Salt and Sugar

Like Salt in a Wound
by: terry sawyer

“I’ve always enjoyed the Gomers’ music, in large part, because they suck” – Tom Laskin

With a quote like that on the back of the jewel case, it’s really hard to know where to begin. If you love bands because they suck, surely the world is your oyster. Me, I’m old fashioned. If a band sucks, I dislike them, in large part, because they do.

The Gomers are like a fart joke marathon at a sci-fi convention. Don’t get me wrong, I love humor, but I tend to like it funny. “My Dad” is a song about having the Pope as a father. (“some say he’s super holy, some say he’s cleaner than soap”) “I Am An Antenna” is about, you guessed it, being an antenna. (“I am an antenna, I’m made of copper wire”) Unsurprisingly, The Gomers have a Star Trek song, titled “Start Wreck” that contains such sloth-witted gems as “I don’t want to be a jerk, but I am just like Captain Kirk”. I suppose what Tom Laskin meant in the quote above was that rarely is such a pure specimen of inanity found in the wild. But to me that’s like admiring someone for being the first person to put candy corn in a piece of shit and try selling it to the Musem of Modern Art. There is such a thing as being uselessly original.

Musically, there’s nothing worth mentioning, so I’ll just kill time. They sound like a bunch of middle aged men with a few dog-eared Zappa LPs who play office Christmas parties. “Tanze Herr Whoren, Tanz” is a torturous polka completely in German, made more pleasant than the other songs only because I don’t speak German. On “Capital City Band” one can only sit through several sitcom saxophone riffs because suicide probably hurts. “Everything’s Dumb” sloppily robs the vitality of punk rock. “Rustlin’ Ushers” is about as country as the theme to Sheriff Lobo (“Cause he’s our Sheriff Lobo/Mighty Sheriff Lobo”). Their philosophy seems to be: leave no genre unmurdered. While I can’t stand Weird Al, I can at least appreciate that his parodies take satirical jabs at cultural icons. The Gomers don’t even pretend to have a point, something that I suppose we should be thankful for.

If you’re twelve or over thirty and still throwing role playing game parties for your friends, this CD will probably sound so fucking cool. That is, until you lose your virginity. For everyone else, this is to be avoided like chatty religious fundamentalists. I’d rather have a river fluke climb the arc of my urine and lay eggs in my cock than ever listen to this again. 17-Aug-2003 9:00 AM