Interstellar Discussion, Part One

I Went Outside

The subject of fan communities has, to date, been largely ignored in the social sciences. While scholars in recent decades have closely examined the relationship between the audience and the media (Kellner 1995; De Zengotita 2002; Postman 1981), fans have often been described as deviant, obsessive, and in some cases psychotic. Two recent works by Daniel Cavicchi and Matt Hills (Tramps Like Us, 1998; Fan Cultures, 2001), however, have argued that fans are often very rational and articulate people who happen to have an intense investment in a particular aspect of popular culture. With now legions of websites, message boards, mailing lists, blogs and file-sharing sites dedicated to musicians, television shows and celebrity, fans have more opportunities than ever before to share with each other and present themselves to the world as articulate, reasonable people who happen to be fanatics.

Though anthropologists are starting to examine the communities that have been formed by popular music fans, the world of outsider music* still remains unstudied in academia. Outsider music, sometimes considered more novelty than art, is generally defined as ‘weird,’ for lack of a better word. The artists who fall into this genre tend to be rather prolific, enigmatic and, not least of all, eccentric. Quite literally, outsider music is separated from the production paradigm of popular music; outsider music is usually produced through small-scale home recording, and is almost never issued through a distributor. If popular music fans spend hours waiting in line for concert tickets, pouring over magazine articles and music videos, own band t-shirts, and try to get their autographs after the show, what can we make of the fans of an artist who plays no concerts, has no t-shirts, and grants no interviews?

In late 2005 I was first exposed to the music of a reclusive Texas musician known as Jandek. Though he has now released over 50 albums and DVDs since 1978, he did not first appear in public until 2004. However, when I came across a website and mailing list devoted to his work, I was not surprised to find an active discourse about the man and his motivations. His low public profile, large body of albums, and several cryptic interactions with the media have led the story of Jandek to grow into a myth that fans endlessly sustain, debate, and investigate. As I learned more about Jandek and his fans, I began to wonder how fans of outsider musicians might differ from fans of popular music.

* for those of you new to the genre, please visit Aquarius Records or Forced Exposure for catalogs and soundclips. Seriously, it's a trip.