Customer Reviews

Double Bummer: Breaking No New Ground

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

 

 

I am hard-pressed to recall an album that cozies up to both freakish originality and coy derivation in such promiscuous fashion. Fans who eat their music without chewing on their toungue-in-cheek or dribbling their mixed metaphors are strongly recommended to chomp down on this. I particularly love "Frank", but the pleasures are only as endless as your tolerance for experimentation.

This double CD consists of the collections Double Bummer (1988) and Breaking No New Ground (1987), as well as the 7" single (1989) consisting of their covers of Roky Erickson's "You Don't Love Me Yet" and a blaring rendition of the Monkees' "Porpoise Song." This is among the most weird and avant-garde music I've ever heard, incorporating psychedelia, documentary excerpts, pop culture, and emotional postmodernist performance art. What bizarre stuff Ann Magnuson, Kramer from But---le Surfers, and company have wrought! Highlights.

"Frank" has Magnuson at her bizarre, her incoherent bellowing out angst-ridden lines over Kramer's guitar chords like some punkish performance artist. Some of Ann's demented rants include "the party's over get out of my bed why don't you go slit your wrists i'd rather starve kiss my feet get out sight f--- the subpoena where's the sheet music? you didn't spell my name right" Another is an emotional catharsis of "His New Look."

"Joyride" is a descriptive monologue about her traveling with friends and suggesting becoming leftist radicals, defending her position by saying she's "not a negative person, but angered by so much of what is around" before launching into a cacophony of background dialogue, droning guitar and drums. "Decadent Iranian Country Club" is another monologue about her being at the title place, "pre-Ayatollah" and her wanting to leave.

Another voice that pops up is a Christian boy whose cute voice sounds a bit like one of Donald Duck's nephews, and whenever he comes on, it's usually as an intro leading into the song, such as "Joyride" or "You Don't Love Me Yet."

"David Bowie Wants Ideas" has her encountering two Davids, Bowie who sends her a form letter and xylophone inviting her to contribute ideas that go into his album, and a weird surrealist experience with David Byrne, with whom she drinks some perfume in a bottle shaped like the head of King Tut.

Their tendency to do odd takes on cover versions is evident here. They do three Beatles songs, a slowed down chugging guitar version of "Love You To", "Julia" from the White Album, and "Rain." However, the oddest has to be "Dazed And Chinese," which is Led Zeppelin's "Dazed And Confused" sung in Mandarin Chinese (I AM NOT KIDDING!) It sounds so funny to make me forget the original. And "Four Sticks" is done with a fuzzy bass with some screams and dialogue playing in the background, same style as their take on Gary Glitter's "Rock And Roll Part 2." Mike Nesmith's "Just May Be The One" and Johnny Cash's "There You Go" are two of the other standouts, the latter done without any tricks, but when did Cash attach a clip of someone praising the death of Leonid Brezhnev, "jailer of his own people, the slavemaster of Eastern Europe, the butcher of Afghanistan?"

"So Help Me God" has audio excerpts from Nixon's losing speech from 1962 for the California governship, and his victory speech from 1968, while an acoustic guitar plays a sober melody, with some pounding drums coming in at one point. The title comes from the last four words of Nixon's swearing in for another four year term.

"Reaganation" is by far my favourite, an Irish drinking song where Ann puts down Reagan, and his military actions, fighting for the rights of the rich. Cool lines: "he's just an a----le like you," "he smiles when he gives you the shaft/if you think that he cares for poor folks/well then I surmise that you're daft." "to some they're American heroes/to us they're american cr-p." Oh yes, Magnuson is on the politically left, in case one didn't twig that.

Songs like "Ride My Seesaw" and "USO" are cacophonies of music, noise.

Acquired taste does not begin to cover this album's material. Me, I like it for its experimental, deranged, demented, and eccentric material. Of Bongwater's four releases, this is the best and weirdest.

This is the only release I have heard from this band. I first heard them during a 'trip' session with some friends of mine. I was very impressed with their sound experimentation and the atmosphere they create with their music. This album is a journey... Very psychedelic...

Double Bummer is a long and varied musical journey. It takes me back to my senior year in high school and all the craziness that kind of matched in some ways the music in this LP. The reviews before me describe pretty well what is going on here, I just want to add that there is a wonderful balance. Yes, there is silliness and craziness, and lots of weird humor, but there are also beautiful, poignant moments that give weight to the LP as a whole. There is real musical talent here, not just a throw-away joke album, even though there is a lot of noodling and sound loops, samples, and stuff like that. But the melodies that come through are often striking and sometimes mournful. Anyway, this is worth a listen.

This is such a great album. I discovered it when I was in high school 10 or so years ago, and dating a guy who was really silly but had GREAT taste in music. My theory is that most of the songs are Ann Magnuson reading her dreams over fairly psychedelic-sounding, but still modern-enough music. That they called the album "Breaking No New Ground" is charmingly self-deprecating, but not true at all. I mean, who else would think to record "Dazed and Confused" in Chinese and then call it "Dazed and Chinese"?
Give Bongwater a go, if for anything to hear the great, underused actress Ann Magnuson sing. Their music is not as druggy as their group name sounds but their songs are very intelligent and harmonious as well.

Another 80's record I did not hear until the late 90's, and a very pwerful one at that! Great covers, from the Monkees (a couple, including an amazing rendition of the porpoise song), to Roky Ericson, to john lennon, to a crazyass chinese version of led zeppelin's dazed and confused! Really crosses many genres, from noise rock, to a twisted rendition of folk, to free form dream-based anecdotes. Butthole surfers-esque, but with less attempt at pure shock value. Some interesting political commentary. Real collage type record, I think I'll go home and listen to it now!

It is nice to see others feel the same way as I. This, like every Bongwater release, is fantastic, fun, ironic, post-modern, and all that other nonsense. A lengthy collection of sounds to put on while trying to figure it all out. Nothing but fun.

This CD is a combination of the double LP Double Whammy, plus the EP Breaking No New Ground and a couple of 7" singles. There is a total of 120 minutes of "music". The packaging is a poor reproduction of the Double Whammy album cover. It is blurry and difficult to read. There are no liner notes. The sound quality is poor for a studio recording. I haven't heard the original LP's so I don't know if the CD is any worse than the originals.

This is New York performance art. This is the kind of stuff that New York was producing in the very late seventies to mid eighties, along with the punk and disco movements. Bongwater was actually fairly late to the party. This stuff comes from 1988, while Grace Jones had completed her performance art stage in 1986 and Laurie Anderson had been doing this type of stuff over 7 years.

Bongwater was different in that they did some very wierd and very psychodelic material. There some very interesting passages. They do some wild experimentations. They mix all kinds of music genres. They do some strange covers of popular songs. There is a lot of talking and stories added on to short snippets of music. Some of it was brilliant. Much of it wasn't.

A lot of people talk about how inspired Dazed and Chinese is. This consists of Led Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused being sung with in Mandarin by Ann Magnusen with a stereotypical, cartoonish Chinese accent. I don't think it is inspired. I think it is offensive and cheap way to try to get a laugh. It would have been much more effective if she had sung it straight up in Chinese, as a real Asian would, instead of in a mawkish, insulting way.

Bongwater is Mark Kramer (known simply as Kramer) and Ann Magnusen. Kramer has done many projects with fringe bands and a few English progressive/jazz musicians (such as Hugh Hopper). Magnusen has done many different things, including acting. She was the best thing in a bad ABC show called Anything But Love.

Bongwater but out 4 LP's plus a bunch of EP's and 7" inch singles, which was common for New York artists in the eighties. There is a boxset combining all their work. Hopefully, it has better sound quality than this CD. The Power Of Pussy was their best album.