COYLE & SHARP
Audio Visionaries (Thirsty Ear)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

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How would you feel if, one Sunday morning, you looked out in your backyard, and suddenly you saw the earth giving way at a certain point. A hole occurs, and then you see a human head. You advance toward it and it goes back under the earth. What would you say to such a person if confronted? Would you tell this mole-person to scram?

That's exactly the kind of question -- in fact, almost word for word -- that Jim Coyle and Mal Sharpe loved to ask those poor, unsuspecting San Franciscans as they shuffled the sidewalks back in the 1960s. Little did these victims know their often horrified reactions would be broadcast over KGO radio. The ones that never quite bought the premise came off the best, but pity the ones who swallowed it all, hook, line and sinker! There are some of each among the 17 bits on Audio Visionaries, a wonderful collection just out on Thirsty Ear Records. Among the pranks: asking a man to let them perform surgery to implant a microphone in his brain to record his thoughts; telling a woman that medical science has shown people can grow feathers, and asking her if she'd like to preen instead of dress; attempting to recruit someone to oblige a fictional local nut case who runs around with a football shouting "BLOCK THIS KICK" before kicking it right into the victim's face. These were inspired gags made even funnier by the reactions of the people with microphones thrust into their faces.

There must be hundreds of hours of Coyle & Sharpe bits on tape, but this is only the second CD to make it to the shelves. Hopefully there will be many more. In an age where comedy seems to have been reduced to toilet humor and endless streams of four letter words, wouldn't you really love to listen to two guys try to talk someone into being suspended from a tall rod in the path of a jet on takeoff? Just so he could get a quick snapshot before dying? Okay, what if the two guys had feathers?

© 2000 - DJ Johnson