Waiting For The Electrician Or Someone Like Him

The album opener, "Temporarily Humboldt County", should be required listening in any high school history class. Not only is it wickedly hilarious but it skewers the mindless faux history that students are spoonfed by the public school machinery. One of my all time favorite comedy routines.

The third track I tend to call "Returned For Regrooving" since I don't speak French. The beauty of this piece is that it shows how, unlike their peers in either comedy or popular music, the Firesigns were aware of how the counterculture was no different than its forebears with its own peer pressure to conform to a contrived set of generational rules. Better yet, the Firesigns weren't afraid to laugh about it.

The Firesign Theatre is comedy but it's not about jokes. It's not for those whose tastes in "humor" veer toward teevee stand ups spouting easily digested one-liners about the banal commonalities of life such as body functions, body parts, eating and drinking, domestic relations, raising offspring, annoying extended family members, housepets, or specific commodity celebrities of the day.

Firesign is not about slapstick, physical humor, or quips that wouldn't be funny without the punctuation of gratuitous obscenity. It's not for those who seek out the comedian who makes the most noise or the wildest gestures. It's not for those who think the measure of a humorist's wit and incisiveness is determined by which standup babbles the fastest or sounds like Bugs Bunny.

What this means is that Firesign Theatre is comedy and commentary like nothing else you've ever heard. You will only get as much out of it as you bring into it. If one suffers from a short attention span due to too many years of passively consuming the convenience of short attention span media it may be advisable to exercise that ability before coming to the Firesigns' table.

I get a kick out of The Firesign Theatre. They were the equivalent of The American GOON Show. And just like some people can't stand The Goon Show, some people can't stand these albums. But if you like them, this one's worth the time. The other good ones are Two Places, Bozos, Dwarf/Pliers, and Giant Rat of Sumatra.

Turn off your mind relax and float downstream. Entertainment for the mentaly enhanced. The words describe the words as you find a dark room and a few hours with the phone unplugged and doors locked. The fine woven gears of Firesign theatre transport you to forbidden places and celestial visons.

WARNING::::
When played backwards you will see God.. Mirror required incense and padded cell optional. Management not responsible for lost mental abilities.

I remember listening to "Waiting for the Electrician" when it came out. Earphones. Sunshine LSD. What's not to like. I lost my vinyl of all the Firesign guys and got replacements recently. Listening 38 years later, it has excatly the same effect. Must be flashbacks. Satire is beyond time. Each self standing one act play defines the language of the piece so that the 60's and 70's lingua via is accessible. The title auditory show is more powerful now than then because they got it all right.

For those of you who know and loved this originally as an LP, you will be disappointed to learn that sony messed up the remix BIG TIME by deleting important dialog at the beginning of the second side of the album (of course, on the cd it would be the second segment). The beginning of the second side IS CRITICAL to the subject of the performance and as best as I can recall, should have begun something like this:

"Welcome to side 4. Please follow along as we learn 3 new words in Turkish.
Towel, Bath, Border...may I see your passport please..." ...
(someone could please tweak this for I know this is not EXACTLY the dialog).

Anyway, you get the idea. The beginning is suppose to be as if you were listening to one of those "Berlitz" language records. Just wish/ hope sony would rectify this REAL SOON!