Funny - Ha

I've been wading through a couple more CDs by The Residents this week and haven't done a lot of laughing. I suppose I should be rolling about and I suppose I did when I first heard them in those far off days: "oh, those wacky chaps with their weirdo voices and slightly off-key piano riffs". But it's just a shame that they mucked up some terrific music with the guffaws. You can hear the best of their influence in (The Makers of) The Dead Travel Fast and some of the other M Squared bands where the humour is kept to a minimum.

The smiles stop dead in their tracks when you listen to any release involving David Thomas after 1979. He really did start racking up the stupid vocals after the fabulous Dub Housing and I find those first solo albums (81 onwards) almost impossible to listen to because of this alone. But Sounds of the Sand is uncomfortable for many reasons - mostly Anton Fiers' percusion: it's so limp that I want to reach into the speakers and make him listen to the Eagles of Death Metal CD.

At least Peace, Love, Death Metal makes me smirk knowingly. How can a band play a combination of boogie, Bolan, Bachman-Turner and Bonham (John) so well in 2004? To me it sounds like their having fun but this does create some awful moments on the CD when they do false endings and studio chatter and wry comments. I think I'll create an edited version leaving out these 'funny' moments as I've done already with Kayne West and most of the other Hip-Hop albums I own.