Bob Dinners and Larry Noodles present Tubby Turdner's Celebrity Avalanche

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 24, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Communion Records
• ASIN: B00004XT0P
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #342,496 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

Anne Eickelberg, Hugh Swarts, Brian Hageman, Jay Paget and Mark Davies reside in the United States. The band has been together for 13 years but no longer tours. Their side projects include the White Shark, U.S. Saucer, Gray W. Davis, Mr. Hageman, and many other unnamable pursuits.

Product Description

Musicians reaching a point in their careers when it is imperative that they release an album with the most ridiculous title imaginable - it is a revered tradition with a long, colorful history. Honestly, now, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, what the hell's that about? And Their Satanic Majesty's Request? As if! And then there's Works, Volume 2. Where do they get this stuff! It should be perfectly obvious that Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 have been poised to gussy up the canon of Ridiculous Album Titles since, oh, about their third day as a band. Of course, there is a story behind Bob Dinners and Larry Noodles present Tubby Turdner's Celebrity Avalanche, a long, ridiculous story about a talkshow that's probably detailed in excruciating detail on a website somewhere. Their latest Communion album, literally years in the making, went through numerous nomenclatural changes because of, you know, certain negative associative baggage that each working moniker brought to the mind of the beholder. Savor the sigh of relief you can now freely breathe because we are not asking you to buy an album called Boobfeeler or Eickelberg of Nine or Adolf Hitler - the Nazi.

If one had to complain about past TFUL282 recordings it could be argued that they're too ambitious for their own good - packed as they are with more unorthodox recording techniques and layers of sound than relentlessly minimal budgets allow producers to contain and accurately reproduce. The slow, methodical approach to creating an album serves this San Francisco quintet enormously well, and longtime TFUL282 producer Greg Freeman is the only person on Earth who is right for the job. Within the first seconds of the opening track, "Another Clip," anyone familiar with past TFUL282 efforts will suspect that they have finally made an album that sounds as good as it deserves to. And they won't be wrong. Bob Dinners and Larry Noodles present Tubby Turdner's Celebrity Avalanche will certainly join Strangers from the Universe and Admonishing the Bishops as a premier item in the band's discography, and in some ways, surpasses the earlier efforts. It's almost as if they've finally discovered stereo.

TFUL282's biggest strength - arrangements that allow the ugly beauty of avant rock to meld organically with peppy little melodies that kick you where it counts - is finally flourishing not despite the recording quality, but because of it. Faux operettas suddenly transform into ground-to-a-halt shanties at the wrong speed; whale songs spontaneously corrupt themselves and become cries of harpooned whales; stockcar guitar riffs fishtail across bluegrass mirages; between debased jingles that have college radio station ID written all over them and chilly tinklers that could have been lifted directly from an hilarious new episode of Star Trek, backward Carnaby Street melodies battle like simultaneously occurring concept albums by the Kinks, the Pretty Things and... heck, name someone, Giles, Giles & Fripp.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars more like 4.5, July 31, 2004

By 

Davy (Athens, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bob Dinners and Larry Noodles present Tubby Turdner's Celebrity Avalanche (Audio CD)

my vote for the best album by the most esoteric band in the universe. while there's nothing here as immediately jaw-dropping as "cup of dreams" or "noble experiment" (from the strangers from the universe LP), this album at least has a clear vision (well, as clear as can be with this band). it has an arc, it has recognizable tunes--even a pop song or two!--and i feel like it's exactly what they wanted to produce. it has that air of unshakeable confidence, which, when combined with the intensely and purposefully ODD nature of everything this band has ever released, creates quite an explosive dynamic. recommended!

3.0 out of 5 stars Thinking Fellers Lo-FI album, June 13, 2001

By 

Bill Your 'Free Form FM Handi Cyber Print DJ ... (Mahwah, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Bob Dinners and Larry Noodles present Tubby Turdner's Celebrity Avalanche (Audio CD)

A lot of bands work very hard to make albums like this. For the Fellers, it comes natrual.

The Thinking Fellers may be branded a lo-fi band, but these lo-fi Fellers do a lot of brainwork. The first four songs on Bob Dinners-"Another Clip" "Sno Cone" "You Will Be Elimianated" "Holy Ghost" sugue from straight rock to a country romp to briliant Beefheart riffing to a strange blues suite that could be from London or LA, 1967.

Yet 282 don't care what genre they are using. They don't even acknowalge that there are genres, period. Each song is given equal, loving treatment by the Fellers. A nasty riff that could be from a Cream album has monks chanting underneath. Cageian interludes have voices sounding like cartoon characters. Bob Dinners lines up wonderfully written songs, but overall, is musical stream of conciousness.

The Fellers are, of course, primarally a live band, even when in the studio. Overdubs are minimal, which dosen't matter when you can make heaps off beautiful noise. Listen to their last album, Porclin Entertainments. They jump styles drastically, with increadible ease and skill, all the while cross-mixing live and studio cuts. Who cares what came from where or what they call it: if reems of feedback work next to a cover of Sugerloaf's "Green Eyed Lady," it goes on the album.

Bob Dinners works the same way, which makes it all click. Kids brought up on marketing and demogrphics may be jarred by all this disregard for what's what, but sit and listen to it. If you are open to stepping just a few yards from the top 100, my bet is you'll have to love it.