PUNKY BRUSTER - "COOKED ON PHONICS"

Details: 1996 rare comedy punk concept album by Strapping Young Lad's Devin Townsend. From the back cover..."The Story: The cheesy death metal band Cryptic Coroner, in a sensational move, become the punk rock phenomenon of the century when they realise they are making no money!! At long last, after weeks of waiting...you, the wise, wealthy and discriminate music lover, can experience this epic saga of deceit, betrayal, anarchy and decent marketing for yourself! Hear the authentic 'Punk-O-Phonic' recording quality! Gawk at stunning three-chord songs! Wince through a lot of bad filler material! It's all here for your twisted enjoyment! So join Dr. Skinny, Squid Vicious and Dances With Chickens in the wallet-chain wearin', middle-class white North American angst party known as Cooked On Phonics." The lyrics are both clever and funny and the between song story line is hysterical!!!A detailed album review can be found after the tracklisting. The source of the review is unknown.

Tracklisting:

1. Recipe for Bait
2. Fake Punk
3. EZ$$
4. Metal Dilemma
5. Oats Peas Beans & Barley
6. Wallet Chain
7. Heinous Anus
8. Heavy Metal Mama
9. Crusty's at the Ivanhoe
10. Picture of Myself
    The Girls Next Door
    Larry's O
11. Metal Heads Are Punk Rockers 

When the name Devin Townsend is brought up in conversation, his work under the banners of Strapping Young Lad, Ocean Machine, Terria, Physicist, Infinity and the recently released epic from The Devin Townsend Band are commonly thrown about. There is one project though that rarely gets a mention, and its name is Punky Brüster. This month we delve into the punk phenomenon that is ‘Cooked On Phonics’.

Concept albums take all shapes and forms, but in the realm of comedy/concept albums, few have been attempted, and rarely do they succeed to remain funny after a few spins.

Following Townsend’s stint as vocalist on Steve Vai’s ‘Sex & Religion’ album and tour in 1993/94, Townsend set about recording the debut Strapping Young Lad album ‘Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing’ in 1995. The success of the album was slow building, but the Japanese market bought it up in droves. Around the same time, Townsend noticed a growing trend amongst some bands that were supposedly metal a few years back, changing their tune and becoming punk rock bands sporting the wallet chains and facial piercing. So taken by the idea was Townsend that he asked Sony Japan if they’d allow him to record a punk concept album for a laugh. They agreed, and Townsend soon assembled a group together for the recording.

Although details are sketchy at best, the group comprised of Devin Townsend (Dr. Skinny/Lord Stenchlor) on lead vocals and guitar, John Randahl Harder (Squid Vicious/Jokor, King Of The Orcs) on bass, Adrian White (Burns) (Dances With Chickens/Underwator) on drums (He also played drums on S.Y.L.’s debut) and backing vocals and instrumentation from Chris Valagao from Zimmer’s Hole (E. Val Mescal), Jed Simon (Ace Longback), Byron Stroud (Stoolie B. Flames), Bob Wagner (Velvet Kevorkian) and some others who choose to remain anonymous.

As with all his other projects, all the songs were written by Townsend (With some additional arrangements by White), and was produced, recorded by Townsend all within a week!

The precise of the album is quite original. The album begins in a club called Malone’s where Polish death metal act Cryptic Coroner (Who I’d love to hear more from) take to the stage, only to break a string and find themselves improvising pop punk to keep the crowd from attacking them. This introduces the first musical number ‘Recipe For Bait’. Lyrically the song is a crack up as the death metal act spells out their distaste for playing punk. A couple of the albums true highlights are the follow up numbers ‘Fake Punk’ and ‘EZ$$’. The songs are strong enough to stand up on their own, and lyrically really stand out as some of Devin’s greatest sarcastic genius moments.

The spoken word narratives between songs help tie in the concept, with the meeting between the band and their old death metal manager rating as one of the silliest (And funniest).

‘Metal Dilemma’, as the name suggests, is as close as the album gets to metal (Especially the ‘Heavy metal now!’ and ‘Give me one more metal yell!’ moments), while ‘Oats, Peas, Beans, & Barley’ has punk/metal written all over it.

‘Wallet Chain’ (Delivered by the classic Indian delivery postal man) is a cheap stab at punk attire, while ‘Heinous Anus’ is a disturbing side effect from nerves after being nominated from a Grammy Award. The classic scene where Punky Brüster’s vocalist/guitarist Dr. Skinny brings home a groupie who rejects him in disgust when she finds out his metal is portrayed perfectly in ‘Heavy Metal Mama’, while ‘Crusty’s At The Ivanhoe’ sees our hero drowning his sorrows.

Onto the Grammy’s, and Entertainment This Hour’s P.J. Littlepricky announces Punky Brüster as the winner for the Lifelong Achievement Award for the best punk rock band.

The album then ends with the band performing their most serious number, ‘Picture Of Myself’.

The hidden tracks ‘The Girls Next Door’ (A piss take of The Ramones), ‘Larry’s O’ (Nice Ministry rip off at the start, but soon moves into some more serious music) and ‘Metal Heads Are Punk Rockers’ (More tributes to The Ramones) obviously couldn’t be made to fit into the albums compact concept, but are just as worthy as tracks on their own.

As far as punk goes, Punky Brüster stands up on its own musically, and as for the jokes, well I’m still laughing after all these years.

Townsend also stated that the album was not to be taken seriously, but upon release, ‘Cooked On Phonics’ managed to climb its way to number three in the Japanese charts!

Because of that success, the album was never commercially available outside Japan for many years, with fears that fans of Townsend’s work wouldn’t understand the joke!

Although Devin has since distanced himself from the album, from time to time Townsend has expressed interest in making a sequel to ‘Cooked On Phonics’, but in a country context. But know Townsend, the idea was entertained for the duration of the interview, and soon put aside for more serious music.

Even though Punky Brüster has played shows in Japan (Supporting Strapping Young Lad), the only testimony to these shows was a live version of ‘Fake Punk’ that appeared on Townsend’s 1999 demo collection ‘Official Bootleg’.

As the back cover proudly states, ‘Hear the authentic “Punk-O-Phonic” ™ recording quality! Gawk at stunning three-chord song structures! Wince through a lot of bad filler material!’ Punky Brüster was never meant to be anything but a fun stab at pop/punk and it’s tired packaged anarchy. Townsend might be considered a musical genius in some minds, but this album also proves there’s a stand up comedian hiding in the Canadian too!