Customer Reviews

Horror Asparagus Stories

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Ever since I heard the song Horror Asparagus Stories on pebbles volume three I've wanted to know more about this band. Who would have thought that they recorded a whole album of material. This stuff comes from the summer of '66 which puts it way ahead of the free association acid induced music that was going to pour forth one year later with Sgt. Pepper, Piper At The Gates and the like. Captain Beefhart is about the only other guy who was making acid fried music like this in '66. I guarantee you will feel mentally disturbed by the time you've listened to the last track.

The quote by a record executive reads, "So stupid, it's fantastic!" That's a little strong, but it's certainly clever. If 60's schlock-filmmaker Ed Wood made a rock album, I suppose it would sound like this: Avant-garde garage rock (or "garbage rock," if you're so inclined). A lot of cheesy lyrics, either horror-oriented or just weird. Features a lot of screaming and chanting, keeping the songs pretty simple. "Fast City" is a funny parody of those "fast-car" songs, but most songs just make you shake your head and think, "What the hell IS this?" Fortunately, I like this kind of schlock, but it's an acquired taste, to be sure. Ironically, they fall kind of short with the "straight" pieces, which are kind of ho-hum; also, the original demos are just as good and somtimes better than the "polished" (such as they are) studio tracks. And speaking as a postman, I'm not offended by the uncencored version of "Hide the Lobsters," which features such lines like, "You don't see the postman's wife / We have stuffed her into his feet." How can you not love that?

So awful that it is entertaining. Great late evening listening it is not. Actually, I'm not sure if it would ever be appropriate mood music. Music like you've never heard it before. If you buy this expecting to get great music from the 60's you will be disappointed. If you love that born in the garage and slapped together in a weekend sound to your music then throw this in your cart!

Ever watched an old Ray Harryhausen or George Pal film and just smiled from beginning to end? Or gone out and bought the box sets of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits on DVD the moment they were released? Then this is an album for you.

Not to be too sentimental but the sheer level of invention throughout the 60s music scene far exceeds anything before or since, in many ways. Whether it was redefining what the guitar could do (Hendrix, Clapton, Beck, Green, Mayall etc.), redefining what pop music should be (from the Beatles to Zappa, The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, The Music Machine, We The People, anyone who could make or buy a fuzz pedal and countless others who came in from the cold) or redefining what pop lyrics should be about and here we come to The Driving Stupid's only 'album'. If this were vinyl, I'd say that Side 1 is the demos and Side 2 is the polished radio friendly stuff. In all fairness, the first half dozen songs (the demos) are raw and roughly mixed but I defy anyone not to fall in love with 'em after a few spins around the block.

The latter half of the CD is all the material we've come to know and worship about these kooky kids who, it seems, did the whole thing more or less on a whim. If you're reading this, you've more than likely played the tracks Horror Asparagus Stories and The Reality of (Air) Fried Borsk to death. I'd say go and buy this sucker straight away. It may not be too much output but the songs still bring a dumb smile to my face, if not a laugh. If you've never heard either of the two 'hits' which have been available on the Pebbles series for a couple of decades, buy it and decide for yourself if these regional one hit wonders still aren't heads and shoulders above the one hit wonders of today. Not a slight on any artist - now as then - but in an age of 'product' (which ironically was spawned from this earlier era), albums like Horror Asparagus Stories and any of those players back then who, by their own admission didn't know what the hell they were doing, are still a massive breath of fresh air to me. I mean, how are you going to go past such tender ditties as, "I'm gonna bash your brains in", and "Green things have entered my skin, Gladys". Buy it. You know you want to.