Freaks Out!

Weirdos, Misfits and Deviants – The Rise and Fall of Righteous Rock 'n' Roll

Luke Haines

• Publisher: Nine Eight Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781788709330
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

'Dividing pop sheep from out-there GOATS with spite and guile, it's part SCUM manifesto, part insane hot or not list.' SUNDAY TIMES The followers - this book is not for you.
The salt of the earth - this book is not for you.
The worthy - this book is not for you.
The ideologists - this book is not for you.
Hedonists and bohemians - this book is not for you.
The middlebrow - this book is not for you.
The highbrow - this book is not for you.
Dilettantes - this book is not for you.
1970s middle school RE teachers - this book is not for you.
The England football team (women's and men's) - this book is not for you.
The litanists - this book is not for you.
Gatekeepers - this book is not for you.
Gamekeepers - this book is not for you. (Not even for the poachers...)
The curators - this book is not for you.
The left, the right - this book is not for you.
The list-makers - lists are for shoppers not rockers, and this book is not for you. This is not a list - this is a manifesto, and this book is for... the Freaks. Musician and author Luke Haines embarks on an odyssey through the ages, exploring how the 'freaks' infiltrated modern culture - and almost won the rock 'n' roll wars - only to lose to the rise of Cool Britannia and TV 'talent' shows that turned the strange and the outsiders into fodder for laughter.In this ultimate celebration of freakdom, Haines tells the story of pivotal freaks - including Johnnie Ray, Gene Vincent, Hank Marvin, Syd Barrett, the Incredible String Band and Big Youth - through the prism of rock 'n' roll and explains how freaks infiltrated wider culture through history in the form of the Cathars, the Ranters, Hells Angels and the Yippies.Part memoir, part manifesto, Freaks Out! is a righteous alternate history of rock 'n' roll.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Brief glossary
• Foreword. Do not proceed until you have read this
• CHAPTER 1. We are ‘A Puppet’s Facade’. You are not (Eight reasons to love the Doors)
• CHAPTER 2. ‘Limp, you bugger, limp’
• CHAPTER 3. Crowded trousers
• CHAPTER 4. How Elvis’s quiff knocked out Johnnie Ray
• CHAPTER 5. The psychedelic dawn of Hank B. Marvin and the Shadows
• CHAPTER 6. How the Beatles ruined everything for everyone ever
• CHAPTER 7. Weasel-faced dunces – how I might have killed Steve Peregrin Took (We have to talk about Steve, Part One)
• CHAPTER 8. Mick Farren ruined my marriage
• CHAPTER 9. Mad Bob from Margate
• CHAPTER 10. Psychedelic Morris Men
• CHAPTER 11. Something entirely fucked up
• CHAPTER 12. Male Genius Myth Buster – (Thomas Chatterton teenage rampage)
• CHAPTER 13. The Fall can no longer be Freaks
• CHAPTER 14. Australians in Europe
• CHAPTER 15. Never work
• CHAPTER 16. The children with Xs carved into their heads
• CHAPTER 17. Gary Glitter was my Big Bang
• CHAPTER 18. Freaks don’t wear shorts, they wear leotards
• CHAPTER 19. Dismantled teenage rock ’n’ roll Pope
• CHAPTER 20. The Greatest Photograph of the Twentieth Century
• CHAPTER 21. Lou, John, Sterl, Mo Tucker and me
• CHAPTER 22. The three Fs
• CHAPTER 23. We have to talk about Steve, Part Two
• CHAPTER 24. Weasels (slight return)
• CHAPTER 25. In the future nobody will be famous for fifteen minutes
• CHAPTER 26. The empty seat on the bus
• CHAPTER 27. Fifty dead Taylor Swifts
• CHAPTER 28. Billie Eilish is alive and kicking – and she’s gonna make us all freaks, baby
• Epilogue
• Discography, bibliography, miscellany
• About the author