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Ear Shot Music/Inertia
Meatshake Corporation employees Andy, Dizzy and Young Einstein have not grown up an inch on this screwball follow-up to 2000’s Journey to Anywhere. A disturbing amount of cheesy ad know-how has gone into messages from our sponsor and a Saturday Night Live radio-play of new agers vs McJob slackers, but happily not at the expense of fab soul and mindless rock riffs liberated from the record bin by scratch-prone DJ Einstein. The skits are funny in a frat-house way, the highlight coming when Andy, in his dork-droning , MC 900 Ft Jesusish alter ego, slags off some meek RV-driving yuppies at the drive-thru window: “meat-hating cissy…shouldn’t you be reading dianetics?”
Still, you can’t get past the fact that they’re cuddly and lovable and have some dope beats and cuts to boot, Einstein pulling out hook after hook of funk-soul brass and bubblegum rock, including the fruggin’ chord progression from “Louie, Louie,” “Wild Thing” and God knows how many other identical 60’s sides on the irresistable “Dumb it down.” Many of the song ideas are thinner than Lara Flynn-Boyle, with “I Wanna Go Home” sounding like an email and “Good Night” yielding such verite tidbits as “I’ll sleep until I’m restless, and when I’m awake I’ll make a late breakfast,” but others like “Opening Act” and “La Revolution” are more inspired.
“Opening Act” ruefully flogs a music biz cliché but with enough sharp observation and smart rhymes to bring it off, not to mention the well-chosen slapstick samples: vaudeville piano and playschool xylophone, and a stroke-of-crazy-genius oompa band outro. “La Revolution” takes it to the prairie, telling a Shane-type evil ranch-owner/rail company tale to the tune of lonesome latin trumpet and a ricochet of schizophrenic samples in the style of Dexter or Luke Vibert. Also interesting is the bossa acid flashback of “Abigail Silk” (she’s no Penny Lane) and the Bacharach escapism of “Rio De Janeiro.” Although there are some good party tunes on the record, “Turn It Up,” which is obviously groomed as the MOB, is not one of them.
Don’t expect any tongue twisters or labyrinthine rhymes from Andy and Dizzy – that’s not their style. They rap like the SoCal lawn lizards they are, lazy and casual, and they have a good back and forth, call-response dynamic going on. If Wayne’s World was a cool rap band, this would be it. Don’t expect them to act tough or cuss either – “that’s not how a cool cat operates.” Although I can’t help wishing they’d quit fucking around, hiphop needs more and not less of this suburban ham radio, telling it like it is and never mind the bling.
