Paintings, Fannies and the art of pop

Teenage Fan Club and artist Jad Fair are beautiful together, finds Eddi Fiegel

Andy Warhol has a lot to answer for, particularly in the murky but sometimes fertile crossover area between rock and art. "The Pop (art) idea," said Warhol, "was that anybody could do anything, so naturally we were all trying to do it all. That's why when we met the Velvet Underground, we were all for getting into the music scene too."

With his New York Factory, Warhol was the godfather of the rock and roll circus where art met music and film, and where America met Europe. But the seeds of these connections were already being sown in Britain in the early Sixties when art schools started churning out a stream of future musicians which included John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Bryan Ferry and Adam Ant. At the same time, the roll call of musicians who went on to paint as a sideline, without any formal training (not to mention varying degrees of success) is equally extensive and takes in David Bowie, Ron Wood, Paul McCartney and The Clash's Paul Simonon.

Occasionally traffic down this well-trodden art-and-music path has also gone the other way and professional fine artists have become involved in music. But history suggests that this works best when the artist's input is not musical (consider Warhol and the Velvet Underground at one end of the artistic success spectrum and Damien Hirst's and Alex James' "Vindaloo" at the other). But Warhol also of course created the iconic "banana" sleeve for the Velvet Underground and Nico album and art has historically inspired some of rock's most well-known sleevework, from Peter Blake's cover for The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper to Jamie Reid's Situationist-influenced work for the Sex Pistols and Peter Saville's Bauhaus-inspired designs for Joy Division and New Order.

This tradition has continued and Glasgow's guitar pop maestros Teenage Fanclub first worked with American "outsider" artist and musician Jad Fair when he created sleevework for them. The friendship that developed as a result has now produced the new album Words of Wisdom and Hope with lead vocals and lyrics by Fair and music by the band.

While becoming increasingly known for his art, Fair has in fact been recording made-in-the-bedroom style, whimsically eccentric, minimalist pop albums as Half-Japanese for some 20 years during which time his monotone delivery and wryly humorous lyrics – think Lou Reed on Prozac – has developed a cult following which includes REM, Sonic Youth, Blur's Graham Coxon and, before his death, Kurt Cobain. "I like to listen to Jad Fair and Half-Japanese in shopping malls, in the heart of American culture," said Cobain. "I just think that if people could hear this music right now they'd melt. They wouldn't know what to do."

Teenage Fanclub were also long-standing fans and the making of the album proved a stimulating experience for both the group and Fair. While the band's more pop-orientated melodies offered Fair a different dynamic to his lyrics, Fair's budget requirements dictated a necessarily short recording time – three days for the entire album, and this proved a revelation for the Fanclub, being used to more lengthy schedules.

"The whole album was really something we did on a whim," says Fanclub mainman Norman Blake. "It was more like documenting us being in the studio with Jad than making an album."

Blake also saw a direct connection between mediums for Fair. "I think Jad's art and his music are one and the same thing. In fact very often when he's got an exhibition he'll do a music set as well."

David Bowie meanwhile has also found ideas from his art transferring to his tunes. "Painting has always been a parallel for me," he says. "If ever I've been stumped in the recording studio, I've often turned to painting." Echoing Warhol's thoughts, he adds: "I think all the arts are very easy to integrate – I know they're supposed to stay very much apart, but I don't actually think that's the case."

Easy as the arts may be to integrate, collaborations generally work best when they arise spontaneously and a genuine connection is forged. Words of Wisdom and Hope falls into this category and with Fair's Reed-esque vocals and Teenage Fanclub's melodic jangle, the album bears more than a passing resemblance to the Velvet Underground at their gentlest. In these whimsical love songs where America meets Scotland and music meets art, both collaborators also sound brighter and fresher than either have for some time.

Teenage Fanclub and Jad Fair, Barbican, London EC2 (020 7638 8891) 22 April