In a world gone wild

There is good music.

There is bad music.

And then there was Larry "Wild Man" Fischer.

With apologies to The Shaggs, Wild Man is the creator of the worst album ever made, "An Evening with Wild Man Fischer." A mental patient discovered by Frank Zappa, Fischer 's double (!) -album opus is filled with "singing," yelps and rambling incoherencies. Zappa, a champion of nonconformity, knew what he was doing, even if Fischer did not. The result was an extreme curiosity piece -- perverse, somewhat fascinating (depending on your point of view) and a massive inside joke from Zappa.

The news of the Wild Man's death last week made me think back to my relationship with the album. Although I knew about it, I didn't buy it, because 1) $10 was a lot for me to pay for an album in 1968 for a non-Beatles or non-Monkees release, and 2), it was awful. Beyond words awful. Incomprehensibly bad awful:

Larry " Wild Man " Fischer -- Merry Go Round
But a friend of mine, Bill Myers, who spent many waking hours with me traipsing through record stores, did buy it. And one year for Christmas, he gave me a cassette tape of the entire album as a joke. With the two notches removed on the tape so it could not be recorded over.

Bill had a sick sense of humor.

That tape is in a box somewhere in my house. I have no desire to look for it; I can still relive the 70+ minutes in my mind. Some of the tunes ( "Monkeys versus Donkeys " and "Which Way Did the Freaks Go?") are seared in my mind, much like the image of Budd Dwyer committing suicide on live television.

Still, as bad as this album is, I remember this "gem" and realize that one could argue that it's superior to a lot of rap, hip hop and some of today's nonsense.

Well, maybe that's a stretch....

Or is it?