagram. In other words, there are plenty of ways that we can connect. And you know, we really should. I would like that very much. Again, start by emailing me at AllenCross CA. We'll get something going. Technical productions by Rob Johnston. I'm Alan Cross.

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Nadia (26:06)

Are you kidding me?

Metro (26:08)

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