Originally published in Verbicide issue #6

Some party…this is insanity at it’s finest. After five years the band in its current incarnation consists of 10 members:  Jack Terricloth, Zundel T’Kotch, Yula Béeri, Franz Nicolay, Lucky Strano, Semra Ercin, Peter Hess, Maura Corrigan, and Dan Baily. Get it?  They’re everything. Ethnic, a melting pot, and it shows in the music and even the song titles (“My Ancestral Homeland, New Jersey”). It’s snare-driven, horn-embellished, ’50s-garnered, vaudeville-inspired entertainment, Tom Waits-esque vocals (“Friend to the Friendless”) pulled off in a way that boggles the mind. If they’re playing the party, I want on the guest list. If the album is spinning at the party, I’m gonna be there. And god help any act that has to follow them at the show.

(Gern Blandsten Records, PO Box 356, River Edge, NJ 07661)