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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Roddy Doyle–”Teaching” (New Yorker, April 2, 2007)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Music, Depression, Drinking, Dublin, Ireland, Haim, Humiliation, Irish Writer, Metz, New Yorker, Roddy Doyle, Set at School, Short Story on March 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

2007_04_02_p139SOUNDTRACK: METZ-“Wet Blanket” (Live at SXSW, March 20, 2013).

metzIt’s amazing how much different two bands can sound (comparing Haim from yesterday to Metz from today).  Obviously, they play very different styles of music, but Metz is just three guys and they are loud and bass heavy and raucous. Whereas Haim, with their four members, have practically no low end at all.  It’s an amazing look at how different bands can be while playing basically the same instruments.

Anyhow, Metz are a noise rock trio from Canada.  I’d never heard of them before this song.  There’s a lot of noise as the song opens, but once the groove starts, it’s fast and heavy with pounding drums and a persistent, fast bass.  The band, who are dressed nicely (the singer guitarist has a button down shirt open over his T-shirt), are really abrasive and punky.  And the singer/screamer is a wild man–climbing on the bass drum to wail his solo, feedbacking the guitar from the amps and not even playing the guitar as he screams into the microphone (but there is noise, so I wonder if he has an echo effect on).  At one point someone in the audience even holds the microphone closer to him while he screams as he seems to be having trouble with it.

It’s an intense set and I’d like to hear more from them.  Their debut came out last year (on Sub Pop).

You can watch this song here.

[READ: March 26, 2013] “Teaching”

Another story from Doyle, this one is a dark story about being an old and near-retirement teacher (Doyle was himself a teacher).

The story opens with a girl saying that he, the teacher, knew her mother.  This has been happening more and more now that the students he taught when he was young have had children who are now as old as they were.  The girl says her mom fancied him and he makes a poor joke wondering if the girl can believe it, but he’s just made uncomfortable by the exchange.

In fact, he mostly just seems to want to try to get through the day.  It’s only September and he has a whole school year ahead of him.  He never drinks at school, that is a rule he will always abide by, but that doesn’t mean he won’t drink after school.   Which he does.  Although to describe him as an alcoholic (which I guess he is) kind of takes something away from the thrust of the story.  The alcohol is a part of who he is but it doesn’t impact the story, exactly. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut & Lee Stringer–Like Shaking Hands with God (1999)

Posted in Alanis Morissette, All Songs Considered, Books about writers, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Haim, Heart, Kurt Vonnegut, Lee Stringer, Mark Twain, Short Books on March 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »

stringer SOUNDTRACK: HAIM-“Falling” (Live at SXSW, March 17, 2013).

haim

Haim are three sisters and a drummer.  The sisters play guitar and sing, play bass and percussion and play keyboards.  And yes, they look a lot alike (an a lot like Alanis Morrissette).  But they sound very classic rock–kind of like Heart, with a more modern, noisy twist.

I didn’t really care much for the sound of this song–it seems kind of anemic to me.  The sisters are all quite talented and when the lead singer/guitarist started wailing they were really good.  But the overall feel of the song seemed more high school than rock show–like they couldn’t get the mix right, like the keyboards (which were little bopping notes, rather than waves of music) were the main force behind the song–which I don’t think is true.

Maybe they’d sound better on record, or if they had a better mix on stage.

[READ: March 26, 2013] Like Shaking Hands with God

I had been reading a lot of Vonnegut, but I got a little burnt out by him.  However, when I was checking his bibliography all those months ago, I found that Princeton University had a book that I couldn’t find anywhere else.  Well, given my new employment situation, it was time to take advantage of that connection.  So I went to the Firestone library and grabbed this book (and a few others that I didn’t see elsewhere).

It’s a lot of fuss over an 80 page book, but I’m glad I read it and it did get me back in the mood to read more Vonnegut (I have five books of his left to read, although I believe more posthumous stuff seems to come out all the time).

This book is essentially a transcription of two conversations that Vonnegut had (one public and one private) with the author Lee Stringer and the moderator Ross Klavan.  The first conversation occurred on October 1, 1998 at a bookstore in Manhattan.  The second was a private affair in January 1999  (which was of course, recorded), in which they followed up on some of the same ideas.

Stringer had written one book (Grand Central Winter) when the first conversation took place (he has written two more since).  Stringer says he always admired Vonnegut and Vonnegut talks about how much he liked Grand Central Winter (which Vonnegut wrote a forward to).  GCW is nothing like Vonnegut’s books, it is a serious book about being homeless (Stringer himself was homeless for a long time) and it is real and gritty.  It sounds good, although maybe a little too gritty and real for me. (more…)

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Roddy Doyle–“Brilliant” (St. Patrick’s Festival Parade, 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Children's Books, Dublin, Ireland, Funny (ha ha), Gashcat, Grateful Dead, Irish Writer, Roddy Doyle, Short Story on March 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

unescoSOUNDTRACK: GASHCAT-“Morning Sun” (live at SXSW, March 28 2013).

gashcat

When I first heard that the Grateful Dead had two drummers, I thought, “Wow these guys must rock hard.”  Which is not true at all.  Gashcat have two drummers and while the band is not heavy, they rock hard.  “Morning Sun” is a non-stop frenetic blast of bouncy folk pop.

They lead singer/screamer uses an acoustic guitar, and there are two old- school keyboards (for both backing music and spacey effects).  They main drummer drums and the secondary percussionist pounds along with him, using a big drum and an occasional tambourine.

This is the first I’ve heard of them and while the song doesn’t make me want to run out and buy more, they’d be a great opening act to see live.  They remind me of the Waterboys on speed.

You can watch the video here.

[READ: March 25, 2013] “Brilliant”

When I started reading Roddy Doyle books again recently, I decided to see what else he had written.  And Wikipedia listed several “uncollected” stories (several of which have by now been collected).  The final story on the list was this one, “Brilliant” which was written for St. Patrick’s Festival Parade 2011 & Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.  I don’t know exactly what that means although I understand that the Cities of Literature “promote the social, economic and cultural development of cities in both the developed and the developing world.”  So clearly Doyle was writing on behalf of a cause.

It starts out very oddly:

Poor oul’ Dublin.
Dublin was a city on the west coast of –
East.
Dublin was a city on the east coast of Ireland.

That interrupting East is never explained, although it does go on through the story, correcting the narrator who can’t tell east from west.  The story proves to be more in the vein of Doyle’s children’s stories.  There’s no poo but there is a flying dog.  In this case the dog is “The Black Dog of Depression,” an expression of Winston Churchill’s that I was unfamiliar with, although I also just read it again in an issue of The Walrus (weird serendipity, that). (more…)

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Lydia Davis–“Not Interested” (Harper’s, April 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Boredom, Ducktails, Harper's, Lydia Davis, Real Estate, Short Story on March 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

HarpersaprilSOUNDTRACK: DUCKTAILS-“Letter of Intent” (SXSW, March 22, 2013).

ducktailsDucktails is a side project from the guy from the band Real Estate.  I liked some Real Estate songs, but this is the first I’ve heard of Ducktails.  The write up on NPR talks about them being an experimental  live band, so I was anticipating something wild.

But this proves to be a very sedate, kind of dull synth heavy track–the guitars are kind of tossed on there in a very 80s new wave fashion, and there’s very little beyond the washes of synths.  There’s really nothing here I’d want to hear again.

It’s available here.

[READ: March 19, 2013] “Not Interested”

I’m always mixed about Lydia Davis’ stuff.  She writes very very short pieces and most of them seem to be not so much stories as observations, ideas or even things that just seem to pass through her mind.  Some of them are amazing–insightful or funny–which convey a lot in a concise piece of writing.  And others seem just kind of flat.  This is one that I am utterly ambivalent about (which is maybe the point?).

It’s not often that you read something that starts, “I’m simply not interested in reading this book.” (more…)

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Karl Ove Knausgaard–“Limhansfältet” (Harper’s, April 2013)

Posted in Biography, Don Bartlett, Excerpt, Foreign Books, Harper's, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Karl Ove Knausgård, Soccer, The Afghan Whigs, Translation on March 21, 2013| 2 Comments »

HarpersaprilSOUNDTRACK: THE AFGHAN WHIGS-“I’m Her Slave” (Live at the Bowery Ballroom 2012).

whigs

 I really liked some of The Afghan Whigs’s songs back in the 90s.  There was other stuff I didn’t love by them–when they were on, they were amazing.  Of course, I feel like the Whigs were pretty much all the work of Greg Dulli–charismatic frontman with the intriguing voice.

When they disbanded or broke up or whatever, I didn’t mind so much.  But they have reunited recently and my friend Joe posted this video from last year’s tour.  I don’t really know this song that well (although I do have the Congregation album i was more of a Gentlemen fan), but it sounds great.  And apparently this is one of the songs they were trotting out (they played it on Fallon, but the video has been taken down).

Dulli’s voice still has that wonderful quality and the band sounds tight and loud here.  Seems like a good reunion.

[READ: March 19, 2013] “Limhansfältet”

This excerpt comes from Knausgaard’s (also spelled Knausgård’s) second volume of his six-volume autobiographical novel (wow!).  I have no idea who the guy is or why we’d want to read it.  Evidently Knausgård is quite famous in his native Norway.  Don Bartlett translated this from the Norwegian.

So this excerpt shows a very short time in the writer’s life (knowing it’ autobiographical makes it different somehow).  The writer is married, a father of four three (although evidently now, he is divorced and his first wife is mad to her portrayal in the books).  The first few paragraphs just kind of talk about what’s going on around him (but it is more compelling than that sounds somehow).  I liked the scene where he is sitting so still in the garden that a hedgehog crept past him (but then I like hedgehogs).  But the crux of the action occurs at Limhansfältet, a grassy area outside of town where men gather every Sunday to play football.  They have gathered since the 60s and the men range from 18 to 80.

On this one occasion his family came with him. They watched for a bit but then wandered off.  And they missed him get injured.  Injured so badly that he had to go to the hospital. (more…)

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Will Mackin–“Kattekoppen” (New Yorker, March 11, 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, John Le Carré, Kattekoppen, Military, New Yorker, Of Montreal, Short Story, Sinkane, The Afghan Whigs, Threats, Usher, Will Mackin, Yeasayer, Yuck! on March 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_03_11_13Blitt.indd

SOUNDTRACK: SINKANE-“Jeeper Creeper” (SXSW, March 21, 2013).

sinkaneI’ve never heard of Sinkane either (was there anyone at this SXSW that I knew?).  NPR is streaming on song from this band.  It’s about 7 minutes of low-key funk with reggae-like guitars, some great bass jams and simple lyrics.  I really like the vibe that the song gives off.  They would be a great band to see live.

Sinkane later played with Usher and The Afghan Whigs, which shows a very cool range.  And evidently Sinkane leader Ahmed Gallab has collaborated with the likes of Yeasayer and Of Montreal.

Watch it here.

[READ: March 19, 2013] “Kattekoppen”

I had just finished John LeCarré’s excerpt in Harper’s when I read this short story (or possibly excerpt—it ended rather oddly).  So here was another spying operation, although this one was American and military-based.  I know very little about military operations, so this was all new to me.  And there were some things I liked about this story quite a bit. The story is set in Afghanistan where the army has just brought in a new howitzer-liaison (good job title, that) named Levi.  Levi is Dutch and yet somehow still in the US Army–and he is a good soldier.   His wife lives in Texas and is about to have a baby.

Levi gets Dutch care packages a lot.  In addition to stroopawaffles (yum!) are Kattekoppen which are cat-shaped licorice-like objects.  Levi loved them as a kid bit now he puts them on the shelf of things that people don’t want (until they desperately want them).  Eventually the narrator tries one and immediately spits it out because it tastes like ammonia.  He’s not even able to get the taste out with snow… or dirt.  It’s that bad.  I found this part of the story quite interesting.

The rest of the story was more specific to military operations.  He talks about how Levi targeted the howitzer and how he made target rings which offered an area of projection for where the shell would strike.  And that he was very good at it.  The minor problem was that Levi wanted to be home for his son’s birth.  Not a big problem except that thy Generals wouldn’t give them a new howitzer liaison in the meantime. (more…)

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John Le Carré–“A Delicate Truth” (Harper’s, April 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Chvrches, Excerpt, Harper's, John Le Carré, Skyfall, Spies, Threats on March 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »

HarpersaprilSOUNDTRACK: CHVRCHES-“The Mother We Share” (SXSW, March 23, 2013).

chvrchesThis year NPR doesn’t seem to be offering many full shows from SXSW for download.  But they do have a number of streaming songs.  And since I have recently reduced the amount of time I can dedicate to posts, I’m going to talk about a few songs rather than albums for a bit.

I’ve never heard of Chvrches although NPR leads me to believe they have a buzz around them.  They’re from Glasgow (I like the Glasgow scene), but this song is really way too poppy for me.  At least in this live incarnation, it’s so spare and keyboardy.  The lead singer has a great voice but it is firmly placed in the pop realm (especially with the Oh Oh Ohs).

The band is good though, and I enjoyed the synth guy making most of the sounds of the song.    I’d be curious to hear more (especially t hat cover of “Purple Rain.”  Watch it here.

[READ: March 18, 2013] “A Delicate Truth”

I have never read John Le Carré before.  Indeed, I don’t typically read any kind of spy/thriller type books.  I realized recently that I like mysteries but I don’t have a lot of time for hard spy novels (if I may use the language of sci-fi to describe a spy novel–perhaps spy-fi?).

We recently watched some of Skyfall (the Redbox had to go back so we didn’t finish it–I think I’m not down with the Redbox, it’s just as inconvenient as a video store), so this British spy-fi story seemed nicely timed.

This was an excerpt from Le Carré’s forthcoming book.  And regardless of the story itself, I’m delighted that it was a self-contained excerpt.  It is a mission and the mission ends by the end of the chapter   Obviously there is a lot more to the book, but I was pleased that the excerpt didn’t having any kind of cliffhanger.  And now I don’t feel like I have to read anymore of the story.

So this is the story of Paul Anderson or, “Paul Anderson,” a “middle-ranking British civil servant  hauled from his desk in one of the more prosaic departments of Her Majesty’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office to be dispatched on a top-secret mission of acute sensitivity.”  That pretty much sums up the story and you can tell from that sentence whether or not you’ll like the book.  I have no idea if this sort of thing happens in real life at all.  And maybe that’s not the point.  In the Afterword, Le Carré talks about The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, his first novel, which everyone assumed was all true (he says you know it’s not true because they printed it).  And he;s always been annoyed that people think of his as a spy who started writing rather than an author who did some spy work.

So I guess that means he knows of what he speaks. (more…)

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Bob Mould with Michael Azerrad–See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody (2011)

Posted in Biography, Black Flag, Bob Mould, Bob Mould, Culture Shock, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Hüsker Dü, LGBTQ, Michael Azerrad, Minnesota, My Bloody Valentine, Nirvana, Punks, Religion, Sugar, Suicide, Travel, Wrestling on March 18, 2013| 1 Comment »

mouldbookSOUNDTRACK: BOB MOULD-Silver Age (2012).

silverage

I was a huge fan of everything Bob Mould put out.  And then he more or less gave up on music.  So I just enjoyed his past and ignored what else he did.  But then I heard great reviews of his new album Silver Age.  So great in fact, that I couldn’t help but listen to it.  And it is amazing.  It’s a major return to his punkier roots.  The guitars are loud and fast but the melodies are still present.  And what’s more important, his voice sounds great and the album is mixed really well–previous Mould records have suffered in production quality.  But this is a great great record.

“Star Machine” opens the disc with loud guitars, a simple melody and lots of attitude.  I love the repeated “Said It” that appears throughout the song.  “Silver Age” is something of a manifesto for Mould.  The guitars are harsh and jagged with lots of distortion and the lyrics tell you everything: “Never too old to contain my rage  This is how I’m gonna spend my days gonna fight gonna fuck gonna feed gonna walk away.”

“The Descent” is classic Mould–big guitars, great catchy vocals and really nice harmonies/backing vocals.  “Briefest Moment” starts with a thudding drum and a sparse fast guitar (which somehow reminds me of Cheap Trick).  The bass comes in with a galloping line rather than playing the same notes and it adds a lot of depth to the album.  “Steam of Hercules” slows things down a bit but “Fugue State” comes crashing back in with more fast thumping drums and sparse but effective guitars.

“Round the City Square” picks up the noise level and includes a wild guitar solo.  “Angels Rearrange” again sounds like classic Mould.  While “Keep Believing” has a great bridge that reminds me a lot of Hüsker Dü (yes I mentioned the band that should not be named).  “First Time Joy” ends the disc on a gentle note.  It’s a ballad (where you can really hear Mould’s voice and how clean and strong it sounds).  There’s keyboards on this song that add some nice dimension.  By the end the song gets bigger and more powerful, ending on a really strong chord.  It’s an awesome return to the rock fold for Mould and I look forward to more from him.

[READ: March 5, 2013] See a Little Light

After getting The Silver Age, I remembered that Mould had written an autobiography and that I’d heard it was quite good.  I don’t really read a lot of autobiographies, but my history with Mould is pretty deep and I was curious to see what had happened in his life to make him abandon his rock roots.  So I tracked it down.  And I really enjoyed it.

The fascinating thing is what a reasonable man Mould presents himself as.  I’m not disputing this–I don’t know really anything else about the guy–but every time someone dumps on him, he accepts partial responsibility for the problem and moves on.  If he’s really like that, that’s very cool.  But he almost seems too nice sometimes.

As I’ve said, I didn’t know much about Mould.  My friend Al got me into Hüsker Dü and I’ve been a fan ever since.  I’ve bought some of his solo records and all of his band records, but I kind of lost interest in him the last decade or so (during his experimental phase).  But I didn’t even really know why Hüsker Dü broke up.

Some interesting things about Bob: he was born numerically gifted–I really enjoyed the section about his childhood and the genius-y stuff he did.  Although he had a pretty rough childhood–his older brother died when Bob was young and so Bob was seen as a golden child (especially after something that happened to him which he didn’t learn about until much later).  And he started drinking at a very young age.

When he got to college he formed Hüsker Dü with Grant Hart (Greg Norton came a little later).  I enjoyed hearing about the early days of Hüsker Dü because I only learned of them much later.  And man were they productive!  They’d release an album and have new material ready to record before they even toured for the album that came out already.  It’s cool reading about the punk scene back in the days before the internet when bands had to rely on each other for support.  There’s also a lot of people who Bob name checks and it’s fun to hear all of the punk names again, especially the names of people who are still active.  (There’s also some bad vibes against SST, but since this is Mould, the bad vibes are pretty mild). (more…)

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Dav Pilkey–Captain Underpants and the Terrifying reTurn of Tippy Tinkletrousers (2012)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adventure, Boredom, Children's Books, Dav Pilkey, Dire Straits, Fine Young Cannibals, Funny (ha ha), Harry Chapin, Mad Scientists, NASA, R.E.M., The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Yuck! on March 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

tippy SOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-UHF Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1989).

UHFsingleHot on the success of Even Worse, Al was given the green light to make a movie.  It was called UHF and it tested very well with audiences.  But then it tanked at the box office (well, it made back the money but little more).  Although it has since gained a huge following as a cult movie.  It is very weird indeed (and Kramer is in it!) but it’s also very quotable and quite funny.  The soundtrack has a few songs and skits from the movie as well as a few extra songs that were not in the movie.  And, despite it’s rather middling status as a soundtrack, it features a couple of Al’s best songs.

“Beverly Hillbillies” is a surprisingly effective pastiche of Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” and the theme from the “Beverly Hillbillies.”  The fact that Al originally wanted to use a prince song (but was not given permission) shows just how creative he can be to twist it around in a totally different way.  Mark Knopfler plays guitar.  Another sci-fi original is “Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars.”  It kind of updates “Slime Creatures from Outer Space” which also wasn’t that good.  “Isle Thing” is a parody of Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing” which is about Gilligan’s Island, but from the POV of someone who hasn’t watched the show and whose girlfriend is hooked on it.  It’s surprisingly funny   It’s interesting that Tone Loc sampled Van Halen, but I believe Al’s band plays the whole thing.

The Medley returns on this album (sorely missed on Even Worse).  Strangely, “The Hot Rocks Polka” is a medley of Rolling Stones songs.  The theme song “UHF” is a good theme song.  It’s funny but more importantly it explains the movie nicely.

The disc also includes snippets from the movie Gandhi II promo.  “Let Me Be Your Hog” is a 17 second clip from a show in the movie.  There’s also the awesome commercial for Spatula City.  And “Fun Zone” is a 2 minute instrumental that is the theme to Stanley Spadowski’s Clubhouse.

“She Drives Like Crazy” is a parody of Fine Young Cannibals (the fact that Al can hit Roland Gift’s notes is quite impressive) although the song is merely okay.  “Generic Blues” is just that–an over the top version of any blues song you’ve heard.  Those few low points are more than made up for by these closing high points.  “Spam” is a great parody of R.E.M’s “Stand.”  It works as both parody and as its own lyrical theme.  “The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota” is the first of Al’s epic songs (this one clocks in at almost 7 minutes).  It’s a story song told in the spirit of Harry Chapin’s  30,000 Pounds of Bananas.”  It’s one of my favorite early Al songs.  It’s fun and silly but it never loses focus.  And the thought of the family loving the biggest ball of twine is just too funny.  And who knew there were so many things that rhymed with Minnesota?

But the tanking of UHF meant that Al had to regroup.  And as he waited for the next Michael Jackson song to parody, a little thing called grunge happened.

[READ: February 22, 2013] Captain Underpants and the Terrifying reTurn of Tippy Tinkletrousers

Pilkey had been away from writing for several years with family emergencies.  So it has been six years since the previous Captain Underpants book–that’s a long time for most readers who may now feel too old for the books, although no doubt many new readers to the series (like me!) have sprung up in the meantime.

So, what does Pilkey do for his return?  He produces a 300 page epic!  One that brings back a bad guys from past books (as was promised in the last book), one that features a lot of mind bending time travel and, ultimately, one which focuses mostly on George and Harold as kindergarteners (five years before the usual present in his books).  And it is an amazing book, one that really shows how creative the boys are and one which deals with bullying–a subject that has never really been present in these books (except from the teachers).  Pilkey really created a great book (the other books were great too, but they were more slight.  This one is packed with goodness).  And I have to assume he aimed the books for slightly older audiences.

The book opens with the usual history of Captain Underpants by George and Harold, although given the six year absence, this one recaps everything that has gone before.  It also explains how in the last book, George and Harold were getting in trouble because of their evil twins from another dimension when Professor Poopypants (now named Tippy Tinkletrousers) showed up in his mechanical pants shooting ice rays at everyone.

Then Pilkey breaks the story and the animation style to introduce the banana cream pie paradox (in a very formal computer generated style of picture which really sets it apart).  In a nutshell–a man makes a banana cream pie.  He goes back in time and the tree that he got the bananas from is killed–so how can he have made the pie?  (His version is much funnier).  But the point is, be really really REALLY careful when you time travel. (more…)

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Dav Pilkey–Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers: The Third Epic Novel By George Beard and Harold Hutchins (2002)

Posted in Babies, Beastie Boys, Children's Books, Dav Pilkey, Funny (ha ha), James Taylor, Michael Jackson, Oingo Boingo, Poo, Short Books, The Police, Yuck! on March 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

daiper2SOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-Even Worse (1988).

evenAfter the slump of Polka Party, Al took a little time off and then released Even Worse.  It features his second Michael Jackson parody and this one was destined to be huge!  The song and especially the video for “Fat” was amazing–a big budget extravaganza that really captured the original (amazingly).  The jokes are awful throughout the song (every fat cliche ever) but there’s something about singing them in a Michael Jackson style that is really funny).

“Stuck in a Closet with Vanna White” is an 80’s metal type song about nightmares   It’s pretty funny and it actually rocks pretty hard–and might fool those who don’t really listen to  the lyrics.  “This Song is Just Six Words Long” is a genius parody of the dreadful George Harrison song “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You” which really is just six words long.

“You Make Me” is a funny, weird song about the kinds of crazy things that being in love makes you do.  The song is frenetic with crazy sound effects.  Wikipedia says it is a style parody of Oingo Boingo which I never would have guessed, but I can certainly see it in retrospect.

“I Think I’m a Clone Now” is a pretty fun parody of that ubiquitous Tiffany song.  “Lasagna” is a parody of La Bamba and it starts with a very proper-sounding Italian accordion Italian solo.  The song turns into a preposterous over the top Eye-talian accented song about food.  “Melanie” is a song to a girl who won’t go out with him.  Perhaps because he is a stalker (and a weirdo!).  “Alimony” is a parody of “Mony Mony,” a song I particularly dislike, but I like Al’s parody which doesn’t exactly duplicate the sound of the original.

“Velvet Elvis” is in the style of The Police and you can certainly tell, but it doesn’t hit you over the head.  And yet when you hear all of the musical details, you realize just how genius the song is.  And I find that the more I listen to it the better it sounds. And the more you know The Police, the more you should be impressed by the musicianship of Al’s band.  “Twister” is a style parody of The Beastie Boys. It’s basically a commercial for the game and it works well in the style.  It wouldn’t work if it was longer than a minute, but for what it is, it works very well (and is funny to imagine the Beastie Boys doing it (especially circa 1987).  “Good Old Days” ends the disc as a sweet James Taylor-esque ballad about how things were so good way back when.  Of course it’s written from the point of view of a serial killer, so there is that.

This album showed Al really improving his musicianship and the quality of his parodies.  And more importantly, his originals (and the style parodies  were really taking off.  Al looked like he was on a major roll.  And then he made UHF.

[READ: March 13, 2013] Super Diaper Baby 2

As this sequel opens we see that professor Krupp was not amused by George and Harold’s first Super Diaper Baby comic book.  And he demands to know why all they can write about is poo.  Their answer, logically: what else is there?  But they take the Principal’s words to heart and decide to write about something else for the sequel.

And it has some surprisingly sensitive ideas in it.  As the proper story opens, we see Super Diaper Baby and Diaper Dog come to the rescue in a number of situations.  But they realize that Billy’s dad is feeling a little bummed because the people came to him for help first but the superheros took over.  It’s not easy being the father of  superhero.  They’re not sure what they can to help Billy’s dad.

Meanwhile, Dr Dilbert Dinkle, a mad scientist, has created the Liquidator 2000.  It will change anything into water.  And he demonstrates on the wall of a bank.  He explains the machine to his evil cat, Petey, who is bored by the doctor and does nothing but mock him.  (He is quiet evil).  Petey says it’s boring being the lookout for him.  But Dr Dinkle replies that that’s a Y.P. not an M.P (your problem not my problem).  Petey is not amused by this and continues to mock the Doctor’s breath.  Then he accidentally leans on the lever and turns the doctor into a puddle of water. (more…)

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