Charles Douglas: Not Your Kind of Music – The Basement Tapes 1995-1999 – review

Seattle-born oddball Charles Douglas took what was, in hindsight, a ludicrously hopeful/deluded lunge at rock stardom in the mid-1990s, bashing out reams of pie-eyed eight-track pop in his parents' Pennsylvania basement in the firm belief he was the new Prince, Jagger or Dylan. He wasn't – but he was on to something, in a silly, super-catchy , pothead-pop kind of way. Somehow he landed a big record deal, and some seriously famous fans – David Bowie, Moe Tucker, Joey Santiago – but proper success eluded him, and drugs and depression laid him low. After a reissue of his one official release in 2010, there now arrives this whopping 67-track collection of unheard songs. Comparisons to Daniel Johnston and Jonathan Richman are apt, but there are some very of-their-time echoes too (shades of Beck and Yo La Tengo; crudely amorous ditties about Winona Ryder and Drew Barrymore), and in the sleevenotes, Douglas – now a successful novelist – seems less the troubled outsider than the older and (somewhat) wiser thirtysomething musing over his youthful vigours and vexations. His musical voice is not unique, but his way with a hook – and a cocked snook – is terrific, and for such an exhaustive set, the "too much of a good thing" effect takes a remarkably long while to kick in.