What makes a pop musician a maverick? Clothes? Haircut? An unusual perceptiveness in venues? A mute refusal to quit? Or even their music? It's a question raised by Pop Mavericks, a new season at London's Barbican cinema. Included are recent documentaries on Dean Reed, a Californian singer world Health Organization defected to East Germany to become the 'Red Elvis'; UK indie trailblazers the Dolly Mixtures and Felt; and Sweden's Namelosers and Gonks, whose claim to fame is that they supported the Stones on their 1965 inflict to Malmo.
Assembled by cinephile Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne, the movies are a reminder that pop is a instinctive home for eccentrics, misfits and out-and-out weirdos, not to mention artists touched by whiz who are unlikely to make a buck anywhere else.
Gary McFarland arguably falls into the last-place category. A half-forgotten Sixties jazzer, McFarland wrote both pop jazz (including wordless vocals on Soft Samba) and epical orchestral pieces before his mysterious 1971 death.
For oddball status, though, he doesn't compare with Sun Ra, world Health Organization claimed to come from Saturn and dressed like a pharaoh.
The age of corporate pop has made such nonconformists an progressively endangered species. Where hits were once made by visionary producers such as Phil Spector, Joe Meek or Martin Hamnett, instantly we have Simon Cowell and Pop Idol bland-out. The singular Amy Winehouse is, let's not forget, a product of Fame school, just like Adele. Even the million-selling behemoths of grim bloke-rock have become less imaginative - it's tough to insure Coldplay or Radiohead advent up with a frivolity like Pink Floyd's fast-flying pig. In this climate, it's set aside that a group vocation themselves the Mavericks play toothless, middle of the road state.
What first Baron Marks of Broughton out the true pop maverick? Visual originality helps. It's easy to overtop just how weird a teenage Elvis Presley must have been to sing R&B and dress like a Beale Street panderer in the segregated South of the 1950s. The King's latterday capes and codpieces were pretty bizarre too. Furthermore, Elvis chose his possess clothes; PJ Harvey in a pinko catsuit might look unfounded, but she's probably undermentioned her stylists's advice. Let's hope Jarvis Cocker, champ of eccentric person chic through his wilderness years, has resisted the temptation to hire a personal shopper now he's a national institution.
The intuitive impact of Ian Dury in razorblade earring and frock pelage, Patti Smith in male drag or Bj�rk in candy floss skirt, tribal headdress or swan curry was jubilantly matched by their lyrical and musical originality. Lee Perry and Captain Beefheart are others whose surrealist streak - think 'Cow Thief Skank', 'Bat Chain Puller' and 'Big Eyed Beans From Venus' - finds an echo in modern mavericks like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. Banhart's electric gypsy looks and psych folk and Newsom's rubicund harp, atomic number 2 vocals and faux-naif poetry tick all the boxes of the naturally perverse.
The most important thing, however, is to do your thing regardless of fashion. Moody crooner Scott Walker, northern sourpuss Mark E Smith and even evergreen older buzzard Neil Young have never get commerce or what's in vogue influence their output. Real mavericks just keep on keeping on.
� Pop Mavericks runs at the Barbican, London EC2, 2 Sept-2 Dec
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