Picnic Time for Potatoheads (and Best-Loved Songs from Pandemonium Jukebox)

Outrageous, biting satire

     

The songs that make up this collection are from two albums recorded by Stephen W. Terrell between 1981 and 1984. The hilarious "Picnic Time for Potatoheads," comprising the first 12 tracks, is a tight, rollicking studio recording with a crackerjack lineup of sidemen, produced by Terrell's brother, singer/guitarist Jack Clift. The rest, originally released as "Pandemonium Jukebox," is a looser, more experimental effort capturing the feel of Terrell's long-running live show. A political writer for the Santa Fe New Mexican, Terrell approaches songwriting with the same bite and merciless satire he uses on boneheaded politicians. He does not suffer fools gladly, and saves his sharpest barbs for the lost souls of his own generation. "Cook Your Enchiladas" (presumably the open-face New Mexico variety) is a sleazy, epic journey through personal influences, "Sam Cook to Mickey Mantle, Baba Ram Das to Sylvia Plath," that arrives back at a sort of domestic bliss, but includes the warning that he'll "roast you in a song" if you break his heart. In "Green Weenie" he takes on the Santa Fe pachucos and teenaged heartbreak in an achingly sincere waltz (featuring Jimmy Carl Black on drums). "Potatoheads' Picnic," the only song here that has ever gotten significant airplay, is a lunatic rethinking of "Teddy Bears' Picnic," featuring tuber debauchery set to a brisk march. (The song was played extensively on the Doctor Demento radio show.) "Silly Sally & the Phantom of the Opera" is an almost too-cruel but still hilarious love story between two burnouts in an all-night diner, which concludes "God must have loved the crazies," because there are so many of them. Other subjects range from werewolves to strippers, cloned bayou-dwellers to vacuous New Agers. There is even a surprisingly touching song written for Terrell's newborn daughter. Some of the remaining tracks are uneven, but there are still gems. My favorite of these is the most wicked, "Rock 'n' Roll Hell," a nightmare bar filled with the "self-destructive heros" of the 60s, 70s and 80s (Hendrix, Joplin, Belushi, Elvis, et al), where the infamous denizens shout out the chorus "You ain't a martyr, you're an @sshole" to the terrified protagonist. This is a fine album that I have enjoyed immensely over the years. I should mention that, despite some decidedly adult material, children ADORE many of these songs, particularly "Picnic," "Wolfboy" and "Republic of Toads" (with it's hysterically funny cartoon chorus of "toads, toads, toads, toads.") Musical satire this good is almost unknown these days. Treat yourself to this picnic.