The Gomers hit this one out of the park!
by Ms. Informed
Get hep to The Gomers - Scene article by Jim Lundstrom
THE GOMERS, Mike Zirkel The Album, Beeftone Music
The Gomers are a Madison institution, and two Madison mayors have issued proclamations to prove it. The band appears weekly at the High Noon Saloon as a human karaoke machine called Gomeroke. They are also the house band at the annual Madison Area Music Awards. All of which explains why The Gomers are also known as “Madison’s House Band.”
Recorded in “lush, stereophonic Gomer-Vision," Mike Zirkel The Album provides several sonic clues to why The Gomers have become a household word in Madison homes.
For example, the Wisconsin Dept. of Tourism ought to get in touch with The Gomers about using their song “I Been Over Dere” in future promotional efforts. In a deft bow to Johnny Cash and his song “I’ve Been Everywhere,” the Gomers’ pack as many Wisconsin city and town names into the song as they can in 2 minutes and 20 seconds. See if your favorite one is there. Plus they use the term “dairy air.” Can’t wait to see the tour that takes them to every community mentioned.
The eight members of The Gomers are musicians, comedians and master parodists. And they have some cool friends, such as Adrian Belew (Frank Zappa, David Bowie, King Crimson), who plays some furious guitar on “Things Fall Apart; Robert Fripp (King Crimson, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel), who ads voice and guitar synth to “Fripping the Rude Oud”; and Icelandic drummer Siggi Baldursson (The Sugarcubes, Bjork, Reptile Palace Orchestra), who beats his trademark dry ice sound in the brief “Homosexuals & Lesbians.”
Nice to have those guys stop by, but The Gomers don’t really need any help. Not since dear old Vivian Stanshall and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band have we had anything as buoyant and pixilated as most of the 20 songs on the new CD. String wizard Biff Blumfumgagnge’s “Crime Scene” – which begins with the line “Don’t you hate it when the toilet’s a crime scene?” – is especially in the Bonzo mold.
Mixed in throughout are odd, cartoonish sounds, commentary, rants, asides, bon mots and killer licks. There is also a dance song that could be as big as the Macarena – “Dance Jack Palance,” a discussion of the “Hobo Jungle Circuit” and a Les Paul rant on “Les Floyd or Pink Paul?” (The Gomers once performed with Mr. Paul, so the rant may be real – and, if so, it’s even funnier).
The album goes out on a commercial for The Gomers, with professional “ululations” provided by Rob Haggar, who has a great outro punchline when he identifies himself at the end.
Oh, the album is named Mike Zirkel because Mike Zirkel, chief engineer at Smart Studios in Madison, worked on The Gomers’ last album but was inadvertently left off the credits. What a very Gomerly thing to do! Check out the band at beeftone.com/gomers-home.html, or catch them 6 times monthly live at the High Noon http://www.high-noon.com
