Rating:
Genre:
Spoken Word
Release Date: 09/25/2001
Starting on January 25, 1973, and running for 350 performances,
National Lampoon magazine sponsored a comedy revue at the off-Broadway
Village Gate nightclub in Greenwich Village.
National Lampoon Lemmings featured sketch comedy in its first act, but its second act was given over to an elaborate satire of
Woodstock that allowed for parodies of popular music figures of the day. Future
Saturday Night Live cast members
John Belushi and
Chevy Chase were featured,
Belushi originating the
Joe Cocker impersonation he would perform on television (
"Lonely at the Bottom"),
Chase turning in a wicked takeoff on
John Denver (
"Colorado"). But the biggest musical talent was
Christopher Guest, who would go on to greater fame in
This Is Spinal Tap.
Guest co-wrote and sang cutting portraits of
Bob Dylan (
"Positively Wall Street") and
James Taylor (
"Highway Toes"). At a time when
singer/songwriter music was all the rage, the sensitive types came in for special attention (there is also a song by "
Freud,
Marx,
Engels, and
Jung"), but the closing song was a general-purpose send-up of
heavy metal by a fictional group called
Megadeath. (Of course, later on there actually was a
heavy metal band called
Megadeth.)
"Pizza Man," a
girl group number, was amusing but seemed out of place, while the black music song
"Papa Was a Running-Dog Lackey of the Bourgeoisie" targeted
Motown and
Curtis Mayfield. Some of the comedy is dated, and the satire depends on familiarity with the
Woodstock movie and biographical details of the artists' lives. Some of the material is also visual, and a video would better represent the show than this audio recording. But for
rock & roll fans with a black sense of humor, it doesn't get much better than this, especially since a group of future comedy stars are glimpsed at the start of their careers.
~William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
;)
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