'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Power Salad
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater podcasts
Read the review, hear the music! New Shockwave Radio Theater interview with Power Salad
An Introduction
I have the great Luke Ski to thank for bringing Power Salad to Marscon and therefore giving me the chance to see Chris Mezzolesta on stage. I'd heard a few of his songs scattered amid various compilation CDs.
Last year, I saw him in concert at Marscon and picked up a CD. This year I completed my collection, or at least picked up all the CDs he had at the con. His new CDs include a Marscon 2007 live album, which uses some of my pictures!
Since Marscon, I've listened to them all and done a phone interview and made a Shockwave Radio podcast of our talk plus some Power Salad music. Here they are, all at once.
Force Doesn't Work On A Crustacean
Force Doesn't Work On A Crustacean, from 1999, is a very strong album. A decade is a long time in the comedy music biz, and several songs have stood the test of time. Roric LaLeech (Craig Marks) writes many of the songs and provides the divine spark of madness for the group. Chris Mezzolesta plays all the instruments and does all the voices (with a few exceptions noted in the credits). Performing live, Chris bounces around like a maniac, mugging to a taped music track, bopping into and out of the audience or playing one of the more portable instruments.
Power Salad songs are funny in a devilish way. Deceptively simple, engaging, and adult without being dirty. Co-dependency is tuneful ditty about enabling, and being enabled. Chris thinks back to when he was young, and remembers his soft pet: "I'd rather have the flu, but I've got you, You're A Kinkajou". Hard to get out of your head.
Power Salad's sense of history and fun leads to an old-timer's first person recounting of his reaction to Orson Welles' 1938 broadcast of "War of the Worlds" in Panic Broadcast done to a post-techno alarm. Many of us remember the commercial that Katie's Dream is based on. Even if you weren't around for the inspiration, the song is weird and haunting, and has become a favorite at live shows.
Playing weddings and bar mitzvahs provided fodder for the infectious klezmer of a woman's descent into insanity, With Sparklers All Around Her. (We discuss this in the podcast.) And to show he has the chops, Chris adds a surf instrumental, Theme From Ralph-Man, which is not particularly funny but is quite danceable, especially if you're on the beach.
You get points from Chris if you know where the phrase Force Doesn't Work On A Crustacean comes from. I had to look it up, and I won't give it away here. Suffice it to say that the album is highly recommended. The music is terrific, the arrangements strong, the lyrics tell wonderful stories and Chris Mezzolesta is an inspired performer. This is not "filk" in the sense of parodies and humor directed at science fiction fans, but we fen appreciate oddity well done, and so will you.
The White-Out Album
The White-Out Album starts off with a dead-on parody of Randy Newman songs for Disney. (Newman was nominated for fifteen Academy Awards before he won for If I Didn't Have You from Monster's Inc.) Disney perfectly captures Newman's style and skewers the industry at the same time. Having mugged Disney, he turns his attention to Time-Warner with a parody (actual filk?). Primus' My Name is Mud, becomes, with proper voice and with perfect beat, My Name Is Fudd. He does a faithful update of the Ogden Edsl Dementia classic, Dead Puppies.
Power Salad's musical range is demonstrated over several songs. Hot Dogs In The Sink is a strange Hip-Hop about a messy apartment. Ville de Veal is sort of techno doo-wop about a restaurant where "people change but never will; never seen a Happy Meal". If you've ever thought your girlfriend was rather loose, Laurie Laurie is a 50s rocker for you. On the other end of the dating spectrum, Grunge Rock uses cartoon sound effects to help a geek explain why he is Just Lucky I Guess. Still, you need disco to tell your girlfriend to "Say No More, you annoy the hell out of me".
The White-Out Album is another great comedy album, accessible to a wide audience due to the covers and parodies while keeping the weirdness and original composition. Highly recommended.
Power Salad 3: Sweat Equity
Power Salad 3: Sweat Equity is another musically strong, lyrically delicious CD. My Cat Is Afraid Of The Vacuum Cleaner breaks all the rules of songwriting. What is the cat thinking about when attacked by the vacuum cleaner? Structurally, as Chris Mezzolesta puts it, the song is "A". It has become the iconic Power Salad song, reaching #3 on the Dr. Demento Show Funny 25 for 2006 and used on several compilation CDs.
When Power Salad does a parody, they not only riff off the music and make puns on the lyrics, they update the subject matter of the song. Little Hybrid has much of the Beach Boy's Little Deuce Coupe (among other influences), and brings sporty cars into the 21st Century. They don't delve into the political arena very much, but one of the most astute observations on political discourse today is the techno radio call in A Question And An Observation.
Some laid-back jazz forms the bed for the yuppie in the rat race who is surprised I Saw The Coelacanths. Fans of Barnes and Barnes or Renaldo and the Loaf will recognize the style while being sick from eating Cookies. Pomegranate Blues is a fine lick. Sport Coat University's Fight Song has rousing clothes puns.
Power Salad 3: Sweat Equity demonstrates range and maturity without losing the childlike innocence or eclectic weirdness of previous albums. Again, highly recommended.
There's More!
Next Week: The rest of the Power Salad CDs. Great stuff all around.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
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Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Gore Vidal: Gore Vidal Speaks Seriously Ill of the Dead
I can recall that day in the 1930s when a "news" (sic) magazine appeared in Washington, D.C.; it was called Newsweek: meant to be a counterbalance to Time Magazine's uncontrollable malice. In due course the two became sadly alike as Vincent Astor morphed into Henry Luce: Was it something in the water?
Froma Harrop: The Hooker Next Door (creators.com)
The tale of the 22-year-old prostitute frequented by former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer dredges up an awkward memory. I once shared an apartment - it now amazes me to say - with a call girl who brought her johns home. Let me explain.
Suasan Estrich: TMI (creators.com)
TMI stands for Too Much Information. That's how I feel about David Patterson and his sex life. I know more than I want to know, or need to know, about whom he's slept with and why, and when, and about whom his wife slept with, and who was getting even with whom, and when it stopped.
Froma Harrop: Divides Obama Doesn't Bridge (creators.com)
In distancing himself from the heated remarks of his pastor, Barack Obama did as well as anyone could do in his position. The problem is his position, which is having sat in the reverend's pews for 20 years without thinking to pick up and leave.
Richard Roeper: How did this mom ever get charged? (suntimes.com)
There's leaving your kid in the car, and there's LEAVING YOUR KID IN THE FRIGGIN' CAR.
Poor Elijah (Peter Berger): Educator's Digest: Volume 23 (irascibleprofessor.com)
Spring is still several ice storms away here in Vermont, so it's a perfect time to curl up by a warm fire and catch up on your education reading. Here's a quick survey of some winter headline news
Jim Hightower: A LIBRARY FOR BUSH GROUPIES (jimhightower.com)
"Think tank" is not a concept you would associate with George W - and sure enough, there won't be much thinking done in the Bush library and think tank to be built at Southern Methodist University.
Jim Hightower: FEMA STILL AT IT (jimhightower.com)
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." George W cluelessly said to the head of FEMA in 2005 when that agency was in the midst of its disastrous performance after Hurricane Katrina.
Tom Danehy: The high-definition DVD war is unfairly and prematurely over (tucsonweekly.com)
I'm not going to buy a Blu-Ray player, because I don't like being cheated. You might have missed it amid all the news of the glorious Bush economy crashing down around us, but for the past couple of years, a high-definition format war has been brewing, one that would determine the industry standard and make the backers of the winning format a whole lot of money. Well, Blu-Ray "won" out over HD DVD, but its maker, Sony, didn't do so by having the better product or the better price or even the better promotional campaign.
Peter Bradshaw: Anthony Minghella: 1954-2008 (blogs.guardian.co.uk)
With the director's passing, cultural life in this country has descended one or two IQ points.
Andy Klein: Zak Penn's Poker Jokers (lacitybeat.com)
Much like his previous outing as a director -- the hilarious 2004 Incident at Loch Ness -- Penn's new film, The Grand, is an improv mockumentary in the Christopher Guest mold.
Scott Foundas: Olivier Assayas on Getting Carried Away (laweekly.com)
For Boarding Gate, Assayas chose Hong Kong as Sandra's final destination, as a way of shooting in -- and paying homage to -- the city that has influenced his own filmmaking.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
W War is $well
W thinks war is so romantic - and profitable?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and more than warm enough to melt a chocolate bunny.
Raising Funds
Cox & Arquette
Courteney Cox and David Arquette have a challenge for their famous friends: help raise $1 million in two weeks for Epidermolysis Bullosa, a rare skin condition that primarily affects children.
Joining Cox and Arquette in the awareness- and money-raising effort are Jennifer Aniston, Orlando Bloom, Kate Beckinsale, Rashida Jones, James Marsden and Eva Longoria Parker. All will lend their famous faces and financial support to the Epidermolysis Bullosa Medical Research Foundation, where Cox, Arquette and Aniston serve on the honorary advisory board. (Brad Pitt, Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale are also members.)
Epidermolysis Bullosa is a debilitating genetic disorder that causes the skin to blister and break at the slightest touch. Victims are often covered in burn-like sores that never heal and most don't live beyond age 30.
Cox & Arquette
Releases Album On Own Label
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton knows a good investment when she sees one, and these days she sees one in the mirror.
Parton, whose business portfolio includes a theme park and an entertainment production company, says she's spending a lot of her own money trying to get back on country radio with her new CD, "Backwoods Barbie."
She has self-released the disc on her own label, Dolly Records, and hired a seven-member promotions team.
The album reached No. 2 on Billboard in its second week, her best showing in 17 years.
Dolly Parton
Buys Club In Miss. Hometown
B.B. King
B.B. King is the new owner of a juke joint in his Mississippi Delta hometown. Mary Shepard has owned Club Ebony in Indianola for the past three decades. King and other artists have played there throughout the years.
A Mississippi Delta Blues Trail Marker outside Club Ebony says Count Basie, Ray Charles, James Brown, Ike Turner are among the musicians who have played there since 1945.
Shepard says she sold the club to the bluesman because she wants to relax and spend time with her family.
B.B. King
Long-Stolen Mustang Returned
Eugene Brakke
A Los Angeles man is getting his stolen Mustang back - 38 years after it was stolen. The vehicle has an extra 300,000 miles and a different paint job, but Eugene Brakke's 1965 Mustang is evidently running just fine.
Brakke reported the car stolen to Burbank police in May 1970.
One month later, a Long Beach teenager named Judy Smongesky received the car as a high school graduation gift from her father, who had bought it at a Bellflower used car dealer.
Smongesky, who now lives in San Diego, said Thursday she had been driving and maintaining the car for nearly four decades, and only learned that it had been stolen when she recently prepared to sell it. San Diego police verified the car was hot.
Eugene Brakke
Tougher Limits On Filming
Downtown LA
Ginny-Marie Case can't forget the night she was jarred from her sleep by massive explosions set off by crews filming last summer's blockbuster movie "Transformers."
It was the latest cinematic nightmare that led Case and other residents streaming downtown as part of a population boom to push for tougher limits on filming in the nation's most popular location for movies, TV shows and car commercials.
"It was the loudest explosion I ever heard," Case said. "We had no clue: Was this part of filming? Was this some terrorist thing?"
For decades, filmmakers have depended on downtown's rail yards, brownstones and beaux arts facades to depict urban anywhere. In the process, they have grown used to operating with few restrictions in the long-neglected urban core.
Downtown LA
Mother Fights Army
Joan McDonald
Joan McDonald believes her son was a casualty of the war in Iraq, but the Army says that while he did suffer a severe head wound in a bomb blast, the cause of his death is undetermined, keeping him off the casualty list.
She and her family are demanding more answers in the death of Sgt. James W. McDonald.
McDonald, 26, was injured in a roadside bomb blast in Iraq last May. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment based at Fort Hood, Texas. After treatment in Germany, McDonald returned to Fort Hood and underwent extensive facial surgery in August.
His body was found in his barracks apartment Nov. 12, a Monday. He was last seen alive the previous Friday.
Joan McDonald
Thousands Rally
Okinawa
Thousands of Okinawans rallied on Sunday to protest crimes by U.S. troops and demand a smaller U.S. military presence on the southern Japanese island after last month's arrest of a Marine on suspicion of raping a schoolgirl.
"Crimes and accidents due to the bases have happened over and over and Okinawa has protested with intense anger to both the U.S. and Japanese governments," Kyodo quoted Okinawa City Mayor Mitsuko Tomon as telling a crowd gathered in heavy rain in the town of Chatan, where the February incident occurred.
"But each time, our voices have been trampled and there has been no end to the heinous crimes," the mayor added.
Participants in Sunday's rally adopted a resolution demanding consolidation of the U.S. bases and revisions to a pact governing the status of U.S. military personnel in Japan to give Japanese authorities greater legal jurisdiction.
Okinawa
Drifts 1,735 Miles
Message In A Bottle
Merle Brandell and his black lab Slapsey were beachcombing along the Bering Sea when he spied a plastic bottle among the Japanese glass floats he often finds along the shore of his tiny Alaskan fishing village.
He walked over and saw an envelope tucked inside. After slicing the bottle open, Brandell found a message from an elementary school student in a suburb of Seattle. The fact that the letter traveled 1,735 miles without any help from the U.S. postal service is unusual, but that's only the beginning of the mystery.
About 21 years passed between the time Emily Hwaung put the message in a soda bottle and Merle Brandell picked it up on the beach.
"This letter is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands," she wrote. "Please send the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung."
Message In A Bottle
Weekend Box Office
'Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who'
Audiences are still listening to Horton and his Who pals. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," 20th Century Fox's animated adaptation of the beloved children's book, remained the top movie for a second straight weekend with $25.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Lionsgate's "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns," about a single mom who connects with previously unknown kin at her late father's funeral, opened in second place with $20 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who," $25.1 million.
2. "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns," $20 million.
3. "Shutter," $10.7 million.
4. "Drillbit Taylor," $10.2 million.
5. "10,000 B.C.," $8.7 million.
6. "Never Back Down," $4.9 million.
7. "College Road Trip," $4.6 million.
8. "The Bank Job," $4.1 million.
9. "Vantage Point," $3.8 million.
10. "Under the Same Moon," $2.6 million.
'Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who'
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