The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band was to music what the Firesign Theater was to the spoken word, using a bizarro sensibility to produce comedy recordings unlike anything ever done before. They used every instrument they could lay their hands on, without regard to whether they could actually PLAY it, and played anything from rock to 20s-style vaudeville music. The Bonzos toiled from 1966 to 1970 in obscurity, except for the Beatles collaboration "You Know My Name, Look Up the Number" (the B-side of the "Let It Be" single). Pianist Neil Innes later did a lot of work with Monty Python.
This two-CD set is a strong collection of their best, including a few post-Bonzo gems from individual members, like Viv Stanshall's infectious "Labio Dental Fricative." "The Intro and the Outro" introduces the band members to a repeated two-bar riff, and when they run out of band members, it's "Big hello to big John Wayne on xylophone", and on to Adolf Hitler, General de Gaulle, Brainiac, etc. "Canyons of Your Mind" is an Elvis impersonation with a purposely awful guitar solo. The 20s-style pieces include the delightful "Mickey's Son and Daughter" and "Jollity Farm". At the opposite extreme, "Slush" sets a mournful dirge to a tape loop of a laughing bag (remember those?). There's rock ("I'm the Urban Spaceman"), blues ("Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?"), teen pop (the dandruff ode "King of Scurf"), film noir ("Big Shot"), self-reverence ("Look at Me, I'm Wonderful"), and more. Instruments come and go without warning. The indescribable "My Pink Half of the Drainpipe" stops dead in the middle for Stanshall to present "Rodney's bass saxophone solo, as promised". Stanshall promotes the bodybuilding regimen of "Mr. Apollo": "Before I was a poor stone apology, today I am two separate gorillas".
This two-CD set is a strong collection of their best, including a few post-Bonzo gems from individual members, like Viv Stanshall's infectious "Labio Dental Fricative." "The Intro and the Outro" introduces the band members to a repeated two-bar riff, and when they run out of band members, it's "Big hello to big John Wayne on xylophone", and on to Adolf Hitler, General de Gaulle, Brainiac, etc. "Canyons of Your Mind" is an Elvis impersonation with a purposely awful guitar solo. The 20s-style pieces include the delightful "Mickey's Son and Daughter" and "Jollity Farm". At the opposite extreme, "Slush" sets a mournful dirge to a tape loop of a laughing bag (remember those?). There's rock ("I'm the Urban Spaceman"), blues ("Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?"), teen pop (the dandruff ode "King of Scurf"), film noir ("Big Shot"), self-reverence ("Look at Me, I'm Wonderful"), and more. Instruments come and go without warning. The indescribable "My Pink Half of the Drainpipe" stops dead in the middle for Stanshall to present "Rodney's bass saxophone solo, as promised". Stanshall promotes the bodybuilding regimen of "Mr. Apollo": "Before I was a poor stone apology, today I am two separate gorillas".
If you're going to own one Bonzo album, this should be the one. It'll give you the most Bonzo for your money. The only reason I don't give this five stars is that it's SO weird that there's a limit to how much you can listen to in one sitting. It's just too much of a good thing. If you're lucky, the CD will include the liner notes and pictures that were on the LP (such as Roger "Ruskin" Spear taking a sax solo while holding a cartoon thought balloon over his head that says "Wow! I'm really expressing myself!")Woburnmusicfan
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