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(I Don’t Feel A Thing, 2002)On previous Neil Hamburger records, the joke has typically been the FAILURE or the PERVERSION of the joke itself. But on this commemorative single (sold in patriotic red, white, and blue vinyl editions at the Phoenix Greyhound Park on July 4, 2002), the joke is the utter LACK of any joke, as Hamburger gives a straight reading of excerpts from four famous Richard Nixon speeches over solemn background music. Even long-term fans who wink and giggle smugly at the comedian’s pathetic, sad-sack crowd-baiting / crowd-screwing will likely find themselves annoyed and confused by this one, and for that reason it is perhaps the ULTIMATE Neil Hamburger record. If a guy can make you shell out for – and LAUGH with – multiple intentionally lousy albums and singles, and he can then take it to the next level by pissing YOU off… well, that’s what you grudgingly gotta call true sand and true genius, friends.And wait! What if you recognize all of this and STILL enjoy the record, enjoy getting spit on, like I apparently do…? Dunno. But that’s some real mess.
(Planet Pimp, 1997)Rough day for ME. I was traveling out of Boston on one of those cheap Chinese buses late last night, and it broke down – possibly burning – in the eternal hell-state that is Connecticut. A replacement bus arrived several hours later, and I reached New York well after 5:00am, which pretty much made Monday a wash, as I spent most of it in bed. Still, I reckon that shitride was a whole lot better than the ride Princess Diana took on August 31, 1997, because at least I didn’t get ENDED on those dark ’n’ speedy roads. But if I had, would Neil Hamburger pay tribute to me, as he did to Di on this moving 7”? Maybe! After all, I do own one of the greatest collectibles of all time: a Frank Sinatra Trilogy LP signed by Neil himself… and if THAT doesn’t launch me into the commemorative-single star-o-sphere , I dunno WHAT does.
But enough about me. FOR NOW.
This one starts off with some mock-respectful Diana-centric jokes (“Did you hear the one about the paparazzi with a heart of gold? Yeah, he stole it from Princess Diana as she lay dying.”) that become less and less directly relevant as the set proceeds, finally degenerating into a tasteless reprise of the “Zipper Lips” routine. The whole thing’s a batch of solid and clever setup/punchline jokes that strikes a successfully awkward balance between natural-feeling and Hamburger-style shoehorning in order to hew to the overall theme. The “solemn” B-side – which, according to the sleeve, should be played “at least once a day” — is an extended “moment of silence” that doubles as a tribute to Sonny Bono when played at 78RPM. Feel free to use the enclosed tissue when listening to this side; there will be no other way to stop them dead-celeb-inspired tears from fallin’.
(Drag City, 1996)I’ve collected a few of these “open-ended interviews” through the years – offhand, I know that I own such recordings by luminaries ranging from the Beatles to Burt Reynolds – and I’ve always wondered how pathetic and ridiculous a DJ needs to be in order to actually conduct one of these phony conversations. Seems like real rock-bottom absurdity. Is there ANY way to maintain your pride after going on the air, reading from a label-provided script, and then pretending to react to pre-recorded answers? Sad and bizarre. So I guess that makes this vinyl micro-genre a natural fit for Neil Hamburger, who sent out promo copies of this 7”-plus-script package to radio stations in support of his America’s Funnyman album. There are a few witty responses/jokes from Neil, but most of the laughs exist in his tweaking of the format, as the record’s dead air bears little relation to the length of time you, the DJ, actually need in order to read the provided questions; as Neil gives insanely vague responses that make the interview semi-applicable to every possible city; and, best of all, as his spoken bits offer dirty anatomical innuendo when heard minus the script. Overall, a worthwhile obscurity that fits snugly into the larger Hamburger/Amarillo trash-mythos.
(Planet Pimp, 1995)Comedian Neil Hamburger hits his stride on this one, locking into the bumbling, idiot-wiseguy mode of the classic America’s Funnyman album, his tortured punchlines happily tending toward the topical as he discusses race, Rush Limbaugh, and the O.J. Simpson trial in front of a hostile Modesto crowd. Further linking this recording to that LP, there’s even an extended, visual-gag cigarette joke that makes absolutely no sense on disk (and of course generates considerable canned laughter), which serves as a fine warm-up for the famed and equally nonsensical “X-Rated Hot Dog Vendor” bit soon to come. Technical malfunctions add to the yuks, with the final joke ending in over a minute of painfully shrill microphone feedback. One of his best records, and a perfect stylistic companion to the Funnyman alb – DEMAND a reissue today!
(Amarillo, 1994)As it turns out, I am alive. Took a week off from reviews in order to “PARTY MY ASS OFF,” but now that April Fool’s Week is over, I’m buckling down again and focusing on these 7”s of mine. And what better way to follow up a week of hilarity than with a humorous laffdisc filled with LOL-style ha-ha? So: funnyman NEIL HAMBURGER!!Present-day fans might be surprised by the tenor of this rare debut single, as early Hamburger records were more about showcasing an earnest, unfunny hack-comedian than the pathetic, beaten-down loser of recent years. Awful puns, inappropriate AIDS jokes, and lame observational humor, all delivered with idiotic chipperness, provide the bulk of the humor, rather than today’s familiar gruff anger, heavy sighs, and hoarse “fuck you”s. The B-side of “Looking for Laughs” is a softball celeb interview with the Golding Institute’s Ryan Kerr, discussing the making of, uh, “Looking for Laughs.” What makes this one a winner – and I apologize for ruining the joke – is that we find out at the very end that the track is simply a paid audio infomercial for the Iowa Council for the Prevention of Incontinence. Nicely done. Refreshingly lousy and lighthearted, it’s the non-musical version (and equal) of the Zip Code Rapists’ intentional swan dive into total failure.
(Planet Pimp, 1998)
A warm March Saturday is a day to make it CLEAN. CLEAN of tooth (minty), CLEAN of hair (luscious locks currently drying), CLEAN of threads (just back from laundromat), CLEAN of mind (Bible), CLEAN of dwelling (broom, etc.). So it’s fitting that this Golding Institute record comes with a free sanitary toilet-seat cover – CLEAN of cheek. Ryan Kerr and his team – a female and a slow-witted male co-host – are back to explore further exotic locales through field recordings, and this time it’s “The Sounds of the International Airport Restrooms,” with visits to the potties of Hawaii, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Los Angeles, New Zealand, and Australia. Hilariously earnest narrations that casually mix touristy local color with unpleasant topics (venereal disease, human rights abuses) introduce the Institute’s ludicrous real-world tapes. We hear urine splashing, feces plopping, toilets flushing, throats clearing, and horrible bursts of tape distortion. The formula is similar to earlier Golding releases, but this one is funnier, more disturbing, and better executed than the two that precede it. It would also be the last Golding Institute record until 2006, when the ASTOUNDING Final Relaxation came out on Ipecac and promptly blew the rest of the catalog right outta the water. Billed as “your ticket to death through hypnotic suggestion” and “the most unusual album ever sold,” Final Relaxation is a lead pipe to the kneecaps of your comedy-expectations, and MUST BE BOUGHT NOW.
NOW!
Or: NOW!
Asshole slowguy: THEN!
(Planet Pimp, 1997)
With the Golding Institute series, Gregg Turkington gets to indulge his trash-record fetish with parodies of the bizarre spoken-word albums that clog America’s dustiest thrift store bins. “Sounds of the San Francisco Adult Bookstores,” like its two companion 7”s, takes on the world of documentary recordings in the painfully awkward – and funny! – fashion of most of Turkington’s work, with poor sound quality, strange pacing, and a straight-faced adherence to the conventions of the genre that’s strong enough to avoid betraying any overt wink to an unsuspecting listener. Boring tapes ostensibly recorded within adult bookstores – unidentifiable bumps and rustlings, a clerk making an inane phone call, nails being hammered, muffled conversation – are presented as titillating aural glimpses into the world of pornography by narrator “Ryan Kerr” (who also appears on the first Neil Hamburger single). The chasm between the naughtiness of the subject material and the mundanity of the actual field recordings makes for a disc cram-jammed with depressing absurdity. Sample narration: “What’s that vacuum cleaner doing? Wouldn’t you like to know, you dirty-minded bird.” It doesn’t get much more obscure than this in the Turkington discography, true, but laff-pals of conceptually solid Hamburger records like America’s Funnyman and Great Moments at Di Presa’s Pizza House oughta get a kick or two out of the Golding releases, all of which are truly proud achievements in the annals of dollar-bin fandom.
(Japan Overseas, 1996)Shucks, one more Faxed Head 7” to review, and this one’s a knee-slapper, hoo boy! The A side is a tribute of sorts to the Four Freshmen, a drug-addled love letter to the famed vocal group that drops samples of horn-kissed harmony goodness from that band into Faxed Head’s comically sludgy grind. The sense of loss and disappointment is palpable as the vocalist notes that, when he attended the group’s Reno concert in the early ’90s, there was “only one Freshman left / The others had quit and died” – who sez goof-metal can’t be moving? On the other side, “Heavy Metal Cookie Cutter” is the standard metal-plus-electronics schtick, but it has tuff-guy-in-the-kitchen lyrics that stand proud next to anything else the band – or even Zip Code Rapists – released. Overall, this is one of the better Faxed Head records, and, as an Asian import, a swell reminder of their head-scratchin’ popularity in Japan. (Speaking of which, that new “live in Osaka” DVD, which also features coveted footage of rival act The Bon Larvis Band, currently tops my Christmas list.)
(Amarillo, 1993)It’s a more musically “together” Faxed Head this time around, with mucho-macho metal vocals and prominent electronic scree that occasionally sounds like it might be a ghastly approximation of a bagpipe. The lyrics remain right-on in their violent stoopidity (“Pantera takes the stage / The girls, the coke, the rage / I’m shifting my weight around / I have 20 pounds of shit stored up / But these people and I are one / Rockin’ together / I’m uncomfortable but free!”), but the relatively tighter playing sacrifices some of the yuks, and the total package just isn’t as conceptually delightful as the “Coalinga” single. The turntable-less curious can investigate both records – plus more more more! – on the Uncomfortable But Free compilation, at which point they’ll admit that I’m right on all counts.
(Coalinga, 1993)Amarillo Records’ contribution to (and send-up of) the world of death metal, Faxed Head is a costume band with one of the best backstories in town: A group of depressed teens is left mentally and physically ruined after a botched shotgun-suicide pact, and while rehabilitating they form a band as a therapeutic/inspirational exercise. Decked out in masks to cover their disfigured faces, they play fast, ugly metal and growl about civic pride, drug abuse, and Al Gore. This single, a tribute to the group’s hometown, comes packaged with a hilarious letter from the mayor and a sticker outlining the city’s history – which also announces that the record is brought to you courtesy of the Coalinga Area Chamber of Commerce and Taco Bell, Burger King, BP Service Station, Chevron Food Mart, Coalinga Sporting Goods, Texaco Service Station, Motel 6 of Coalinga, and the Coalinga Inn. “Show Pride in Coalinga” rather innovatively mixes a pep-squad cheer with ridiculous shit-thrash, while the semi-competent, speedy “The Colors of Coalinga” is overlaid with random explosions of brutal electronic noise. The choked, guttural vocals are tough to make out, but there are some lyrical doozies here: “In spring, at Burger King / They put up orange banners / In December they put up red / In their parking lot I shot myself / As I bled into my can of glue / I felt a communion with my hometown.” As with many of the projects coming out of the larger Amarillo camp, Trey Spruance, Brandan Kearney, and Gregg Turkington are all involved.
(Nuf Sed, 1992)The Easy Goings are back for their second and last single, and they’re feelin’ especially cover-y this time around, bringing their beautiful magic to songs by the Beach Boys, Springsteen, and Black Flag. Much more in line with the obnoxious EZ-listening terror of the breakaway Zip Code Rapists than the comparatively tame first single, this record offers fans a smooth torch-passing to that group and its vicious dismantling of “hits” both real and alternate-universe. The demented cheerfulness of musical pep-talk “Life is For the Living” (“Don’t sit around on your ass / Smokin’ grass”) actually keeps quite close to Brian Wilson’s unreleased version, though the addition of John Singer’s noise-guitar and Turkington’s phlegmy bark puncture the unsettling bubble-world naivete of Wilson’s original with their self-consciousness. Still, it’s a typically inspired choice for a cover, and the band even went to the trouble of putting together a video to help this keyboardcheez-driven song on its way to the top of the charts; sure nuff, pairing the music with forehead LP-smashing and glass-cleaner consumption earns the vid the gold medal for Ultimate Easy Goings Thingy. And itself NO SLOUCH is “Born in the USA” (split over both sides of the single), here retaining its signature keyboard line while being otherwise destroyed by Turkington’s increasingly choked gargle/scream, which eventually degenerates into a subhuman bleating of “BORN!” “BORN!” “BORN!” over and over; a nearly perfect cover. Rollins gets it worst, though, as a pressed-at-the-wrong-speed “Scream” turns him into the bawling, pre-adolescent whiner you mighta suspected he was all along. “Boo-hoo” cries the band as the song fades, and “boo-hoo” cries the listener as the record ends. Even more than the previous Easy Goings disc, it’s a hop-to-it gotta-get.
(Bee-Fast, 1989)Released by the Breakfast Without Meat folks, and performed by Gregg Turkington and John Singer of the Zip Code Rapists accompanied by Gary Strasburg and Stephen Hanson, the first Easy Goings single is a natural musical outgrowth of that magazine and its various obsessions: two bizarre/obscure genre-tribute cover songs, artwork that nods to cigarette ads and Solo plastic-cup queen Dora Hall, and a general air of mind-bending in-jokiness that hangs around the sonic weirdness. Much more “musical” than the work of ZCR, the band delivers its lewd charms via a half-hokey, half-creepy sound best heard on “Most of All There’s You,” with its wheezing carnival keyboard and Turkington’s insect-like croon. It’s sentimental sap done in a nightmarishly psychedelic fashion, but still catchy as all heck – a repulsive triumph. “The Straight Life” and “Hoboes Need Lovin’” (an original) take a rootsier, more stripped-down approach, the latter being the disc’s closest stab at an outright joke; it even features a Neil Hamburger-esque apology for poor sound quality at its end. This single is a tough one to find, but it’s a pretty vital precursor/companion to the Amarillo catalog that makes for some fun listenin’.Historical notes for the nerdy: According to an ad in Breakfast Without Meat issue 14, this was a record the band was “trying to sell in order to raise enough money to build a 40 feet high, 20 tons of steel monument to the human thumb.” Or howzabout this description, from an ad in issue 13? “Wildness at its way-out-est, to the pitch of furious frenzy – the height, apex, acme, epitome – the living END!!! That is The Easy Goings. Singing and playing the young sounds of today. Wind up the Gramaphone, turn the horn towards the action and let’s dance, let’s listen…it’s the sound you asked for! This rocking group, with all its many knobs, buttons, and doo-dads, looks and sounds like it might launch a rocket. The sounds of ‘freakout’ heard on this record are sure to please the most discerning palate.” Sounds about right.
(I Don’t Feel A Thing, 2002)
