WILD MAN FISCHER An Evening With Wild Man Fischer ★★★GONZO CD
Institutionalised at 16, Larry Wayne Fischer was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder but, after escaping from hospital, roamed LA’s streets bellowing his self-composed ditties for change (named “Wild Man”’ by Solomon Burke), before being adopted by Frank Zappa as a kind of pet sideshow freak. Zappa whisked him into a studio with some Mothers in 1968, recording his outpourings and releasing them as a double-album on his new Bizarre Records. Although blessed with moments of innocent inspiration, such as the oddly catchy ‘Merry Go Round’, it often seemed like an in-joke at Larry’s expense. Since then, the album’s been hailed as outsider classic or dismissed as Zappa’s cynical folly. With Gail Zappa’s passing (Fischer died in 2011), it gets the expanded CD release she relentlessly denied after Fischer threw a bottle at her. Only historical researchers or smug, after-dinner hipsters will want to play it more than once. Kris Needs
I don't think that either Neil Nixon or I are "smug, after-dinner hipsters" but both of us love the album and ten years ago my nephew Ross had Merry Go Round as his mobile ring tone.
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