Hi and welcome to Pickehead Music News! April 3, 2006 19:26

Hi and welcome to the first entry into the Picklehead Music News, your source for news and information on the world of comedy music, stand-up comedy, the indie music scene, and a whole lot more.

Here at the Picklehead Mansion, we believe in keeping our visitors up-to-date on the latest happenings around the world of comedy music. We also do some shameless self-promotion at times, but hey, we've got lift tickets to buy, limos to fuel, and good cigars don't come cheap these days!

Wayne Faust Schedule Update 4/10/06 April 10, 2006 20:47

 
Wayne Faust Schedule Update 4/10/06
April 10, 2006 20:47

Thanks to everyone who helped make the past ski season one of the best ever.
The snow was great, the crowds were great, the new chairlift at Breckenridge was great (it goes up to 12,800 feet) and as always, Bald Guys were great.

I'm back at Sloppy Joe's in Key West in May, along with another show in Dunedin at Flanagan's, which is near Tampa Bay, so I really look forward to getting back down there. I'm also at a brand new place in Wiggins, Colorado in April and May, and back in Columbus, Nebraska in April. Stay tuned for details about more shows this spring and summer.
I hope to see you soon!

Wayne

The Bucksnort Saloon
Sphinx Park, Colorado (303) 838-0284
From Denver, take 285 into the mountains. Go left at Shafer's Crossing and experience the 7-mile gravel road to the Bucksnort.
Worth the trip, and you want to try and arrive early!
All Saturday nights - Showtime 8 PM
April 22nd
May 20th
July 1st
August 5th
September 9th
October 7th
November 4th (Annual Birthday Show!)
December 2nd (Annual Christmas Show!)

NEW!
Friday, April 21st 8 PM
Zeppelin's Pub and Sports Bar
217 Main St - Wiggins, Colorado 970-483-7224
This is a brand new place for Wayne. It's located about 65 miles from Denver off I-76, exit 64.
Even Mick Jagger never got to play in Wiggins!

Just added!
Wednesday April 26th 8 PM
Little Bo's
3200 23rd St.
Columbus, Nebraska
(402) 563-3313

Wayne played here several times in the past few years. It's a great, rowdy club, that really likes their comedy.
Expect a lot of funny songs and some of Wayne's patented spontaneity

Saturday, April 29th - Private Show - New Orleans, Louisiana

Wednesday May 3rd 8 PM
Flanagan's Irish Pub
465 Main St
Dunedin, Florida
727-736-4994
www.flanagansirishpub.net

Wayne was here last spring for a show and had a great time, thanks to Wayne's Tampa Bay-area fans.
It's an intimate, warm kind of place - like you'd expect from a genuine Irish pub!

Friday through Sunday May 5-7
Friday 3:30-7:30 PM Note time change
Saturday and Sunday 5:30-9:30 PM
Sloppy Joe's
201 N Duvall St
Key West, Florida
www.sloppyjoes.com

Wayne returns to the legendary Sloppy Joe's for a big weekend in the spring.
Mark your calendars for this one and come down to the Keys for a cool rum runner and a great show!

NEW!
Friday, May 19th 8 PM
Zeppelin's Pub and Sports Bar
217 Main St - Wiggins, Colorado 970-483-7224
This is a brand new place for Wayne. It's located about 65 miles from Denver off I-76, exit 64.
Even Billy Joel never got to play in Wiggins!

Saturday, May 20th 8 PM
The Bucksnort Saloon
Sphinx Park, Colorado (303) 838-0284
From Denver, take 285 into the mountains. Go left at Shafer's Crossing and experience the 7-mile gravel road to the Bucksnort.
Worth the trip, and you want to try and arrive early!

Wednesday, June 21st - Private kids' show - Indian Hills, Colorado

Saturday, July 1st 8 PM
The Bucksnort Saloon
Sphinx Park, Colorado (303) 838-0284
From Denver, take 285 into the mountains. Go left at Shafer's Crossing and experience the 7-mile gravel road to the Bucksnort.
Worth the trip, and you want to try and arrive early!

Tuesday, July 4th - Private kids' show - Indian Hills, Colorado

Into the future....

Saturday, November 11th
Wayne's Annual Concert At Rob Roy!
Tickets go on sale after September 1st.
Stay tuned for details

For more info on any of this, e-mail me at picklehead@picklehead.com, or call 1-800-PICKLE-9
Stay well, God bless, and I hope to see you soon!
Wayne

Wayne Faust - Picklehead Guy
Picklehead Music
1-800-PICKLE-9
PICKLEHEAD@PICKLEHEAD.COM

The Sad But True Story Of Bird And Macdonald April 14, 2006 07:36

 
The Sad But True Story Of Bird And Macdonald
April 14, 2006 07:36

By 1980, Bird & Macdonald were well on their way to being a unique comedy act. Combining music with a very sick sense of humor, their parodies and rap songs were played by radio celebrities like Dr. Demento and Dave Pratt. Their "Candy Wrapper" song hit the charts just in time for the Hershey Candy Company to sue them in Federal Court for trademark infringement. Their "Fish Rap" was borrowed by another comedian and turned into the hit novelty song "The Wet Dream."

Dave Pratt of KUPD in Arizona locked himself in the studio and played "Candy Wrapper" 99 times in a row and was later called to Washington to apologize to the FCC. "Shotgun" Tom Kelly of KGB in San Diego played the same song and received the largest fine in radio history (probably only topped recently by shock-jock Howard Stern).

Always a day late and a dollar short, Bird and Macdonald fizzled out after a ten year partnership leaving behind disappointed fans, a pending movie deal and a number of groupies with an assortment of exotic and mysterious diseases. Bird pursued an acting career but never landed "the big part." Macdonald lost most of his hair and has a really big part. They broke up a year before the comedy boom of the early 90's. Bird & Macdonald were before their time.

Bob Tyler

Dr. Demento – a Comedy Music Original April 17, 2006 15:03

 
Dr. Demento – a Comedy Music Original
April 17, 2006 15:03

By Kent Johnson

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past 30 years, you’ve probably heard the name Dr. Demento, even if you’ve never heard the Good Doctor’s radio show (or maybe you thought he was a practicing physician?).

Anyway, Dr. Demento is host of his own weekly-syndicated and wildly popular radio show, appropriately-named "The Dr. Demento Show." On the air for over 35 years, Dr. Demento has describes his show as "Mad music and crazy comedy from out of the archives and off the wall. Rare records and outrageous tapes from yesterday, today, and tomorrow."

The Dr. Demento show is heard on over 200 radio stations in the U.S., and is carried abroad on the Armed Forces Radio Network. Legend has it that the show got its name when Barry Hanson (aka Dr. Demento) was playing "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus on the radio one day, and someone said, "You've gotta be demented to play that!" Soon after that, the DJ before him announced, "And now, ladies and gentlemen, here's Dr. Demento!", and the name stuck.

Click here to read the rest of this article

Crazy About That Funny Music April 21, 2006 07:03

 
Crazy About That Funny Music
April 21, 2006 07:03

By Wayne Faust

Okay, so it’s not rocket science. It’s not opera. It’s probably not music that somebody will listen to a thousand years from now. But still, I like it.

I’ve liked funny music since I first started listening to music. During my grade school years in the 60’s there were a bunch of great records. One of my earliest memories is of Alan Sherman’s "Hello Muddah Hello Faddah," which was actually based on Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours" from La Gioconda, so maybe funny music is classy after all.

I also loved "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini" by Brian Hyland, "Alley Oop" by The Hollywood Argyles, featuring Kim Fowler (a respected songwriter who wrote lots of ‘serious’ songs), and whole albums of songs by Ray Stevens, who made a career out of funny music. The 60’s seemed to be a golden age for funny music. The songs were all singable, and after you got the joke, they were still fun to listen to.

Click here to read the rest of this article

Into Funny Folk Music? Check Out "The Foremen" April 24, 2006 08:59

 
Into Funny Folk Music? Check Out "The Foremen"
April 24, 2006 08:59

We're always looking for great comedy music to promote here at the Picklehead Mansion, and we've just added a new artist called "The Foremen" to our lineup. Funny folk music was dying in the late 80s and early 90s, but The Formen were largely responsible for reviving the genre in the mid 90's. If your into funny folk music, or comedy music in general, these guys are well worth looking into.

Here's a short bio on The Formen and their members:

Folk music had its day in the sun. But it got all blotchy and had to go back underground. In the meantime, Roy Zimmerman created The Foremen and brought to the Nineties what Folk Era groups like The Limeliters and The Kingston Trio brought to the early Sixties: twangling instruments, knife-edged four-part harmonies and biting, hilarious satire.

Zimmerman founded and wrote all the material for The Foremen, who recorded four albums, two for Warner Bros Reprise. The Foremen toured extensively, playing the nation's major folk venues, a lot of fancy Progressive benefits, Pete Seeger's Clearwater Festival (under an overpass in the rain) and CBGB. They even warmed up the crowd for President Bill Clinton..

The group was featured on NPR's "All Things Considered," and many other syndicated talk radio shows. They shared the air with Al Franken on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." They got to sing Zimmerman's lampoon of Oliver North, "Ollie Ollie Off Scott Free" directly to the colonel himself on North's own syndicated show. "Friends," said North, "this is a very weird group."

"Firing the Surgeon General," Zimmerman's song full of euphemisms for masturbation, was used in MTV's "Sex in the Nineties" documentary.

About The Foremen, the LA Times said "Zimmerman displays a lacerating wit and keen awareness of society's foibles that bring to mind a latter-day Tom Lehrer."

Tom Lehrer himself said, "I congratulate Roy Zimmerman on reintroducing literacy to comedy songs. And the rhymes actually rhyme, they don't just 'rhyne.'"

Joni Mitchell said, "Roy's lyrics move beyond poetry and achieve perfection."

Click here to visit The Formen's mini-site

Ian Whitcomb -- Featured Artist April 27, 2006 08:39

 
Ian Whitcomb -- Featured Artist
April 27, 2006 08:39

We feature many great music artists here at Picklehead.com, but there's none quite like Ian Whitcomb. Ian is a modern-day reniassance man -- he's a highly respected performer, composer, music historian, author, Grammy Award-winning recording artist, ukulele virtuoso, and more! He even had a #5 billboard hit back in 1965, with his novelty record "You Turn Me On." He's currently regarded as one of the modern masters of Ragtime and turn-of-the-century Tin Pan Alley.

Click here to visit Ian's web site

Did we also mention that Ian's an author? As an author, hes best known for his classic book on the history of pop music from rag to rock, entitled "After The Ball", still in print after a quarter of a century. He has published ten other books, including a biography of Irving Berlin, a memoir of his life in Los Angleles, and a novel set in Southern California. Visit his website for a collection of his recent articles on a variety of subjects.

Here's an excerpt from one of Ian's articles on the famous composer Irving Berlin:

IRVING BERLIN IN HOLLYWOOD
by IAN WHITCOMB

The talkie revolution of the late 1920's was largely due to singing pictures. The ammunition fired from loudspeakers, killing the silent screen, was pop song -- and who better to supply the stuff than Irving Berlin, hitmaker supreme, monarch of Tin Pan Alley? More than that: he was, in the words of his friendly rival Jerome Kern, "American Music", with a little bit of Wagner thrown in.

So it was no surprise to find a proven Berlin smash, "Blue Skies", occupying the key scene in "The Jazz Singer" (1927), the movie that sounded the death knell of silent pictures. The song had been written as a stage vehicle for Belle Baker in an ailing Broadway show of Rodgers & Hart's. But Al Jolson, in the movie, took "Blue Skies" to his heart, telling his mother it was all his own work, proclaiming his ecstacy to the world. The world was amazed and talkies were on their way. So was Irving Berlin, hoisted up by Al Jolson, an old Alley colleague, into the position of having another First.

He'd had so many Firsts since those early years of the 20th century when he'd been little Izzy Baline, the singing waiter who wrote songs yet couldn't read or write music. Some kind of natural genius, thrown naked into this world with all the knowledge and none of the know-how. He'd had the first world-wide hit in "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1911) when he'd captured a new energy in the air and called it "ragtime". In faraway Russia even the Czar's military band cut a version. Vaudeville stages cried out for more of the same: Berlin rode the wave for all his worth, producing "The Ragtime Soldier Man", "The Ragtime Jockey Man" and "The Ragtime Violin". Soon he was the self-proclaimed "King of Ragtime, and proceeded to take his sensation into Stephen Foster territory like The Sunny South ("When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves For Alabam'") and into new situations like the Urban Ghetto with its claustrophobic tenement culture ("Snooky Ookums")

Click here to read the full article