Freak Scene - Music and Culture

Music and Culture

Freak scene music was an eclectic mixture based around progressive rock and experimentalism. There were crossover bands bridging rock and jazz, rock and folk, rock and sci-fi (space rock). BBC radio presenter John Peel, presented a nightly show that featured music that freaks were mainly interested in. Love's 1967 album Forever Changes is a notable example of freak scene music.

The term freak appeared throughout the liner notes of the 1966 Mothers of Invention album, Freak Out!. In 1967, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's album parodied the expression in the sleeve notes for the song "Cool Britannia", which said "Someone letta Freak-Out? What do you think Reader?" Another musical reference is in Joni Mitchell's 1971 song Carey: "A round for these freaks and these soldiers / A round for these friends of mine..." Ian Gillan of Deep Purple often referred to himself as a freak, such as in the song "Space Truckin'" (with the lyric "The Freaks said 'Man those cats could really swing'") and the song "No No No" (with the line "Looking at them all it feels good to be a freak"). Following the success of the 1978 smash hit "Le Freak" by Chic, the term enjoyed somewhat of a resurgence on the funk scene by the early 1980s, thanks to artists like Rick James, Whodini and Midnight Star. In 1981, Was (Not Was) released "Out Come the Freaks". The 1988 album Bug by Dinosaur Jr includes the song "Freak Scene".

The freak scene made inroads into the underground comix movement in the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers by Gilbert Shelton in 1968.