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Okay,
so before we have the "you shouldn't make fun of retards"
conversation, let's just take a moment to think about the Special
Olympics. The kids are out there to have fun, and to try and be good
at something they enjoy. It raises money and awareness. Same with
this album. If it just so happens to be alternately hilarious and
slightly horrifying, well than so be it.
This album is sublimely strange. If you wanted some retarded kids
to make fun of, I mean, shit. Here they are. But this album is better
heard through the ears of a non-dickhead. Am I holier-than-thou? Well,
at the moment, yes. "Throw Away the Trash", the socially
conscious track on the album, has a damned hook-y chorus, and the
opening track,"New Car", grabs you with its pounding drum
machine intro and just won't let go. The song takes you on a high-speed
tale of cleaning and looking at a new car. It also highlights many
fine items on the car, most available at your local AutoZone. "Insects",
the reason I used the word "horrifying" in the previous
paragraph, is one guy's goddamned spooky, menacing vision of the little
exo-skeletors he doesn't like. May no man suffer through the bug world
this kid creates. My Shit is Freaked. "65 Years Old" is
about someone getting old and dying, I think ("Trying to get
up, Trying to get up, Trying to get up to God") "Mirror,
Mirror" captures the Paula Abdul/ Tiffany sound a little too
effectively. (Tiffany, incidentally, contributes a quote to the liner
notes along with Smokey Robinson, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Bo Duke.)
The album closer, "Ride Away" is fucking gut-wrenching.
If one could really pinpoint the funny, mockable (that's a word) part
of this album, I think it would have to be Michael Monagan, the music
director for the project. I imagine a ponytail, bald spot, short sleeved
patterned shirts, and sunglasses in the studio everyday. Maybe I'm
wrong, but I like to pretend that I'm right all the time. This man's
music celebrates the lowest point of synthesized music's history,
when it had moved beyond Raymond Scott's bleeps and bloops, beyond
Jimmy Smith's soulful organ wails, and into the horrificly bad sounding
latter-day-Stevie-Wonder-jammin-on-the-one you-can-tell-I'm-playing-this-on-a-Yamaha-keyboard-but-it's-okay
sonic assault that epitomized much of the eighties musical terrain.
And let me tell you another thing, this dude uses every preset rhythm
track his board could offer up to him. ("Say, you kids like REGGAE,
right? Right on! "Teddy Bear"! Tape's ROLLIN'!") But
as a bonus, perhaps to prove he wasn't a Kool-and-the-Gang-come-lately
keyboarder, there are live rockin' GUITAR SOLOS played over the synth
music. Hmmm. I guess Kool did that, too.
The latest incarnation of this group (they're hardcore rappers this
time) was opening on Mr. Bungle's last tour, which weirds me out a
bit as far as exploitation goes, because even if Mike Patton sincerely
liked them, I can't hope or expect the same response from the audience.
Because all audiences everywhere are pricks. Well, except for Bela
Fleck audiences. I saw a live thing of them once on PBS, and damned
if those people didn't sit in their seats and nod appreciatively.
Then Futureman and Bela Wooten was all struttin' wireless into the
audience all bakata-bakata-BAAA!, right?
Once purported to be a rare find to be treasured and bootlegged for
others, it turns out you can still get Special Music from Special
Kids at most Tower Record Stores. Primary Reinforcement, indeed.
- Tom, 2001
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