Here is an album I am really glad to see has been re-released on CD. The Bonzo Dog Band began life in the mid-’60s as an art school offshoot named The Bonzo Dog Dada Band. And true to their name they celebrated the absurdist qualities of life. Originally, they specialized in early 20th century novelty songs. But the mood of the decade caught up with the band’s name and they launched themselves into the psychedelic stew on The Doughnut In Granny’s Greenhouse with outrageously funny material written by Neil Innes and Viv Stanshall. Like Frank Zappa they skewered all of the characteristics of society that everyone took so seriously.
The runaway favorite is My Pink Half Of The Drainpipe sung by Viv Stanshall with a drunken insouscience. The song seems nonsensical on the surface but scratch it a little bit and find the song is really about the way people settle for mediocrity in their lives. The Rhinocratic Oaths is a Stanshall monlogue of absurdities that soon resurfaced in the work of Monty Python. Can Blue Men Sing The Whites? sends up British bands’ obsession with reproducing the blues. Hello Mabel is the album’s ’20s tune, complete with megaphone and honking saxophones. All of the songs combine to create a cozy English sensibility wrapped around the empty inadequacy of modern life.
The band broke up after a couple more albums. Innes went on to Rutles fame as the John Lennon member of the group. He also wrote all the songs. Stanshall became the voice of Rock Narration, including the bloated Tubular Bells. Today if anyone knows this band it only because Death Cab For Cutie stole its name from one of their songs. But all of their newly re-released albums are highly recommended!
September 17, 2007 at 7:04 pm |
I always thought they started out as the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band. Their material is still randomly fresh and consistently outrageous. The bleedover between BDB and the Pythons was unmistakable. Very under appreciated (except by nutcases like myself).