New blog-friend (and fellow Buckeye) Brian Parker hits us tonight with a unique guest posting, some
of the greatest comedy albums of all time, THIS, guys, is the stuff that makes me light up with joy that SOMEONE else understands exactly what I'm trying to do here, share ANYTHING of interest, NOT JUST MUSIC.....it'll always be loosely structured around musisc, but stuff like this, and the Margaret Atwood novels a while back, well, this is simply fucking wonderful.
OK, as a general rule, I am NOT a huge fan of comedy albums......most of them DO NOT hold up well to repeated listenings, which is the main problem. When I was a child I used to laugh myself silly over, say George Carlin's "Class Clown" Lp or a Cheech and Chong LP or something, you couldn't pay me to listen to it today......but as I said this is a VERY general rule, and the stuff that Brian sends is worth it's weight in gold, especially if you do treasure old, worn down vinyl rips of these (I am thinking especially of the Firesign Theater albums, but more on that later.
OK, first (they will be presented in the order which he submitted them to me.....they are two early 1970's efforts by Albert Brooks, "1973's "Comedy Minus One" and 1975's "A Star Is Bought").....I can barely remember anything about him, skuze me whilst I check Wikipedia......ok...on the standup circuit for a while, released these two well-recieved albums ("Star" was Grammy nominated)....he did some work on the early Saturday Night Live (1975-77 was the ONLY time that show was even remotely funny, not open to debate from here)....since I am fairly unfamilar with him, I'm going to let the Wikipedia article summarize him, I think this sounds like a fairly apt description:
"His onstage persona, that of an egotistical, narcissistic, nervous comic, an ironic showbiz insider who punctured himself before an audience by disassembling his mastery of comedic stagecraft, influenced other '70s post-modern comedians, including Steve Martin, Martin Mull and Andy Kaufman"
.......well, I consider Andy Kaufman to be on some other level than EVERYONE as a TOTAL genius,
thet others were maybe semi-genius, and that is pretty good, right? Dug up a track list for the vinyl version anyway....COMEDY MINUS ONE-01 Introduction/02 memoirs of an Opening Act/03 What Do You THink of the Record/04 Memoirs of an Opening Act Part 2/05 Another Kooky Krazy Kall/06 Another Introduction and a Stereo Demonstration/07 Rewriting the national Anthem/08 Another Kooky Krazy Kall/09 Comedy Minus One
COMEDY MINUS ONE-http://www62.zippyshare.com/v/97130538/file.html
And for "A Star is Bought"-01 In the Beginning/02 Phone Call To AMericans/03 Near the Beginning/04 Party From Outer Space/05 In the Middle/06 Phone Calls From Americans/07 An End In Sight/08 Love Song/09 The End of the First beginning/10 A New Beginning/11 Promotional Gimmick/12 Call this Cut Three, Side Two/13 The Englishman-German-Jew Blues/14 The Beginning of the End/15 The Albert Brooks Show #112 (August 4 1943)/16 The End
Interesting that some of the guest stars who appear here: Alice Cooper, David Geffen, Emmylou Harris, harry nilsson, Linda Rondstadt, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork, Rob Reiner, Harry Shearer.......I really do think I will check this one out tomorrow, sounds interesting and HAS TO BE deliciously dated.
A STAR IS BOUGHT http://www62.zippyshare.com/v/94750992/file.html
Next up we have the remasters of the first three (CLASSIC) Firsign Theater albums....two are in one file, the other is in a single file.....Firesign Theater were genuinely HILARIOUS, due, I think, to the fact that the LP record was the only medium in which they produced, the productions are wonderful, multi-layered, multi-textured, you WILL hear something new each time you listen. To my limited knowledge of the subject, these are the three greatest comedy albums ever released.
I'm not even going to TRY to atttempt to describe these, they are insane and wonderful:
WAITING FOR THE ELECTRICIAN OR SOMEONE LIKE HIM-01 Temporarily Humboldt County/02 WC Fields Forever/03 Le Trente-Huit Cunedonde/04 Waiting For the Electrician or Someone Like Him
DON'T CRUSH THAT DWARF, HAND ME THE PLIERS-01 This Side/02 The Other Side
Both albums in this file: http://www29.zippyshare.com/v/57962691/file.html
While putting this together I notice that Brian forgot to include the link for the third album, "How
Can You Be In Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere At All".....hopefully Brian sees this and submits the link, if not I'll go searching the Bay for a copy tomorrow......
Next up we get a Monty Python rarity, according to Brian.....here, I'll just let him describe it:
"Then, a Monty Python album that might not even be familiar to fans....a bootleg that was apparently given to Motörhead (!) by Micael Palin decades ago. I hadn't even heard of it til I found the file..."
It's title is "The Hastily Cobbled Together For a Fast Buck Album", here be the track list....
01 An Announcer/02 Here Comes Another One (A Clockwork Orange Version)/03 I'm So Worried (Country Western Version)/04 Mrsr Particle and Mrs Velocity/05 Otto and the Suicide Squad (deleted Scene from "Life of Brian")/06 Otto Song/07 Rooting Around In My Attic/08 Psychopath/09 Olympic Shopping/10 Bunn Whackett Buzzard Stubble and Boot/11 Talking Science (DNA)/12 School Song/13 Headmaster/Dead School Boy/14 laughing at the Unfortunate/15 I've Got Two Legs/16 Leg Amputation/17 Re-Assuring You About the Doctor/18 Deep-Sea Insurance Agent/Accountancy Shanty/19 Indian Restaurant/20 Minister Of Defence/21 Freelance Undertaker/22 Rudyard kipling/23 Apology/24 memory Training/25 Acronyms/26 Hi-Fi Shop
MONTY PYTHON- http://www14.zippyshare.com/v/50024242/file.html
This next one is a classic, I know, at least the movie ("Lenny", in which Dustin Hoffman played the title character was brilliant).....have never heard the original recordings of this though, from 1961 Lenny Bruce's ""To is a Preposition, "Come" is a Verb".....Bruce was about a zillion years ahead of his time, I am itching to hear this gem from the year before my birth!
TO IS A PREPOSITION, COME IS A VERB-01 To Come/02 I just Do It and That's All/03 Hubert's Museum/04 The Perverse Act/05 Tits and ASs/06 Completely Exposed/07 Pretty Bizarre Show/08 Blah Blah Blah/09 Dirty Toilet/10 Would You Sell Out Your Country?/White White Woman and a Black Black Woman
Shockingly controversial for it's time, PLEASE don't miss the chance to grab this piece of HISTORY.
LENNY BRUCE- http://www4.zippyshare.com/v/74911648/file.html
Well, the weirdest thin in Brian's contribution also DOES NOT HAVE A LINK, I hope he can submit
these links soon, because this is too oddball to miss out on: From the classic (yes it was) TV Show Twin Peaks.....This is a Simon & Schuster Audioworks tape of all of Kyle Maclachlan's tape memos to his assistant Diane.....this sounds weird enough for me, I'm gonna email Brian and see if he can hook us up with the missing links, but nonetheless, hasn't he contributed a wonderful stash of stuff? PLEASE take time to thank him if you sample his wares! He was reqested from me some Firey Furnaces Bootlegs, and they will be on the way to him sometime this week.......we've talked about teaming up for a couple music posts, Swans, Melvins, some other stuff, you'll just have to wait and see, but for now, WELCOME to the blog Brian, please contribute OFTEN, you seem like the type of guy that might just have some BIZARRE shit, the kind I like......
Guys, tell me what you think of this collection......as I've told you ANYTHING IS FAIR GAME HERE, anything you want to share with others.....comedy albums, artwork, homemade videos, recipes, samples of your writing......for now,if you are not familiar, I will tell you that at least the Firesign Theater and Lenny Bruce offerings are PRICELESS!
LATE EDIT: Well, my bad, as usual, didn't scroll down far enough on the email to see the link for the Twin Peaks thing:
http://www40.zippyshare.com/v/40261598/file.html
Still missing the third Firesign Theater album but sorry for not noticing I actually DID have this one.....Brian, if you become a regular contributor here, you'll see that I FUCK STUFF UP (like this) ALL THE TIME! Sorry, it's corrected!