Michael DeFabio And The
Other Leading Brand

The Illegalist Man In Show Business
*special introductory paragraph!
*Hilarious Soybean Stories
*Who Wants To Be A Millipede?
*Milkshake X Infinity
*The Importance Of Being Awesome

Michael DeFabio is a teenager who has made the grave mistake of frequenting my web site on semi-regular occasions for a few years now. His douchebag cocksucker friends are trying to get him to boycott the site because of a few less than favorable comments I may or may not have made about Radiohead at some time in the distant past, but Michael is far too smart to fall for the suggestions of fools. He is also one of the best goddamned sound collagists I have ever heard. And that INCLUDES bigshots like Negativland and the Tape Beatles. Mike just wallows in pop culture references, twisting and turning them into danceable, funny, stupid jokes that will keep you glued to your seat while your ass shakes around tantalizingly. You gotta get in touch with the guy to find out how you can order these discs -- he's at ratherlargedog@hotmail.com. Compute on!


Hilarious Soybean Stories - 1999.
Rating = 7

I'm going to level a charge at Mr. DeFabio that has been levelled at me many a time throughout my young life, and one which I hope he will not take to heart: this CD is too long. It's 70 minutes of sound experimentation -- samples upon samples, twisted and tied together, piled on top of each other, separated only by simple synthesizer tunes and the sounds of Mike's friends and accomplices talking about school issues. Because Mike is smart and talented as all hell, a good most of the disc is impressive as poop - he does things with "Moby Dick" and "Yummy Yummy Yummy" that only the Residents could have thought up (winkety wink), as well as bringing a chuckle to the shine of every young gentleman and/or woman aleve with classic samples from the likes of Seinfeld ("Maybe the dingo ate your baby!"), Airplane!, South Park, The Newlywed Game, The Price Is Right, President Reagan, several Chevy Chase films and hundreds of other sources of questionable legality.

But astonishing collages like "There Is No Monday In The Cheese Palace" and "Channel Surfing With The Alient" don't really excuse the inclusion of half-assed ripoffs like "You Have No Idea," "French Teacher" and "Therefore One Equals Infinity," which are just tapes of people talking placed on top of Pink Floyd songs. Sure, Pink Floyd were awesome but it's odd that Mike would just let the tunes play through instead of screwing around with them like he does the Rush and ELP songs he fucks up so beautifully elsewhere on the CD. Hmmm. Hmmm? Hmm!

Having made my minor complaints, I would like to again stress that the best material on here is thrilling and funny as shit -- definitely better than "serious" sampling artists, of whom I can name zero and thus am making a ridiculously uninformed claim regarding. But who could not love "Republican Pants" and "Shakespeare Loved Reggae"? They include samples of ME, for Jeeves' Holy Church! Where are my royalties, you bumpershoot? If I don't get my royalty, you don't get my loyalty!

Reader Comments

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
Ugh. What an embarrassment. I hardly think this deserves a seven. A five is more like it. The samples are obvious and overused ("When The Levee Breaks" is sampled in TWO different songs) and the lines from movies, television shows, and commercials that are sampled are either cliched to the point of not being funny at all or have not aged well. What's worse is that at this point in my "career," I really didn't understand the concept of sampling, which means that often the music consists of entire Pink Floyd songs with nothing much happening on top of it--I like to refer to this approach to sampling as "the Puff Daddy method," and I now avoid it like a terrible disease. If anyone sues me, it should be because of THIS album.

There ARE a few really good songs that I'm quite proud of. "Ghetto Sandwich" mangles Cypress Hill's "Insane In The Membrane" into a twisted salute to food, and "Republican Pants" actually contains samples that are used CREATIVELY. But the bulk of this album is made up of stupid, unfunny jokes that no one should ever have to listen to. And the sound quality is terrible, since in an effort to save hard drive space, I recorded at extremely low sampling rates--bad idea. Stay away from this one.

(a little while later)

One more thing I'd like to say right here--the funniest bits on this album were completely stolen outright. The Reagan collage and the Monty Python/Cypress Hill bits were made by other people who posted them on their websites so I could find them and steal them. This CD is not the work of a clever mind--it is the work of a shady plagiarist.

Yeah, you know how Rivers Cuomo hates Pinkerton so much? Well I hate Hilarious Soybean Stories even MORE. I'm lowering my grade to a 2.

Add your thoughts?


Who Wants To Be A Millipede? - 2000.
Rating = 7

The problem with this one isn't the length - it's the way Mike uses it. He is a master soundscaper, not a master guitarist. He is a master sample compiler, not a master feedback artist. So things like the nine-and-a-half-minute techno art piece "Saga Of The Viking Women And Their Voyage To The Waters Of The Great Sea Serpent" and the DREADFUL acoustic guitar slopfest "A Series Of Anecdotes About My Childhood" make him sound a lot less talented than he actually is. If you want to hear Mike at his finest, you have to skip to awesome aural landscapes like "Big Penguin," "Technicolor Cheeze Wedge" and the BRILLIANT "Longdog," "Piso Mojado" and "We Are The Fall" (which concludes with the hilarious punchline - "Keyboardist, you're fired!"). These tunes, among others, sound like they required time, effort, smarts and a great sense of humor. So why does he feel the need to clog up the rest of the 68-minute CD with stuff like "Dig To China" and "26643 Mission Blvd," which, as far as I can tell, were just recorded straight off of his TV and put on the CD for no clear reason? Dunno. Maybe he was in a hurry to finish the CD? Regardless, there's plenty killer material to enjoy here (dig the way he shoves an extra distorted guitar onto a stolen metal track in "I Can See Clearly Now, My Brain Is Gone"!, thrill to the stupid mouth noises the make up the backbone of the disgustingly hilarious "Music To Eat Ham To"!, shake your neighbor's groove dance jive butt to the sample-riffic soul and rave boogie of "Wooly Mammoth 2000," "Running People" and "Dr. Driscoll's Fantasmariffic Crapmobile."

I like Mike DeFabio. I hope he doesn't get pissed off that I only gave his CDs scores of 7. There's just too much filler on these otherwise excellent computer-ripped artistic creations! Still beats the shit out of the Chemical Brothers though. No contest. Those guys represent the worst that electronic music has to offer, if you ask me.

One final note: Did you know that when you combine the celebrity names "Mike D" and "Fabio," you get "Mike DeFabio"?

Mike did!

Reader Comments

ruinedinternet@netscape.net (muffins the stupendous monchicky)
dr. mister mark (i love kiss but not radiohead) prindle, i am deeply, deeply disturbed that you choose to only award this glorious album of inventive noise collage a seven, seeing as it is a work of unparalleled genius by a young man whose future in the music industry seems bright as bright can be (assuming he isn't sued too often). whilst i see the validity in the points you made regarding songs like "24463 mission blvd" (which, frankly, is probably my least favorite track on the album), you grasp not the quirky genius of the terribly distorted opus that is "viking women."

whatever. 'tis all good, as they say in the ghettos of blackhawk.

one aspect of this album that you certainly missed, though, was the clear - and massive - progression made from hilarious soybean stories to this album. "republican pants" was a great song, but it can't live up to "music to eat ham to" or any of the other defabioid techno masterpieces on this album.

and the great thing about the music of mr. michael defabio is that it always gets better. just wait until you hear material by mike's new outfit, the combustible brothers. there are three reasons this music is so earth shatteringly brilliant: mike manewitz, elisabeth payack, ashley mccall.

breathe the air, exhale your soul MOTHAFUCKA! aw yea.

check 1, 2.

so, the point i'm trying to make with this review is that mike defabio is a sooper genius and that everyone (and i mean EVERYONE) should get a copy of his albums before he decides to stop burning them. he's groovy.

oh, and he's my prom date.

(and they were really the same person...)

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
These are the pros and cons of Millipede. Pros: All the ideas are mine. Nothing ripped off from anywhere. (Unless you think sampling is ripping off. There's still plenty of that.) The production is marginally better than that of HSS, because I was still discovering new ways to mess things up with the two-track audio editor I was using at the time (more flange!!!). And there are some good songs buried beneath all the clipping and the low sampling rates, particularly "Piso Mojado" and "Wooly Mammoth," despite the fact that I sampled the Propellerheads in the latter. That's kinda wack.

Cons: Sound quality is still crappy, flange or no flange. The songs were all thrown together so lazily that the samples keep falling out of sync with each other, making everything sound much more amateurish than necessary. (This is most noticeable on "Viking Women," "Dog Island," and "My Brain Is Gone.") There's also way too much filler--lots of stupid noise tracks with no real point to them, like "Radioactive Goat" and "Chunka Spuzz." And then there's the acoustic song...shudder.

Sure, it's not horrible. I'd say it's worth a 5 or so. But I've gotten so much better since then. When Milkshake X Infinity comes out (in just a few months!!) you'll forget these two albums ever existed. It will wash them both away in a thick chocolate river of redemption.

KissTheViolet@aol.com
one subject I feel that was sourly neglected when one looks at a piece of art such as hilarious soybean stories and who wants to be a millipede is the intensive study of the psychology of man. defabio scours anything from progression of child to adult, marine animals historical metamorphosis to humans, original sin, etc.

one may ask how one would extract such a profound psychological sojourn within the beating hearts of man from defabios latest album. They may even feel that it is inconceivable.. So I take it upon myself to further expose these startling parallels that have made themselves apparent to myself.

a.)original sin: on the advent of man there was an individual so heinous as to eat an apple (gasp), yes yes we are talking about the rebellious and naive youths (or as Joe pesci would orate, "yout's") adam and eve. from this Man was cast to perdition, aka earth, to live, if they chose, a life of extreme bliss for the knowledge that they were part of an ever turning wheel composed of and revolving about god, or else they could live, rejecting their role as a part of a cog on this ever turning wheel, without contentment because they were not empowered by the knowledge of god..

oh, you say, this sucks... but from this we were also made aware of our selfishness and our ability to reject our epicurean or hedonistic acts.. this relates to defabios work quite simply because he based his album on this golden certainty of mortality against spiritual immortality.. i mean ... look at the title.. who WANTS to be a millipede? what he is really saying is, are we to indulge in this selfish wants whether valid or not or tangible or not.

Oh yes..

b.) upon the association of this album to man's progression from child to adult, simply acknowledge the fine work entitled a series of anecdotes about my childhood. defabio is expressing, with craft and skill, childhood actions through use of guitar.. therefore he is looking back to his youth only to relate it to the world using only skill he has zoned into as an adult..

c.) Metamorphosis from marine life to human...

just take a look at his use of animals ... from ham in music to eat ham to, to goat in such novelties as radioactive goat, we see he is trying to connect to his genetic relatives through song, helping to develop a history of past events which led up to the creation of man.

for these reasons and these reasons only, I feel that this album should be rewarded an eight.. And would also like to say that I really feel his blooming to such levels and progress of his ideologies must be traced back to his relations to Mike manewitz(yay), ashley mccall and elisabeth payack.

yes, so let us embrace his genius pushing it before the world...

stray_toasters@juno.com (Andrew R.)
My name is Andrew. Mike's my message board buddy from Music Babble. He gave me both of his albums in exchange for dubbed videos of Ren and Stimpy (read my over-written reviews at http://comicartoon.50megs.com ). And he asked me to review them.

I couldn't get through Hilarious Soybean Stories all the way through and don't remember any of it. Except vowing to murder Mike for sampling Pink Floyd. If I wanted to listen to Pink Floyd (which I rarely do), I'd actually put them on. Mike gave me permission to spare myself the task of listening to it a second time. However, I did listen to Who Wants to be a Millipeed at work and took notes as I listened. Here are the notes:

Track 1 – Goring!
Track 2 – Sounds like something I heard in the background of Channel 24, the Evangelist channel. Not badly sampled. Oh boy a toy synth followed by spacey electronic dunce beats. Actually sounds like there’s a melody under this crap.
3 – Funny intro, sucky track. Maybe if I’m slap-happy I’ll laugh. Oh wait, he’s making fun of hardcore thrash. I’m sorry. It’s okay. Still novelty crap, though.
4 – Woah! Listen to Mr. Apehx Twin!
5 – Cartman impersonation funny.
6 – More Squarepusher wanna-beness. Samples Twilight Zone, then oompah-loompah singing
7 – Internet ad will date in a few years when internet is gone
8 – amusing
9 – Sounds like me when I dick around on my bass
10 – anti-vegan propaganda
11 – electronic noises very badly mixed
12 – Sample of crappy adult contemporary with synclavier and flute. Becomes dissonant.
13 – Static blabber
14 – Japanese commercial. Oh yeah, real funny. Friz Frleng could make fun of the Japanese better than you.
15 – 9 ½ minutes. You’ll pay for this. With your small and large intestines. Actually, almost 2 min. in it’s petty good. But watch it get boring. Very obvious melody break at 2:20 in. Alternate tone at 2:30…melody just kinda sits there…sounds like it’s fading…we’re at 3 min. now got a ways to go…quirky conga beat with bad Fripp-wannabe pyrotechnics…electronic seagull squeals…Helllllo Moonchild! I was wondering when I’d be listening to you again…5 minutes…dude! This should be an intro, not a middle! IF you had just kept the first 2 ½ min. going, everything would be alright. ..2/3 done…more Fripp desecrating…7 min. Wait…a riff is returning…it’s getting semi-good again…hey! This’ catchy! 1 ½ min left…we return to the initial glory with a min. left to go. Nice melody there kid. With a little more thought into your song structure you might be onto something.
16 – Following a lengthy piece with a short piece of similar quality is always traumatic. ‘s why I’m glad this’ just a stupid drum beat.
17 - …see my comment on track 15, only replace 9 ½ with 3 min. Key changes’re nice.
18 – Neat helicoptering techno beats.
19 – I’ve never heard this melody before…
20 – Next!
21 – Homies
22 – Shite
23 – Huh?
24 – bad skit
25 – A synthesized guitar riff of GBV quality!
26 – More seagulls scratching a chalkboard
27 - You sampled ‘In the Cage’! You sampled Tony Banks! [‘cunt smoker’ remark removed for fear of offending someone]
28 – Now I know his last name is pronounced.

Keep in mind I don't know a lot about techno music, but I know what I like when I hear it. And most of the actual music on here I like. Problem is, there's not a lot of actual music on here.

I can't rate this, since I'm not comfortable rating music (what the hell would I be rating it against, anyway?). It would probably be a low one, though. Well, I think if Mike concentrated on making a whole album as good as the first couple minutes of that long track, he'd have something going there. When he indulges in atonal sound effects or bad skits, the quality of the album is let down. He could become a great techno artist, though.

Add your thoughts?


* Milkshake X Infinity - 2004 *
Rating = 10

I was lying on the floor petting Mr. Henry The Dog just a few moments ago, wondering what in God's Butt I could say about such a multilayered, brilliant and copyright-unfriendly non-release as Milkshake X Infinity when suddenly out of the guitar rock din of "Conditional Positive Regard," I heard Mark E. Smith say to me, "Feel the wrath...of my...Bombast!"

This was enough to give me the first thing I wanted to say to you: There are so truckfuckingly many samples in each of the 31 tracks on these two 68-minute discs, you'll likely be able to listen to it forty times in a row without hearing everything there is to hear. RECOGNIZING all the samples is a different matter altogether, not only because Mike pulls from hundreds of different sources from dozens of genres and media types (as well as creating his own music), but because he puts the samples completely out of context, combining them with other loops of music that express entirely different keys and moods. The result is absolutely astonishing, not only because he makes it all sound so seamless (though full to bursting with different elements), but because the songs themselves -- the DeFrankensteinio's Monster creations -- are in nearly EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE catchier, more intelligent and more melodic than the original tracks he's pulled the samples from.

Basically, Mike is writing songs here. He's writing brand new songs filled with ingenious guitar/synth/bass interplay and hilarious words, but pulling them together from other peoples' previous creations, along with a helpful dishpan of his own work (the most hilarious being the scissors, tape, stapler and other rhythmic household objects he uses to create the Eno-esque "Desk Drawer"). Most of the rhythm lines are funkier than a Sly Stone album, but his moods capture everything from keyboard pop to rap to guitar rock to ambiance to trip-hop to -- see, the thing is that I'm not really a FAN of keyboard pop, ambience or trip-hop so clearly I'm not describing this right. Basically, in a word, the songs are CATCHY. Some have horns. Some have guitars. Some have real bass lines; other synth bass lines. Some concentrate mainly on cramming as many weird breaks into an ultra-busy drum line as possible. But they are ALL catchy somehow! That's the thing that kills me -- it's so fucking smart. These elements were not INTENDED to go together, yet they sound as if they were all recorded at the same time by a tightly knit musical group of talented young minds - not pulled out of some jerk's record collection and shoved together on a computer. I'm too impressed to say anything else.

Okay, I will. You twisted my arb. When that far-too-memorable Discipline-era King Crimson guitar line showed up at the beginning of "The Retributionmobile," I thought to myself, "Oh no. No no no. He's not doing enough with this. Is this why I like these songs so much? Because I don't recognize most of the samples? Because I recognize THIS one and he's not doing much with it." Calm composure sprang forth about 60 seconds later when the song did what EVERY song on here does: filled up with so many different elements, counter-melodies, contrary moods, noises and sounds that the King Crimson guitar line was nearly unrecognizable -- though still clearly there, its entire original mood had been hijacked by the dark rich mush in which it now found itself swimming. See, Mike twists your mind by twisting your expectations. Is that funky guitar in "Please Pass The Funk" from David Bowie's "Fame"? Possibly. But it's too hard to tell for sure because it's been set against an entirely NEW backdrop created from elements of several different songs. Is that a guitar line by The Cure hidden in the background of "Little Cameras In The Walls"? Why yes it is, but as big a Cure fan as I am, I never would have noticed had my wife not pointed it out. I know goddamned well I recognize that guitar tone in "A Shallow Person," but (again, because of its new context) I can't place it! Is it Crosby Stills & Nash? Quite frankly, the ONLY samples that are obvious on first listen are the ones that Mike INTENDS to be obvious on first listen (the "Hip Priest" beat and "Strawberry Fields Forever" outro presented blatantly in stark daylight at the beginning of "Piso Mojado Redux"). The others might as well be a bunch of sperm cells fighting for recognition inside Britney Spears.

People I know who record at their homes for fun shouldn't be making music that's a bajillion times better than everything else I've ever heard in an entire genre: Turntablism? DJing? Sampling? Not sure what "genre" this is, but my sweet Lord, he's so fine at his craft that Milkshake X Infinity is better than the Chemical Brothers, DJ Spooky, DJ Shadow, DJ Bonebrake or any of those noisemaking assgrabs on Ipecac. Even the song titles are great! "Ritalin Rock" (driven by the stolen loop "I don't rhyme for the sake of riddlin'" -- GET IT!?!?!?), "In Space No One Can Hear You Suck," "Indie Cred (Out Of Print 7")," "Collect All Nine!," "Adequate Throbbage" -- all leading up to "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Later" (which sees Mike closing out the album by TRASHING it as 'Banal!,' 'Derivative!,' and 'Trite!').

If you don't contact Mike at ratherlargedog@hotmail.com for a copy of this, you're completely missing out on a note-perfect example of what a handy mind can dream of in its constellation. Never a dull moment, never a wasted nanosecond, and never a minute's peace -- and you can dance to ALL of it!

Reader Comments

horatio@failedmarriage.com
I don't know how fans of electronic-y music would react to this, but speaking as a rock-&-roll kinda guy, I think this is the real deal. You gotta turn it up loud, though - you'll miss out on so much if you don't! There's guitars all over the place! Plus guitar-like-noise! The busiest rhythm track you'll ever hear! Insane ambient music with scissors-as-percussion! Drugged-out hippie conspiracy theories! Prominent Fox News opinion-makers telling you to shut up! AND SO MUCH MORE! DEFINITELY deserves a 10.

somethingclever@mail.com
I read the review for this CD a while ago. It sounded very interesting, but there a little part of me that thought maybe Mr. Prindle's review of it was biased because Mike frequented his site or whatever. I was wrong. This CD rocks! I finally ordered it and I'm glad I did. It was the best money I've spent in a while. Much better than those prostitutes that may or may not have been transsexuals. I mean they looked pretty lady-like at the time. I may have been under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or two, or thirty. Shameful or not, they provided a nice release. Anyhow, back to the CD. I've been listening to it all day, and just love it. I love it more than I love my mother, and she's dead. The samples, there's so many, they're all over the place. It's like Fatboy Slim, only with a bazillion more samples and guitars and cleverness and awesomeness and funniness and sexiness and whatnot. And it's loud, and it deserves to be with so much going on. And there's two CD's, there's a lot of sweetness to be had!

I'm just very glad I finally ordered it. It's a musical orgasm. And I'm like the king of orgasms. If I'm not pleasuring myself, I'm thinking of ways to seduce mildly attractive women. Not to get off topic here, this CD is most definitely worth checking out, and I masturbate a lot.

t_trudeau@tru.ca
Hey Mark,

I just noticed that only one other person has commented on TOLB's Milkshake X Infinity (my old address was horatio@failedmarriage.com). And that inspired me to write something else about it, after gaining six months perspective on the album.

Okay, MxI is one of the greatest albums ever made (IMO). 156 minutes of catchy melodies and amazing sounds. It never gets boring, it never slows down, and it never dissapoints. And it never seems to get old, either! I still listen to it a lot, and usually once I get bored with a CD (even a really good one) I have zero interest in it from then on. Period. And did I mention Mr. Defabio only asks for a very reasonable $10 for it?

I didn't care for electronic music before I heard MxI, and it's inspired me to look up stuff by the Meat Beat Manifesto, DJ Shadow, Aphex Twin, etc. etc. And you know what? Even though I've grown to like all that music a lot, it doesn't hold a candle to the gooey goodness contained on these two discs. As far as I can tell, the best electronic music in the world IS being made by a mostly-anonymous guy in California working on his computer. Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways.

All I'm trying to say is: MxI is great. If you're a fan of electronic music, you will LOVE it. If you aren't, this might make you one. I think I stole that turn of phrase from an AllMusic review, but I'll overlook it for now.

PS: if you're still not convinced, check out the review of MxI on that Disclaimer guy's site! He says everything I think about it better than I ever could!

gleatherman@gmail.com
Wow. I'm not sure it is wise to try to listen to this thing all in one sitting. It is a real mind-blower. It's starts off with a live velvet underground sample and then a great funk beat and just goes apeshit for over 2 hours.

Truly stunning. I can't imagine the bent drive of the guy who did this. Shot to the top of my best-of list for this year very quickly.

m.o.n.t.a.n.a@comcast.net
I have the distinct priveledge of sitting with mr. defabulous every weekend evening and listening to his weekly music selection, as well as some of the more recent works (in the oven)

let me tell you first hand the new stuff is grandtasctic and just as interesting as MXI. Beware, as soon there will be a OLB website to flee in terror from.

unquote

Add your thoughts?


The Importance Of Being Awesome - 2007
Rating = 8

I believe it was Oscar Wilde who once said, "The importance of being awesome is Jim Varney's 'Ernest', something something something." But little did he know that one day a young boy from Richmond, CA would make those dreams come aware.

Where I Ate A Bunch Of Milkshakes was a sample-heavy rock fan's fever dream of crazy brilliance, The Importance Of Being Awesome is an electronic music album, such as those you might hear from a younger, better Meat Beat Manifesto. In fact, on first listen I thought to myself, "Hay, where's all the switcheroo familiar-riffs-in-the-wrong-context stuff he did last time?" and grew discouraged and weepy. But then I sat myself down and said, "Okay, this is a new Other Leading Brand. Listen to it as music - not as a wacky goodtime puzzle." So what I did was think to myself, "If this were a Meat Beat Manifesto album, would I like it?"

And HELLS YEAH I would! Please note that this music doesn't actually sound like Meat Beat Manifesto at all; I simply use MBM as a guidepost because their earlier, better work is among the very few electronic musics I actually quite enjoy. And you can add The Importance Of Being Awesome to that coveted list. Some of its songs are dancey, others dark and hypnotic, still others melodic as the day, still further others more mood than anything else, even still further others comically reminiscent of mid-'80s cornball dance-pop. Most are formed from a sound-universe of electronic squiggles/swishes, hard electronic or looped beats, guitar/bass/organ samples, synthesizer washes, wordless background vocals, electronic pulses, reverb, stereo separation, digital tremelo, found dialog, and musical tones manipulated by so many different effects that it's impossible to make out what they once were.

The only samples that I recognize (or think I recognize) are from Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over," John Lennon's "Look At Me," Simon & Garfunkel's "I Am A Rock," the Beach Boys' "In My Room," Alice Cooper's "The Black Widow," a Longmont Potion Castle TV prank, and a pair of strangely obvious and under-decontextualized riffs stolen from The Police's "King Of Pain" and Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter." I'm sure Mr. Defabio likely pulled samples from other sources as well, but so much of this material could reasonably be straight outta his computerized instruments that I hesitate to guess which of the elements are samples and which are homegrown.

The artwork follows a concept of the stronger figure destroying the weaker - Darwinism, The Survival Of The Fittest. A gigantic man steps on a smaller man; a bear eats a fishy, a gross brown bug vanquishes a delightful green bug. I think what DeFabio is saying here is: "Look out world, I'm comin' to getcha!" But of course, he's not. Nobody good ever comes to get the world. It's too busy being gotten by Fall Out Boy.

All 15 tracks on The Importance Of Being Awesome are comprised of seemingly thousands of different tones and noises. But what the hell are they!? Only Tiny Squished Man knows the truth.

Quick! Stick him in the Resuscitation Booth!

And your question about the "8" - well, it's just personal preference as these things go. The first song only has one chord, the Nile Rodgers synthetic groove of "Export to Wav" isn't a favored genre, some of the others seem to drag on for too long with no melodic changes - but I'm telling you, the 8 is a real 8. Not a "Hey, I know this guy" 8. If it had deserved a 7, I would have given it a 7 and just lowered the grades of his first two as a compromise. But this is a really good album. It's going to be difficult for Mike (or anybody) to top Milkshake X Infinity, but as long as he keeps conjuring up moody, swishy, dancey sound collages like these, who gives a (Loretta) Swit!?

AND DON'T SAY "HAWKEYE"!!! I FUCKEN HATE IT WHEN YOU SAY "HAWKEYE"!!!!

Also - what do you call that round thing that a bird of prey in the sub-family Accipitrinae uses to view the world?

AND DON'T SAY "BUZZARD-ORB"!!! I FUCKEN HA etc.

Reader Comments

Randy Stovall
Physically, this guy looks and sounds like Quentin Tarantino. Creatively, he's just as deranged, but in a musical sort of way.

Which reminds me, check out the movie: “Four Rooms,” to see Quentin Tarantino as an idealized version of himself

Add your thoughts?


Back to Stinky McCafferty's Beans Beans Good For Your Heart Tennis Shoes