The Fun Zone

It's two (short) CD reviews for the price of one (free)!

The Arrogant Worms: Torpid

Okay, I'm a little late with this one, and it's not Canada's fault. They sent me the CD pretty quickly. I'd say it's the fastest delivery I've experienced from a Constitutional Monarchy. At any rate, Torpid is in my grubby little hands, and I am enjoying its zany goodness. Much like the Toast album, this album was recorded in front of a live audience, so we get to hear much of the interaction with the audience between songs. In fact, the CD's producers wisely break up some of the longer bits of banter into separate tracks, so you can choose to partake (or not) of the talkety talk. I'm glad the material's there. It really reminds me of how much fun it is to see these guys in person. (And before I forget: Saturday February 28th, West Hartford, CT. Who's in?)

While it's not my favorite of the Worms' albums, not quite reaching the level of Toast or Dirt, Torpid has a lot to like about it. "Big Box Store" made me laugh the first time I heard it, as did "My Neighbor's Learning Saxophone." The highlight of the album, though, is "Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah," in the style of a 1980's era British pop band. It's the story of a guy who basically ignores his significant other, and when she leaves him, he doesn't notice for about a month. Then the song becomes a fugue for no reason. Trust me. It's funny. And it gets stuck in your head. I even got The Kid to start singing "Blah, Blah, Blah" with me on the chorus.

Overall, it's a good purchase, and a welcome return for my favorite Canadian Comedy/Folk Trio.

Logan Whitehurst and The Junior Science Club: Goodbye My 4-Track

Over the summer, while I was ordering my new Demento Society Membership Package, I decided to throw a Logan Whitehurst album into the mix. I gave the CD a once over when it arrived, but for some reason iTunes didn't want to rip it in, so it never made it into heavy iPod rotation. Once I got the new laptop, with a much-improved optical drive, I was able to finally give this album its due.

Yes, I know I could have actually listened to the CD, in the car or something, but that's not the way the kids listen to music these days. Get with the program, gramps!

Anyway, I really should have paid more attention to this one earlier, because it's brilliant. Whitehurst's music seems to me to be a cross between They Might Be Giants, Moxy Fruvous, and Jonathan Coulton. It's firmly in the novelty territory, but it sometimes has a sort of contemplative tone that Coulton likes to evoke, and "Prosthetic Brain" could easily have been a TMBG tune. I was already a fan of "Robot Cat" from the Demento albums, and "A Word From Farkle" is just rapid zany fun. "Happy Noodle vs. Sad Noodle" has been stuck in my head for days, and the hidden bonus track "Monkeys Are Bad People" is a fantastically paranoid rant from a father to son after the kid asks for a banana and the dad thinks he's harboring an evil monkey in his backpack.

Sadly, Whitehurst passed away a few years ago at a very young age, and now I realize why the Novelty community was so hard-hit by his loss. There's at least one more album out there for me to grab, Very Tiny Songs, made up of 81 tracks, none more than 90 seconds long. If the rest are anything like "The Villain Who Wears No Pants," I'm in.

Highly recommended.

This time: Power Grid China by Friedemann Friese, published by Rio Grande Games.

The latest map to be released for my favorite game is the China/Korea expansion for Power Grid. Now, while Tom is understandably all about the Korea side of the board, I’d like to talk specifically about China. While previous expansions have offered little more than minor rule tweaks in addition to the new terrain, the China map presents a fundamental shift in the way the game is played. In the basic game, if you recall, power plants are drawn randomly and then placed in order, forming a current and future market. For the bulk of the game, players can only purchase from the current market made up of the lower numbered, and therefore less efficient, plants. After a purchase, a new plant is drawn, the plants are reordered, and a new auction begins. My buddy’s chief gripe with the game comes when a lucky draw lets a player get a really nice plant early, and then everybody else is stuck with the outdated technology for several rounds. China changes this, as the first 30 or so plants come out in numerical order, and no new plants are drawn in the middle of the auction round, so there are no surprises. Furthermore, aside from the first round, a number of plants one fewer than the number of players is available each round, so at least one player won’t be able to purchase one. This decrease in luck, coupled with a built-in scarcity of resources, breathes new life into an already fantastic game. It’s a whole new way to play. 10/10.

The Christmas music is in heavy rotation these days, and I got to thinking about one carol in particular. "Boy," I said to myself, "I sure do have a lot of versions of The Twelve Days of Christmas. I wonder if I have... TWELVE versions of the song?"

I don't. I have nine.

But I've heard twelve. And today (twelve days before Christmas, naturally) I'd like to talk about twelve. I've even arranged them in a loose progression from traditional to crazy (though the list is a little heavy on the back end). See if you can figure out which three I don't own.

John Denver and The Muppets - Twelve Days of Christmas - This is just about as traditional as we get. The text is essentially unchanged, and Denver adds a sort of folksy sincerity to the whole thing. It's important to inject some variety into the Twelve Days, because doing it straight can get a little repetitive and boring by Day 9. This version spices it up by having each Muppet character sing a different day. Miss Piggy even adds a little "ba dum bum bum" to her Golden Rings solo. It's a classic.

The Chipmunks - The Twelve Days of Christmas - This version sticks to the script as well, until the last few days, when Alvin starts getting tired of the whole thing. I don't blame him, because the first half of the song is pretty darn boring. It even sounds like they didn't want to record the whole song in its entirety, so they just did the twelve days once and spliced in each day as necessary. It all sounds very mechanical, which I guess is true of all of the early Chipmunk material. The payoff at the end is when the 'munks start cracking each other up by replacing the text with stuff like "9 milking jumpers." Cute, but not a favorite.

Norm MacDonald - The Twelve Days of Christmas - This is more of a comedy sketch than a song. We hear a very pleasant vocal of select days in the sequence, and then hear Norm calling his girlfriend to react to the gift. "Enough with the birds already!" Fantastic.

Bela Fleck and The Flecktones - The Twelve Days of Christmas - Folk artist Fleck gives us an instrumental version of the carol, in which each day is represented by a different instrument. Hearing the banjos mixed with the violins weaves a rich tapestry of sound. Yeah, I know that's a cliche. Certainly a unique version, though.

Washington University Pikers - The 12.5 Days of Christmas - This is where things get crazy. It begins as a traditional a Capella choir version of the carol, but quickly devolves as different sections of the choir pick different days simultaneously. Other carols are referenced, including Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Carol of the Bells, I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Though chaotic, the piece is actually incredibly complex, creating a whirlwind of holiday cheer.

Straight No Chaser - The 12 Days of Christmas - This too is an a Capella choir version of the carol. In fact, it begins as an identical arrangement to the Washington University group. This group, though, is more polished than the college choir, with even more energy in the zany transitions. Also, at the halfway point, it departs from the previous arrangement. They end the carol to the tune of Toto's Africa (one of the group's trademark songs). This is also a live recording, so you get the crowd's reaction to the whole thing. Breathtaking.

How You Doin'? Boys - The Twelve Days of a Guido Christmas - This was our local radio station's favored novelty version for several years, and it drove me crazy. It's all Italian stereotypes. "On The Fifth Day of Christmas, my paisan gave to me... 5 pinkie rings..." It's not the jokes that I have trouble with, though. Remember when I said that you need some variety to make this song interesting? Once each day is introduced, nothing changes. Same text, same meter, same everything. It's one of the few novelty songs that makes me physically tense. No need to guess. I don't own this one.

James & Kling - A Terrorist Christmas - This unfortunately named version (recorded well before the turn of the millennium) actually has some nice harmonies. The text has been replaced with various forms of weaponry. "...three M-16's, two hand grenades, and a knife with a very sharp blade..." Also, the tempo gradually increases, making the whole thing move along at a nice clip. Shame about that title, though.

Jeff Foxworthy - Redneck 12 Days of Christmas - I don't really need to tell you what this one's like, do I? The song even takes a backseat to a series of the trademark redneck jokes that made Foxworthy famous. The music just vamps until he's done. I have to admit, though, that some of said redneck jokes are pretty funny. Or maybe they were 10 years ago, and I'm just running on nostalgia. Whatever.

Bob and Doug McKenzie - Twelve Days of Christmas - What makes this one great is not necessarily the text ("...three french toasts, two turtlenecks, and a beer..."), but the way Bob and Doug bicker about how to sing it. They don't even make it through all the days, jumping from Day 8 to Day 12 mid-verse. The bickering continues through the fade-out. One of the greats.

Bob Rivers and His Comedy Corp. - The Twelve Pains of Christmas - Twisted Christmas was released in 1987, and it's still the gold standard of novelty versions of this song. The text concerns all of the frustrations of the holiday season, with different characters complaining about lights, hangovers, sending cards, etc. The characters get more and more frustrated as the song continues, so by the end everybody's ready to explode. Comedy Gold.

Alan Sherman - The Twelve Gifts of Christmas - Sherman replaces the traditional text with a series of useless gifts, including commentary on Day One's Japanese Transistor Radio "It's the Mark IV model. That's the one that's discontinued." He also follows my rule about not letting it all get boring by saying "and all that other stuff" rather than repeating each day's gift. Only when we reach Day 12 do we get the whole list at once. I first heard this on the radio when I stayed up late on Christmas Eve as a child, and it's been a favorite ever since.