Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him [ORIGINAL RECORDING REISSUED]

Firesign Theatre

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 4, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1968
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00005T7K3
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #70,447 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Temporarily Humboldt County

2. W.C. Fields Forever

3. Trente-Huit Cunegonde

4. Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him

5. Dr. Sidney Koan

6. Mario Estonatl

7. Masked Mann and His Faithful Indian Compendium

8. Temporarily Humbolt County

9. Trente-Huit Cunegonde

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Firesign performance ever BUT BEWARE..., April 13, 2006

By	ah, clem (pretty-much nowhere, United States) - See all my reviews

For those of you who know and loved this originally as an LP, you will be disappointed to learn that sony messed up the remix BIG TIME by deleting important dialog at the beginning of the second side of the album (of course, on the cd it would be the second segment). The beginning of the second side IS CRITICAL to the subject of the performance and as best as I can recall, should have begun something like this:

"Welcome to side 4. Please follow along as we learn 3 new words in Turkish.
Towel, Bath, Border...may I see your passport please..." ...
(someone could please tweak this for I know this is not EXACTLY the dialog).

Anyway, you get the idea. The beginning is suppose to be as if you were listening to one of those "Berlitz" language records. Just wish/ hope sony would rectify this REAL SOON!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Firesign's classic debut. A very funny time capsule., December 20, 2001

By A Customer

"Electrician" is the debut album from the Firesign Theatre and, while (overall) a bit more conventional than their later releases, it is still very funny. It's sort of a notebook of things to come. The first half of the CD presents looks at the past, present (then, 1968), and future. The Past is a look at the American Indians exploitation by the Spaniards and Europeans, the Present is a stroll through a hippie commune, and the Future is presented as the counterculture becoming the Mainstream (where everyone is "groovy"). Okay, a bit quaint and dated, but still real funny... and idealistic (which can't be said for most of today's cynical comedy). The second half is Firesign's first extended piece which starts out as a Berlitz language tape and transforms into a Kafka-esque trip through a politically volatile and nameless Eastern-European country. Peter Bergman, Phil Proctor, Phil Austin, & David Ossman all essay several roles each and, indeed, this may be their most impressive (or, at least, most varied) vocal performance of any of their releases. This title has been out of print for nearly 10 years, so grab one now, you won't regret it. And, check out laugh.com, where the balance of Firesign's other classics (i.e., "Not Insane," "In the Next World, You're On Your Own") are finally being released on CD for the first time!

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but a tad weird, December 11, 2001

By	William M. Feagin "music dealer/geek" (Upstate New York, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Messrs. Ossman, Austin, Bergman and Proctor, collectively known as the Firesign Theatre, were the kings of psychedelic comedy, using the LP as their primary medium along with free-form FM radio, still in its infancy when the Firesigns first began broadcasting on Radio Free Oz in 1967.
That said, this first album gives the listener an initial taste of what these four gentlemen (who have since said they were seeking to be the "Beatles of comedy") were capable of. It kicks off with "Temporarily Humboldt County," a pointed look at the exploitation of the Native American Indian tribes as the "manifest destiny" of white European explorers and settlers gradually forced them West into the deserts, and finally shows how badly represented the 500 Nations have been by Hollywood and TV. We then follow the group through a parody of an Eastern spirituality ashram--a brilliant and funny skewering featuring one of the group's many Beatles references--and "Le Treinte Huit Cunegonde," a parody of all things "groovy." ("He's groovy...all spades are groovy.")
The second half of the album is the title cut, a bizarre and dark bit of comedy that begins as a Berlitz language lesson and becomes one man's trip through a third-world nation pursued by admirers, secret police and plague-ridden natives. On the whole, "Waiting for the Electrician" is quite the head-trip. I admit that, on first listening, I wasn't at all certain just what I should make of this album, and it took some time to grow on me. But quite honestly, I am very happy to see that Columbia has finally reissued this, along with "How Can You Be...," "Don't Crush That Dwarf..." (previously unavailable on CD), and "I Think We're All Bozos on This bus" on CD. These were long overdue!