HE'S The Guardian's go-to guy when they need an obit for an obscure zither player, a linchpin of the Dave Clarke Five, a 1960s one-hit wonder, or the guy who leered "Get on up" on James Brown's Sex Machine.

Alan Clayson inhabits a unique space in rock and roll.

As frontman for glorious nut- rockers Clayson and the Argonauts, he performs in Breton stripes, cape and Christopher Lloyd hair with the conviction of a heart-sore torch singer.

And as a music scholar he has turned out tomes on Jacques Brel, Ringo Starr, Lennon and the Stones.

The kind of lyricist whose words might read like a John Keats poem or a Joe Orton script, he's like a breath of fresh laughing gas in an anodyne world. And he heads to Swansea's Milkwoodjam on November 1 with long-term friend-in- sound Terry Clarke.

He may be arty to the max, but underpinning his elaborate output is a deep-rooted love of great voices and of the life-changing discs of his youth.

Clayson's commitment to performance puts me in mind of PJ Proby, and Jet Powers was one of his touchstones, says Alan.

"While ol' PJ is more Falstaff than Flamineo these days, he's still the proverbial 'pop singer who can really sing'.

"If not a principal one, he was an influence as far as my attitude to performance is concerned.

"In a negative fashion, so was the general state of pop the early 1970s."

Alan took up with the flashy side of rock in response to the drippier singer-songwriters who dominated the scene.

"I found objectionable post- Woodstock audiences who accepted 'anti-image' by this precious singer-songwriter or that high-velocity pomp-rock instrumentalist."

So his first bands were formed as a panacea to James Taylor and Melanie.

He adds: "In parenthesis, the wildest act going during my first terms at college was Mike Cooper's Machine Gun Company — which contained Terry Clarke, a singer- songwriter with cheekbones to die for and restless eyes like James Dean."

Though he has carved a place for himself on the lunatic fringe, Alan's song are hewn from elaborate, elegant language that you don't often find in pop.

That began when he was a Dylan-obsessed student with a love of history.

"I started tinkering with impenetrable lyrical verse, having become aware that Bob Dylan was now employing rapid-fire stream-of- consciousness surreality, revealing more interesting possibilities beyond the boy-meets-girl and the old moon-June travesties I'd been trying to write.

"Who cared if it had no run-on effect or if it knocked the scansion out? What did substance matter either when even The Troggs would soon be singing about 'the bamboo butterflies of yer mind'?"

With John Wilkes, Anglo-Saxon- with-a-dash-of-Viking expressions and the Peasants' Revolt being acceptable pop-song material for Alan, he could have festered in the English folk revival — but he was saved by Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel.

As you might have guessed, you never know what you are going to get from a Clayson gig. Brelvis lives. But the Dave Clarke Five, who kicked things off for him, are never too far behind.

While he plugs away on the margins of rock, it's a generous margin, and Alan enjoys a rowdy cult following, but he is happily resigned to being a 'hidden gem'.

See Alan Clayson at Milkwood- jam, with Terry Clarke, on November 1.