ShockHound

By C J Davies

The word “geek” brings many images to mind. World Of Warcraft players huddled in darkened bedrooms? Check. Zit-faced kids trying to avoid the school bullies by spending lunchtime in Chess Club? Check. That one dude who played Carlton in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and probably weeps into his Cheerios every morning about being forever typecast? Check.
     What it doesn’t immediately bring to mind, however, is the flat-out excitement and excess of rock and roll. Fifty thousand people don’t want to put their hands in the air to a math lecture, after all — they want to clap along to someone cool.
     Every rule has got to have its exceptions, however, and that’s why we’ve decided to sift through the annals of musical history, past and present, in order to shine a light on the geekiest acts of all time. They’re the lucky ones who have traversed the rocky road from dweeb to demigod, while actually producing a few cracking tunes along the way. Something tells us it’s been a while since any of them were on the receiving end of a wedgie, too …

BUDDY HOLLY

The original geek-chic proponent, Charles Hardin Holley’s jittery bespectacled holler didn’t just spearhead a “nerdy” aesthetic in rock music — it essentially spearheaded rock music itself. Holly looked like he’d just stepped out of a Lord Of The Rings convention, yet sang for the soul of every American teenager, strumming along to hiccupy lyrics like an ADD Elvis. The line, “You’re gonna give all your love to me” from “Not Fade Away” would have sounded swaggering and arrogant coming from anyone else. Holly uttered it as though he was a nervous farm boy on a first date.

DEVO

Best known for their 1980 crossover hit “Whip It” — whose video may still be the most art-studenty thing ever to hit MTV — Devo looked like a bunch of accountants on a “wacky” fancy-dress stag weekend, and took their name from a biological theory about advanced species regressing to a more primitive form. Not exactly Motley Crüe, then, as anyone who has marvelled to the timelessly discordant new-wave pop of 1978’s Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! will attest. 

THE SMITHS



Was there ever a geekier frontman than Stephen Patrick Morrissey? Coming straight outta Manchester in the early ‘80s, Mozza and guitar wunderkind Johnny Marr forged what seemed like an entire alternative universe of sexual inadequacy, isolation and gallows humour set to jangly, catchy-as-headlice indie melodies. Wearing their outsider status proudly on their daffodils, the world of the Smiths provided a perfect haven for their legions of fans — all of whom preferred discussing Oscar Wilde quotations to primping their hair with the Duran Duran brigade.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE



A bang-up-to-date yet equally important addition to our list, the AC (as absolutely no-one calls them) are an unmistakable bunch of Baltimore basket-cases who have been churning out psychedelic-tinged madness since their formation in 2000. Founding member ‘Geologist’ — who wears a caving headlamp onstage in order to navigate his reams of electronic equipment — has led the band through a remarkable eight albums over the course of their relatively short time together. Their latest effort, Merriweather Post Pavillion, may yet see them break their college radio shackles.

MC LARS

When you’re dealing with a genre called Nerdcore, it’s pretty obvious that the cards have been laid squarely on the table. One of the pioneers of this burgeoning genre — which essentially takes the subject matter of a Dungeons And Dragons messageboard and lays it over the top of some hip-hop beats — is MC Lars, whose freestyled ditties include such geek-friendly titles as “Original Digital Gangsters” and “MC Lars's Facebook Friend Count > Your Facebook Friend Count.” Oh — and he prefers that you’d label his stuff “Post-Punk Laptop Rap,” if it’s all the same to you.

TALKING HEADS



Amidst the hairspray pop promos of the 1980s, David Byrne was doing things a little differently. In the Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime” video, the besuited, bespectacled and bug-eyed Byrne flailed along to a funky peon to lost opportunity and creeping disappointment, seizing hold of nerdy millennial angst a whole nineteen years before Fight Club gave it a go. “This ain’t no party,” the Heads assured us on “Life During Wartime,” “This ain’t no disco.” Of course not — that’d be where the normal people go to dance.

BARENAKED LADIES

Perhaps best known for their 1998 hit “One Week” — which in the space of two-and-a-half minutes crams in references to Aquaman, Sailor Moon and The X-Files, thereby making it perhaps the most geek-friendly track ever recorded — the Barenaked Ladies never fail to incorporate comedic elements into their live shows, perhaps aware that five guys who look like an office-based sitcom IT Department aren’t going to be taken too seriously in the “rockin’ out” sweepstakes. Bonus geek cred: They’re one of the few bands in history to have released an album on the USB Flash Drive format.

PULP

If you had to pinpoint a time at which a band led by Jarvis Cocker  — a beanpole outcast primarily known for cycling round Sheffield wearing charity shop clothes  — would hit the big time, chances are you wouldn’t suggest the Britpop era. Yet while Oasis were busy ‘paying homage’ to the Beatles and Blur were pretending to be Dickensian chimney sweeps, Pulp came along and gave a whole new (pasty) face to Cool Britannia. Different Class opener “Mis-shapes” may still be unrivalled as the greatest geek uprising call-to-arms ever.

BEN FOLDS

While the Ben Folds Five may have won the hearts of many a geek with their self-described “punk rock for sissies” aesthetic, it is their frontman who has truly embraced the realm of nerdishness — styling himself as the visual definition of the word “preppy,” and looking as though he may well prefer pencil cases to guitar ones. Even nerdier, however, is his continued work with Star Trek icon William Shatner; Folds has collaborated frequently with Captain Kirk, and appears in the upcoming Gonzo Ballet, a documentary look at the making of a stage show set to Shatner’s “music.”

WEEZER

With a track record that includes abandoned plans for a space-themed rock opera, the Weezer saga has been an unconventional one, to say the least. While 2001’s Green Album may have unwittingly hauled in a jock audience — “Dude, they sing about Hash Pipes, can you believe that?” — this LA quartet has always stayed true to their geeky roots. Not only does frontman Rivers Cuomo regularly converse with fans online, but their promo vid for “Buddy Holly” was bundled in with every copy of Windows 95. Now those are Computer Club credentials.

ELVIS COSTELLO



“Geeky” isn’t the first term that springs to mind when looking at the modern-day Elvis Costello — undoubtedly the poster boy for growing old with style and verve — but a quick glance at the iconic cover shot for 1978’s This Year’s Model tells a different story. Young Elvis appeared (and sounded) like a post-punk librarian, a nervy outsider who couldn’t quite believe he was a rock star and no longer a computer operator at Midland Bank.

JONATHAN RICHMAN

Arguably the most unfairly-overlooked figure on our list, cult hero Richman has the tried-and-tested “ahead of his time” geek formula down pat, meaning that he’s perfect fodder for one-upmanship chatter with muso buddies. After fronting the proto-punk Modern Lovers (whose classic “Roadrunner” was recently sampled by the ubiquitous M.I.A.), Richman embarked on a prolific solo career, and was carving out a niche for himself as a wide-eyed childlike kook while Björk was still wearing Icelandic diapers.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS

The very fact that they recorded “Particle Man” — a ditty about abstract superhero battles that featured in the cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures and also partly served as inspiration for the videogame Spore — would be enough to include the Brooklyn-based TMBG in this list. Want more? How about their selection of “edutainment” albums centred around numeracy and literacy, or the fact that they started podcasting while most of us were still fiddling with our Walkmans? TMBG would not only be able to build a “Birdhouse In Your Soul,” but install a functioning Macbook setup in there too.

OK-GO

Their founding members met over a game of ping-pong. Their promo vid for “Here It Goes Again” was a YouTube sensation, inspiring countless teenage nerds to try out their own re-enactment at the annual school talent show. They deck themselves out in waistcoat and sweater-vest combos that would make a Young Republican shudder. They are OK-Go, and their paisley-tinged geek-rock shoots off the end of the scale marked “unhip” like a science lab bottle rocket. Not that we’d have them any other way.

WEIRD AL YANKOVIC

The shimmering figurehead of all things dweeby, Weird Al takes every nerdy archetype in the book and snowballs them into one manic pop culture bundle. Funny, affable and far more intelligent than he’s often given credit for, Yankovic simultaneously celebrates the nerd and pinpricks the ego of the self-appointed “cool” with his musical parodies. If there was a Final Boss to this game we call geekdom, it would surely bear the grinning features and mile-a-minute mindset of Weird Al.

Related Artists Buddy Holly Animal Collective Barenaked Ladies Ben Folds Devo Elvis Costello Jonathan Richman MC Lars OK Go Pulp Talking Heads The Smiths They Might Be Giants Weezer Weird Al Yankovic