Idiot Flesh - Fancy

Idiot Flesh - Fancy (1997) on Vaccination Records

1. Dead Like Us
2. Idiot Song
3. Teen Devil Worshipper
4. Chicken Little
5. Twitch
6. Drowning
7. Motherfucker
8. Bach Is Dead
9. Diggity Cow And The Dandy Mr. Clyde
10. The Straw
11. Cheesus (Dance Mix)
12. People In Your Neighborhood
13. Dead Like Us (Reprise)

http://www.mediafire.com/?yznwkqwkmjz

For some peculiar reason, any band that happens to be amazing & also have strong avant-garde tendencies just so happens to be from the San Fransisco/Oakland area. Maybe it's something in the water, or they've all spent too much time at Barrington Hall. All that matters it that this album is pretty epic, as in, "easily makes desert island 10 list" epic.

Idiot Flesh, as rumors have it, broke up in 1998 when they were offered their first record deal. That would be the sort of news that you cry yourself to sleep over, except members Nils Frykdahl & Dan Rathbun went on to form Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Everything about Idiot Flesh is "outside the box." They had no actual frontman, everyone but the drummer sang. They were also all multi-instrumentalists, so the aural palette is much wider than your average album.

The absurdity of the songs is fantastic. "Teen Devil Worshipper" was inspired by an episode of Geraldo Rivera. "Chicken Little" differs from the children's tale in that the sky does actually fall at the end. There's a Residents cover and a Sesame Street cover (more of a skit really). Musically, the album ends with "The Straw" which puts the entirety of T.S. Elliot's "The Hollow Men" to music.

It's such a shame that this album is not only so difficult to come by, but that when it does surface on eBay, there's no way in hell it sells for less than $70. Supposedly the End Records (the current home to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) has plans to reissue this gem, but is having hang ups on how to reproduce the intricate cardboard folding jacket the CD comes in.