Irwin Chusid

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The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora (Fantagraphics, 2007)

Irwin Chusid (b. 1951), based in Hoboken, New Jersey, is a record producer, journalist, music historian, radio personality and self-described "landmark preservationist." His stated mission has been to "find things on the scrapheap of history that I know don't belong there and salvage them." Those "things" have included such previously overlooked but now-celebrated icons as composer/bandleader/electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott, Space Age Pop avatar Esquivel, illustrator Jim Flora, various outsider musicians, and The Langley Schools Music Project.

Since 1975, Chusid has been a DJ on free-form radio station WFMU, where he continues to host an unpredictable and idiosyncratic program every Wednesday between noon and 3pm.

His journalism has appeared in Mojo, The New York Times, Film Comment, Mix, New York Press, Pulse and elsewhere.

In the late 1970s, he was one of the first DJs to regularly air recordings of Jandek and R. Stevie Moore on the radio. Between 1997-2002 he was the co-host (with Michelle Boulé) of the Incorrect Music Hour on WFMU.

In 2004 Chusid curated Interesting Results for UK's Sonic Arts Network, a CD-publication of DIY music with cut-out figures of the featured artists.

Projects

Chusid is credited with the rediscovery and popularization of the "space age bachelor pad" music of Juan Garcia Esquivel, which helped spark the 1990s retro resurgence of exotica and lounge music. He compiled the first CD reissues of Esquivel and Raymond Scott, and manages the musical estates of both deceased composers/bandleaders. He has produced landmark CD reissues by The Shaggs, Wendy and Bonnie, Judson Fountain, and Lucia Pamela, while penning liner notes for dozens of releases on a multitude of labels.

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The Langley Schools Music Project CD

In 2000, Chusid discovered two LPs of privately-pressed western Canadian children's chorus recordings made in 1976-77 by music teacher Hans Fenger. After much legwork and ten label rejections, Chusid had them released in 2001 on Bar/None Records as The Langley Schools Music Project. Within one week of its release, it went to #1 on Amazon.com. The popularity of that CD led to a VH1 documentary in 2002, which sent the CD back to #2 on Amazon.com. In 2005, the story rights to the project were acquired by an undisclosed film director, who hopes to bring the story to the big screen.

Chusid chronicled the artistic creations of innovative LP album jacket illustrator Jim Flora (1914-1998) in his colorful 180-page trade paperback, The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora (Fantagraphics, 2004). A follow-up, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora, co-authored with his friend (and former KFAI radio host) Barbara Economon, is scheduled for publication in February 2007. The latter book unveils Flora's bizarre and rarely seen paintings, woodcuts, sketches, and early works.

Outsider Music

In a 1996 Pulse magazine article, Chusid coined the term "outsider music", which he defines as "crackpot and visionary music, where all trails lead essentially one place: over the edge." Chusid has drawn a distinction -- too often lost on deadline-beset journalists -- between the terms "incorrect music" and "outsider music," which he insists are not synonymous and overlap only slightly. Chusid has explained that Incorrect Music was a radio concept, which included all manner of musical "wrongness," often by people who should have known better, or whose sincerity was questionable. Outsider musicians, on the other hand, he defines as "artists who are often termed 'bad' or 'inept' by listeners who judge them by the standards of mainstream popular music. Yet despite dodgy rhythms and a lack of conventional tunefulness, these often self-taught artists radiate an abundance of earnestness and passion. Most importantly, they betray an absence of pretense. And they're worth listening to, often outmatching all contenders for inventiveness and originality."

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His book Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music (2000), published by A Cappella Books, covered more than a few musical curiosities and strange singers. Reviewing this testament to twisted tunesmiths, Publishers Weekly commented:

He profiles 20 darlings of dissonance. Several of them -- including Tiny Tim, Captain Beefheart and Pink Floyd's former acid troubadour Syd Barrett -- have made a few bangs, but the great majority have enjoyed mere whimpers of success. Take Eilert Pilarm, the Swedish Elvis; Joe Meek, who produced the 1962 instrumental hit 'Telstar' before committing suicide; and The Shaggs, three sheltered sisters from Fremont, N.H., who recorded the 'aboriginal rock' masterpiece 'Philosophy of the World'. Careful not to ridicule his more eccentrically volatile subjects (e.g., Wesley Willis and Daniel Johnston), Chusid narrates each musician's vital statistics and career with rhythm and respectful wit.

B.J. Snowden, Shooby Taylor ("The Human Horn"), Wesley Willis, and other musicians profiled in the book can be heard on two CDs produced and annotated by Chusid. Bill Meyer reviewed the first CD:

This collection is a companion to Irwin Chusid's book of the same name. It celebrates outsider music, music "so wrong it's right," and if you're drawn to sounds that make you wonder just what the musician was thinking, this collection is for you. The compilation is enthusiastically, if not always respectfully, annotated by Chusid. His selections range from the output of blissfully un-self-aware but basically functional individuals to the certifiably insane. Among the former are Lucia Pamela, an Ethel Merman sound-alike who contributes an infectiously enthusiastic celebration of "Walking on the Moon," and Congress-Woman Malinda Jackson Parker, a late Liberian lawmaker whose "Cousin Mosquito #1" cautioned against contracting insect-borne disease. The latter include Daniel Johnson, whose "Walking the Cow" weds a sublime melody to puzzling lyrics and a toy keyboard arrangement, and Wesley Willis, who pays tribute to Chicago's "Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's." Some of the artists are quite famous (Tiny Tim), some anonymous (the unknown writer and performers of song-poem "Virgin Child of the Universe")--they're united by their blithe certitude that the world needed to hear their unlikely but singular creations.

Listen to

• Irwin Chusid's Radio Archives

External links

• WFMU: Irwin Chusid
• RaymondScott.com content by Irwin Chusid and Jeff Winner
• Jim Flora Gallery
• Songs in the Key of Z outsider music project
• AIGA interview with Irwin Chusid about the Jim Flora Archives
• Chronicle about the Langley Schools Music Project recordings
• Irwin Chusid's Shooby Taylor Journal
• Interview with Irwin Chusid, "Psalms in the Key of Z," MungBeing.com
• Interview with Irwin Chusid, "The Outsiders," Baltimore City Paper, 2001