I don't know much about Wild Man Fischer, but on a quick listen, I find that I enjoy the sheer primitivism of his music. But, according to Wikipedia his life has not been without its troubles. I wouldn't be surprised to know that he's been potentially exploited by those who knew him. Not everybody, though. And it is also possible that his 'craziness' and his detachment from the normal conventions of polite society was interpreted, in the freewheeling late 1960s in L.A., as something heroic. Again, since i don't know very much, I am intrigued to try to find out more.
Fischer was institutionalized at age 16 for attacking his mother with a knife[citation needed]. He was later diagnosed with two mental disorders: severe paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (manic depression). Following his release, Fischer wandered L.A. singing his unique brand of songs for 10¢ to passers-by. Discovered by Frank Zappa, with whom he recorded his first album, Fischer became an underground concert favorite, earning him the title "godfather of outsider music." Zappa was responsible for Fischer's initial foray into the business of music, an album called An Evening with Wild Man Fischer, contains 36 tracks of "something not exactly musical." Frank and the Wild Man remained close--until Fischer threw a jar at Moon Unit Zappa, barely missing.
Frank Zappa's interest - given his championing of other outsider artists such as the Shaggs and Captain Beefheart - in this was undoubtedly genuine, however. But, I've seen other clips of Wild Man Fischer on late night TV, and he is basically rendered a sideshow clown, there to amuse the supposedly "normals" in the audience.
He's also been the subject of a documentary film. I plan to watch, when I can.
Interestingly, the Youtube page for Larry Fischer also links, not surprisingly, to the equally eccentric and very delightful and funny Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, a band described by Trouser Press in the following way.
Absurdity is, admittedly, not for everybody. It takes a certain sort of mental ticklishness to recognize the artistic merit in a urinal or the wit in a painting of a pipe over the phrase "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." Linear thinkers could easily consider the Ministry of Silly Walks just plain silly — which, of course, it was, but crossed with a wildly inventive rejection of the obvious and soused to the gills with irony. Absurd is never irrational. A clown with a water-spouting flower might have been clever once upon a time, but absurdity dies on repetition, which is why Gallagher is stupid and Steve Martin can be very funny. Translated into any medium, the institutionalization of absurdity as the art movement dubbed dada is not simply random-play nonsense, it's highly-informed and thoroughly considered random-play nonsense. There is, indeed, good dada and bad dada, although good luck finding two people with such similar sensibilities as to agree on which might be which.
That human impossibility is one of the reasons why the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, which had as many as nine instrumental absurdists in its lineup, remains so clearly outstanding in its field — and so impossible to categorize. Lowbrows who consider the British group a novelty act are simply failing to grasp the worthiness of humor, as if making people smile somehow negates the difficulty of creating great art. And the Bonzos' records are great art, a cornucopia of musical styles from the first half of the 20th century blendered into the freewheeling thrall of the psychedelic '60s.
Led by daft renaissance man Vivian Stanshall (who died in a 1995 fire), a genius of enormous creative imagination and skill, the Bonzos played a crucial role in the development of British humor (by providing a direct connection between music and comedy, they connected the Goon Show and Temperance Seven to the Pythons, especially in their filmmaking endeavors, for which Bonzo Neil Innes provided much of the music). They also hung out with the Beatles (appearing in Magical Mystery Tour), shared stages with Led Zeppelin, inadvertently provided the name for this journalistic endeavor and introduced dada to rock a good ten years before new wave's cynical wiseacres came along to need it. How did they do it?
When my wife and I first got together, she gave me a Bonzo Dog boxed set as a gift; is it any wonder that I love her madly :-)
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