FIRESIGN THEATRE
All Things Firesign (Artemis)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

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The Firesign Theatre showed up in featurettes on NPR's All Things Considered quite often last year and All Things Firesign is a collection of all 28 of those bits.

This album is a double talk delight that's both subtle and cheesily funny at the same time. Of course it features a host of new characters, like Beat Street Jack and the Grass Roots Gourmet, but there's also appearances by established Firesign icons like Doctor Happy Harry Cox, Mutt & Smutt and of course, Nick Danger. (Yes, just like when TFT released The Bride Of Firesign the year before last, your Nick Danger collection is incomplete again.)

If you've never heard them before or you simply like radio comedy, ATF's a great entry into the world of Firesign Theatre. Rather than being a puzzle box album where the story takes several listenings to assemble in your mind, this album is much more like Dear Friends, which is to say it's all more accessible short pieces. Some like "Unwanted Workers Of America" have that old sitting-around-the-mike-trying-to-make-each-other-laugh feel, and others like "Everything You Know Is Wrong (About Shoes!)" are well produced micro-plays. There's also one piece, "Thanksgiving or Pass The Indian Please," which was first recorded as a part of the Dear Friends broadcasts and then again on Just Folks in the late 70's and is now here on CD in a third version. It's the one bit out of the 28 that NPR didn't air. (Maybe due to a settler trying to eat one of the Indians? Say it ain't so NPR!)

The best part about All Things Firesign is how current and topical many of these bits are in our post-911 world. "No Jokes About America!" might even make John Ashcroft smile. Or maybe he's just smiling as he adds Austin, Bergman, Ossman and Proctor to his list of dangerously funny subversives.

© 2003 - Rusty Pipes