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Reviews: The Bobs ~ Get Your Monkey Off My Dog
Posted on Saturday, July 12, 2008 @ 21:33:37 PDT
Topic: Reviews
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Artist: The Bobs
CD: Get Your Monkey Off My Dog
Home: Seattle, Washington
Style: A Capella/Comedy
Quote: "Track after track of impressive harmonies and beats woven together to the point that the listener forgets it’s an a cappella record."
By Jana Pochop
Let’s just get this out of the way right away before this review goes any further: The Bobs are amazing. They have won over a grizzled folkie who thinks tunes are incomplete without a guitar solo or two. There are no guitar solos on The Bobs’ Get Your Monkey Off My Dog, and most likely none on any of the their other 14 albums. That’s the other thing, The Bobs have been a working band since 1981. A working a cappella band, even.
Formed out of necessity when a singing telegram company folded in San Francisco, the first incarnation of The Bobs started performing in California and before they knew it, they had a Grammy nomination for a cover of "Helter Skelter" and were hitting the festival circuit. Much better than singing telegrams (Has anyone seen the movie Clue? With the singing telegram girl who gets shot in the doorway? Definitely a profession with more risks than one thinks).
Fast forward to current times, and the group consists of Matthew Bob Stull, Amy Bob Engelhardt, Richard Bob Greene, and Dan Bob Schumacher. (Amazingly, all of them have the same middle name! Wow!) The latest release, Get Your Monkey Off My Dog, consists of track after track of impressive harmonies and beats woven together to the point that the listener forgets it’s an a cappella record. Richard Bob Greene is the bass master, so spot-on with his low end beats that switch from a string bass timbre to a beatbox vibe from one track to the next without losing any steam.
The songs themselves are well-arranged, joyful, and in most cases, hysterical. "Tight Pants Tango" relates that woeful experience when your phone rings but your pants are too tight to retrieve it in time to answer. Truly a problem for the ages, and it’s about time someone wrote a song about it.
The Tight Pants Tango - a most awkward thing
as I squirm and hop around and wiggle
trying to answer that stupid ring ...
"Sandwich Man" is another great tune about one of those details of life we often overlook: the guy standing on the corner dressed as a sandwich ("dressed in turkey, ham, and cheese," to be exact), drumming up business for the local deli. Amy Bob Engelhardt takes on the role of customer obsessed with Sandwich Man, though the true issue might just be that she’s hungry.
Does the sunlight hurt your vegetation?
Do you get to eat for free?
Would you die without refrigeration?
Could you love a girl like me?
We all wear costumes over what we feel
Who's to say what is or isn't real
Is he a man or is he just a meal?
And so it goes for the rest of the album. "Never Date a Musician" ("It could be worse ... he could be a lead singer,"), "Cow Tipping Part IV," and "Imaginary Tuba" all treat the listener to smart, well-arranged, interesting tracks. Each track tells an involved story which takes some work on the listener’s part to follow along, but the payoff for listening to The Bobs is rewarding ... rewarding ear-candy of the best kind.
It’s hard to be funny without being corny, and hard to be intelligent without being overly clever and trite. The Bobs succeed on these fronts, and Get Your Monkey Off My Dog is a welcome listen in any genre. The group has gone through several incarnations of members over their 27-year career, but the current line up certainly gels extremely well and will be vocalizing, hoo hahing, and doinking for as many more decades as they desire.
Artist Website: http://www.bobs.com
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| Article Rating | Average Score: 5
Votes: 1
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