Salt and Sugar

Album Review

One cannot help but to notice the odd insert quotation, "I've always enjoyed the Gomers' music, in large part because they suck." That "clanking" endorsement is funny enough and peculiar in its inclusion, but not necessarily truthful. If the Gomers do indeed suck, it's not due to total ineptness or lack of talent — if they suck it's simply because they'd like you to believe they do. Musically the Gomers are quite talented; it's how they focus their talent that is sometimes questionable. Their mix of noisy rock, generic pop television theme music ("Star Wreck"), German folk ("Tanze, Herr Hure"), country & western ("Rustlin' Ushers"), and comedy is always infused with generous doses of absurdity, which might lead to understandable comparisons with Ween and maybe Frank Zappa. Strangely, they're probably even less structured than either of those two artists. Violin/guitarist Biff Blumfumgagnge usually finds himself attached to offbeat groups like Reptile Palace Orchestra and Headpump, but the Gomers are far and away the quirkiest and most esoteric of his associations.