Customer Reviews

All Things Firesign

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A great up-to-date Firesign work that brings the group into today's current events. Martha Stewart, Ashcroft, Iraq War, terrorist, and all relevant news are all covered. They are as good as ever and still better than the majority of comedy that is out there. Their razor sharp cutting edge satire is still the best!

It's not the best Firesign has done (I still have a sopft spot for the early work), but they have certainly not lost their sharp eye for wit and satire. The only sociopolitical satire that can match the pieces on this CD is the daily work of the Daily Feed.

Truly the theater of the absurd! I loved these guys from the first time i heard them. All I can say is you either get what they do or you don't. Some of their humor is a bit hard to follow and some of the live bits are harder still without visuals to go along with the dialog. Chances are, if you are reading this you already have some familiarity with them. This piece is no different than their others. They haven't missed a beat. As a fan, this would be a satisfactory addition. If you are a newby to them I would recommend either The Giant Rat of Sumatra, Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him, or Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand me the Pliers. If you get those, onward into the fog!!!!!

Like many long time Firesign Theatre fans, I have been a little unimpressed by some recent releases. This CD however is great. It respectfully visits several classic characters and creates contemporary parodies that are amazing. If you have enjoyed any of their early albums, I recommend buying this one.

Thirty years ago the Firesign Theatre peeved Mike Douglas by spending their entire segment on his show passing around a paperback copy of the Watergate Transcripts, cracking the most hilarious jokes. While their rabid cult fanbase (or fellow seekers) would point out the timelessness of their highest regarded projects (eg DCTDHMTP), these guys have always been the left's greatest voices commenting on current events.

From summer through the holidays last year, the group were invited to create a couple of dozen brief routines to be aired on Public Radio's All Things Considered. The structure and venue seems to have brought out the best in the lads. Their material is still consistently hilarious and the production remains impressive and challenging. It also seems that it takes a quartet of brilliant surrealists to seriously address the concern many people have about the current political situation.

On one night last summer, there was a unique glimmer of humor and -- what is the word -- rebellion that seemed to sneak its way onto NPR's All Things Considered. It was, alas, the long forgotten but never forgotten Firesign Theatre.

And then, a bit later, they were there again...and again...again.

And for a brief moment we had the chance to laugh again. Really laugh. Not at some bodily function or foible of another, but at something this both clever and funny. No, wait, trust me here. When was the last time that something was both funny and clever?

Over time, without warning, the Firesign Theatre reappeared.

But there was an unforeseen trend -- AHA -- Holidays!

They celebrate holidays - be it the Fourth of Julee, Labor Day, Halloween, Christmas or New Years. Is this a new trend for the boys who once led Nick Danger down a snowy (or corn-starched) street in Santa Monica?

And now, the glib passages of holidays past, collected in a single tome, offer more. They connect. Beat Street Jack tells us the history and the irony of the second half of the past year. Undermutter (of CNN No Evil News) connects us with what passed and what is past and what is soon to pass. And Nick, he appears and vanishes and returns to save the day, or the hour, or the moment.

If you listened to Firesign on NPR, you still need to listen to then in a consecutive stream.

If you missed the Theatre on NPR, you deserve better.

One would assume that they began knowing where they would end. But one might better understand that they knew they were not beginning....and they are not ending.

The genius is in the language -- and in the continuity. "Hellos and Goodbyes" in "Surreal 2002" is the sweetest, most poignant, more sincere, yet funniest thing I have heard in years.

I am tempted to quote them, but in print it does no justice.

This is the Firesign Theatre. There is no other.

Enjoy them.

Nobody seems to want to talk about the album in question, but more about the fact that this is a new Firesign Theatre album. So I'll do that for the people who actually want to read a review:

This was the first Firesign album I ever got. I didn't laugh once at it. A few months later I got their first 3 albums which were a hundred times better. This is definatley the worst start to get into Firesign. They really aren't funny on this one. I highly recomend "HOW CAN YOU BE IN TWO..." or "DON'T CRUSH THAT DWARF,..." over this. Those albums are deeply layered and require several listens to get the whole picture. I still haven't listened to "I THINK WE'RE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS" enough times, because I only got it today. This album isn't good for three reasons. It should only have been listened to once when it was on the radio,the Firesign's best work is threw extended pieces (I'm talking album sides), and using names for laughs won't work. I think by now, Firesign have made enough albums already,(35+) and should wait before making another one. The only funny bit is the Nick Danger bit. The one time I ever laugh on this album, is when Rocky Racoco says "Here's ya go!".

Start with one of the older ones who have been praised for a reason.

The Firesign Theater return with all their wit and charm on all cylinders in this brilliant album that plays out like a celebration of American holidays for National Public Radio.
And that's fitting because that's exactly what it literally was a few years ago. Now with Dubya still in the saddle sadly for four more years, this album that sends up our "cherished cable culture" for their razor scrutiny, is as relevant as ever.
Old characters and themes from their earlier and infamous albums smoothly interplay with new voices, tickling the funny bone and providing us with an energetic satirical attack on mid-American values and proactive proto-Republican anti-terrorist propaganda. Not that they can't laugh at themselves (or Democrats, for that matter!). You can just smell and taste and touch the mad world we live in when they give it to us like this with their hilarious twist. This is the Firesign Theater at their best and that's saying there is nothing better.

Firesign Theatre wordplay: "Dr. Happy Harry Cox;" "CNN No Evil;" "The First Deformed Church of Science, Fiction;" and "It's Saddam Shame." And the word "uniform" used as both a noun AND an adjective in the space of a single routine.

Firesign Theatre satire: "Frankenstein's monsters" genetically bred by the Department of Homeland Defense; cable TV as a Halloween-style haunted house attraction called "Cabletown;" and an ad for a car which runs on "theories about dinosaurs," dinosaur toys, and Godzilla videos. Also, "Ma and Pa Kettle"-style rural characterizations.

Miscellaneous: An entire routine devoted to synonyms for "manure;" a Thanksgiving allegory of some kind in which Indians change into Asians and Pilgrims into "Africans."

You have been warned.