ALBUMS: Firesign Theater: ‘Don’t Crush that Dwarf, Hand me the Pliers” (1970); Eat Or Be Eaten (1985); and, The First Family Vaughn Meader. (1962)
This is comedy which is hard to keep fresh once infused in beloved vinyl.
Firesign Theatre was a brilliant comedy troupe from another time. America’s Monty Python, sort of.
They did live shows, radio and lots of records.
The two FT albums I have are considered among their best, ‘Dwarf’ is often cited as groundbreaking in 1970 when it came out. In 2005, Dwarf was added to the National Recording Registry, a list of sound recordings that “are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the U.S.’ Dwarf was also called by Rolling Stone Record guide as the best comedy album of all time.
I’m throwing in a non-Firesign record, Vaughn Meader’s First Family, a successful parody of the JFK White House. It is definitely dated coming from 1962. But you wouldn’t believe how popular this was at one time.
Dwarf and Eaten use similar techniques even though 15 years separates them. Firesign use what I’ll call the ‘drop-in’ method of listener interaction. The listener is dropped in to the middle of something, anything,. It could be a fake advertisement, or the middle of a dialogue between friends.
But while it sounds random, there’s a narrative thread running through, at least In Dwarf. It’s a story about George Tirebiter, a former child actor who lays around and watches late night TV. The narrative frequently is interrupted when Tirebiter changes channels.
Lots of a great work on the recording using voices on radios, TV, or telephones, ambient sounds galore and that effect where it sounds like someone is in another room. And walks by in stereo.
WIth Firesign, the aural presentation is an art; the records demand audience attention to stay on their toes as funny bits just parachute in without warning.
As I said earlier, humor on vinyl is a difficult medium to stand the test of time. I’m guessing there’s not a lot of market out there for old comedy albums, unless deemed a classic.
But in some way I guess you could say that about music. There are timeless songs but there are also a lot of songs that don’t date well: I don’t think we’ll have to wait until 2525 to see if Zager & Evans had a point. And that was their best song!
One piece on the’ Eat or be Eaten’ album is an advertisement to see Bob Dylan live at the Met where he’ll be singing opera in Bavarian and German languages.
“It’s just like the 60s,’ the advertisement spokesman says. “No one can understand a word he’s saying. And that’s when Dylan’s at his best.”
Vaughn Meader’s White House with JFK was apparently all the rage back in the early 1960s. It’s amusing in spots such as when all the world leaders gather together and give their sandwich orders.
But there’s a lot of jokes and laughing about stuff that in 2018 sounds sounds like an inside joke.
According to the Wikipedia page, the album, issued by Cadence was honored as “the largest and fast selling record in the history of the record industry’ selling at more than a million copies per week for the first six weeks.
Can that be true?