I can imagine Commandant Lassard as a college band made of whiz kids too stubbornly perverse to play anything straight enough for the frat boys to howl and bark along with.
The only song here that comes close to being adequate for bar music is General Judy, a more or less straight ahead rocker that flexes its muscles in time with the meatheads’ arm wrestling matches… but then the singer throws a Buddhist chant instead of a hook and it sounds like a cosmic joke. “Bravo” goes the man in the filthy apron. “Now get the hell out of my bar”. Other than that, this is meta weird indie rock served on a Frisbee and balancing precariously between amazing and amusing just before falling into the pit. It’s almost too eccentric for its own sake… those vocal harmonies! It’s just like going to your dad’s funeral wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Don’t get me wrong, these kids were sweet and tender too… the mix holds, believe me, I don’t know how they did it but it does… these songs are earnest yet on the brink of having a drink with uncle Prank (my favorite black sheep).
You know… I can also imagine the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 strolling into a saloon and addressing Commandant Lassard with a snarl: “Hey Strangers! This Universe aint big enough for the two of us”, thus causing a rip in Time-Space’s sordid old fabric… and sending the Commandant into parallel universe obscurity. What, you think that’s weird? Well they’re now getting published at Dog Eared Records… can it get weirder? Not without hoola hoops it can’t.
