Customer Reviews

Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death" is the first studio work by all four (or five) members of The Firesign Theatre in 17 years. It is a comedy album for those with more (or less) between their ears than toothpaste (it's electric). The Firesign Theatre sets this cohesive story at a radio station, Radio NOW, on 12-31-99, and as the excitement builds towards the new millenium (or the same old Armageddon) a cat of...a cast of characters sails forth (or fifth) over the airways and the haM-Bone (listen, you'll get the pun in a thousand ears). This is a funny CD but don't expect Bob Newhart (noooobody expects Bob Newhart). The studio work is multi-layered and there are wheels within eels within heels enough for everybody. It is a work about the future and about the past (remember Ralph Spoilsport, well he's here and he tastes like pork!). The Firesign Theatre is Phil Proctor, Phil Austin, David Ossman and Peter Bergman and you the e-viewer too. Where else will concepts from the internet and pop peneology be combined. Where else will your hours spent in freshman English nigh unto 30 years or minutes ago stand you fast. No where. Not hear certainly.

This is a rare comedy CD. It must be heard multiple times to be appreciated. It may very well turn into one of the Firesign's "new Classics" (unless Walt's got a lock on that term) along with their first four albums, "Waiting For the Electrician...," "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once...," "Don't Crush That Dwarf..." and I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus." "Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death" is a 64-bit bus if ever I heard one. There is a remarkable LONG booklet which comes with the CD. Rhino records has been in the business, and IS the business, long enough now that they are backing this release 1000%. The booklet complements the CD and might give you hints about reality.

No, I'm not on the Firesign's payroll or layer of the onion roll but I'm on a roll about this role play. In fact I'm about to pre-order THREE of the new CDs so I can have one unopened for the collection. Do not hesitate to buy this release. For anyone involved in the Web, this is a CD which spreaks your language. For nybody who ex iences drop ts in their ansmission (well you know the rest of at).

This is easily the masterpiece of the recent batch of Firesign reunion discs, and where the others have an easygoing feel that's downright likable, this one is dark and scary enough to take you right back to those Altamont Gram Parsons-dying-in-the-desert LA-sliding-into-the-Helter Skelter 70s. The difference is that it's all in bite-sized bits-- if the best older albums were like an LP-long guitar solo (brilliant or self-indulgent, as the case may be), this one is as slick, disciplined and hooky as a Clapton comeback album.

First off, let me say to the uninitiated, the Firesign Theatre are very funny. Definitely one of the most unsung comedy teams ever. Why? Well, first, their primary medium was the comedy album, a dying artform, and they revolutionized it. Second, the laughs require some degree of patience and intelligence: literary references, outrageous word-play, and surrealist humor pepper the landscape of their albums (though they're also adept at funny voices and TV riffs). Plus, they're constructed as movies-for-your-mind, massive radio drama/comedy. The Firesign can and will transport their listeners everywhere, from the eye of a tornado to the Academy Awards. And they'll have you laughing in wonderment all the way. Luckily for newcomers, this album is quite accessible - set against the back-drop of a fictional radio station, "Radio Now," it's a device anyone can identify with. The four take stabs at the paparazzi, Joe Camel, Princess Di, overblown epics like "Titanic," self-help gurus, and much, much more. And, the CD deals with the paranoia gripping the nation as the new milennium draws nearer (it's set on the final day of 1999). So funny, it holds up to repeated listenings... one finds something new everytime. How many other comedy albums can you say that about? Answer: barely any. This is the genius of the Firesign Theatre, shown here and on all their other mostly out-of-print-but-hopefully-not-for-long titles from the '60s and '70s. Viva el Firesign!

I've had people tell me right out loud that they don't see what I find funny about Firesign Theatre. When people say this, I know they just don't THINK the same way I do. It takes a certain kind of outlook to appreciate this humor, and if you have it you have it, and if you don't you don't.

One thing people don't understand is that funny and laugh-out-loud funny aren't always the same thing. The late Mike O'Donoghue once said, "Making people laugh is the lowest form of humor." There's also humor in turning people's expectations on their heads, spotlighting the absurd in everyday life, and making people think in new ways, even if it's just for a few moments. And this is where the Firesign Theatre excells.

That said, this album isn't as good as the Firesigns' work from the sixties. It lacks the same sense of absurdity as they once did, nor the same gift for an exemplary turn of phrase. This doesn't impugn the quality of the finished product by any stretch. Some of the difference might be that they've changed with the times; it might also be that they've simplly been apart too long.

Still, this is a worthwhile album, even if the subject matter (the hypothetical Y2K Crash) is now dated. Enjoyable with a glass of sherry or a cold beer.

This is a great CD. As a fan of the original FT, I was worried that new work would not live up to my expectations. Needless concern! This new disc is "weirdly cool" (one of the repeated phrases on the CD, soon to become another FT idiom in our house). Cloned body parts, anyone? Also, nice to hear from Ralph Spoilsport again.

Firesign Theater has brought their piercing commentary into our age. Despite the GREAT and manic layered humor of the disc, one of my favorite sections is the last cut, during which the radionow staff says goodbye to the past ("goodbye Death, goodbye Lincoln Towncars") and says hello to the future ("hello global warming, hello aluminum radio hats"). Comedy for our time.

BUY THIS DISC!

They're back with a passion. In their first new release in what seems like forever, Firesign Theatre shows that they still got it in spades. From old faves like Ralph Spoilsport to new characters like Bebop Loco and Chump Threads, the boys serve up a nonstop megamix of their rip-roaring comedy with "Give Me Immortality, Or Give Me Death". For those not familiar with these guys, Firesign Theatre began in the late sixties as an unorthodox comedy improv group, lambasting virtually everyone and everything, thus becoming a mainstay of late night progressive radio. A whole generation became so familiar with their material that they could quote most of the sketches from memory. Before Saturday Night Live, they were the reigning gods of humor with such classic albums as "Don't Crush That Dwarf...Hand Me The Pliers" and "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once, When You're Not Anywhere At All?". In their heyday they actually inspired a few knock offs like the Credibility Gap and the Conception Corporation who were quite good in their own right, but couldn't keep up with Firesign' prodidgious and prolific output.They inspired the National Lampoon Radio Hour as well. As the seventies dragged along, the albums diminished in quality a bit in my opinion.But this new one is better than all but the first three, no mean feat. Masters of aural disguise, they seem to have every accent down pat.The production, with myriad sound effects and original music, is nothing short of visionary. And their satire is right up to date in the hiphop era. A few years back they performed at U. Mass. to support their excellent double retrospective "Shoes For Industry" and made a couple of stopovers to local FM stations to leave their much sought after station IDs. It is a tribute to their longevity that the only spoken word material in so many collections then and now are their unique productions. If you posess even the bare rudiments of a sense of humor, you won't be dissapointed with this one. Forty seven minutes and a cavalcade of hiarious album photos as well.

I've been a fan of Monty Python and Firesign for decades, and this CD is the best of all of them. It's like perfect love, ladies and gentlemen; it gets better every time you feel it. The timing, story line, and background stuff are all amazing. One needs to cuddle up to this gem with some headphones and glass of Zinfandel to catch all the nuances. Everything on radio is satirized here: psuedo-spiritual DJs, talentless media news hounds, big corporate media conspiracy and facism, inane advertisements, and psycho-babbling call in talk show shrinks. Everyone's welcome to their own opinions, of course, but for this man's money "Immortality" is the funniest satire of the entertainment industry ever made.

America at the Millenium- awash in cacaphonous sports talk radio, conspiracy theories, and the worship of empty-headed, recently departed celebrities. Firesign Theatre has done it once again. The highlight is a David Koresh meets James Joyce version of the Biblical Book of Revelation(which takes place during a radio traffic update). Not to be missed.

If you don't know Firesign Theatre, then you're missing the most complex comedy creations of all time. Firesign Theatre crafts layers and layers of smart wordplay into scathing satires on modern life. "Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death", their take on Millenial Madness, is simply fabulous. There is no other comedy group in the world that could skewer sports radio, survivalists, biotech, computer geeks, and our television culture with such devastating precision. When you first hear this recording, you definitely won't catch all the jokes, but on repeated listenings you'll hear all kinds of stuff you missed the first time. Having loved the intricate humor of such Firesign classics as "We're All Bozos On This Bus", it's wonderful to see Firesign Theatre return to greatness. With so much comedy out there being a bit brain-dead, this recording's incredible intelligence is breathtaking. This CD is topical, wonderfully funny, and as complex as any of their masterpieces. I found it to be just packed with great lines and asides. I like my humor smart and subtle and this CD definitely made me laugh. Read my forehead, "Best Comedy CD of the Year."

If you are not already a firehead, the first thing you should know is that you will get more for your money from this album than from almost anything else you can buy. There's just that much more in it - that much more art. It took me years to realize that the word "art" could be applied to The Firesign Theatre because they seemed so much more than that - but that is the closest word language has for what this is. Their albums are unique in the world - as are their stage performances - another art form they developed.

GMIOGMD is, for now, the culimination of a lifetime of development of a vision of our nightmarish world that is so hilariously funny that it strikes straight to the heart, then strikes again and again. I find myself watching my sides split with laughter and at the same time being somewhat amused that I don't know why.

To my fellow fireheads who haven't got this one yet, well, it rolls over you like a tank from the first second then keeps rolling. You know the drill. Line up, sign up, and reinlist today! It's the end of the world all over again baby!