Group shot of the Firesign Theatre (Philip Proctor, David Ossman, Peter Bergman and Phil Austin) performing at the Magic Mushroom, circa 1967.
“A mighty hot dog is our lord….” The listener hears this incantation, this sacrilege, a few minutes into the Firesign Theater’s recording titled Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers. Already, to the uninitiated, the record itself makes the curious more so, the fickle unwilling to listen further, and the stoned giggle a bit longer. What the hell is going on here? What is this time-traveling collection of witticisms, puns good and bad, and a story line that seems to be commenting on the society we live in? Even though it’s from the same time period, it’s not mere stoner humor like Cheech and Chong and it’s quite different from Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory or George Carlin. Some of the jokes don’t start to make sense until one listens to a Firesign Theater album a few times. I mean, listens to the whole album. It is, after all, a drama that demands the listener’s attention and time. You wouldn’t watch Act One of MacBeth and then leave figuring you got the idea of the play, would you?
One similarity Firesign’s work shares with most of the other comedians I mention above is the fact of its social commentary. As Jeremy Braddock discusses in his new book, Firesign: The Electromagnetic History of Everything as Told on Nine Comedy Albums, one of the primary foci of the Firesign Theater’s comedy was the onset of authoritarianism in the United States. Various sketches were thinly veiled references to the proto-fascism of Richard Nixon’s regime, while others referred to the murder of protesting college students at Kent State and Jackson State in 1970. Their first album Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him opens with a telescoped history of the European/United States colonization of the north American continent and the resulting genocide of the indigenous people already living on those lands (Temporarily Humboldt County). (By the time Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers was released, the politics expressed had broadened, presenting an approaching dystopian techno-fascism that became the foundation of the next record I Think We’re All Bozos on this Bus. The essential message was that modern communications technology—which meant television and radio in the mid-1970s—was little more than a means to instill a common understanding of corporate USA, from the White House to the Pentagon to General Motors and Hollywood.
Looking back at the period today, it’s clear that the rebellious satire of Firesign Theater and the aforementioned comedians, together with various underground/alternative media like certain underground comix, newspapers and segments of the so-called counterculture were making what can be considered a final stand. Despite the potential of a communications media that could challenge the dominant paradigm, big business and a compliant government was not gong to allow it. Today, the pervasive and insidious intrusion of social media, internet search engines and other such manifestations of modern communications multiplies the concerns and warnings of Firesign a million-fold. It’s not the forms of the media as much as it is who controls it. At the same time, it’s the forms of the media that allow it to be controlled in the manner that it is. To make this point, the author Braddock quotes a 1973 Firesign skit titled “The Declining Fall of the Roaming Umpire”; a skit that looks at cable television, which had just been opened up by the FCC and was quickly being bought up by corporate America. As Firesign puts it: “And now at last the wealthy and powerful can speak for all!”
In addition to the political and cultural analysis found throughout the text, the author provides plenty of technical information. Like most recordings of the period, the work was done in analog and used very few recording tracks. Firesign’s first album was recorded using only four tracks, just like the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Both records stand out as recording engineering wonders, in large part because of the depth of the final product and the unconventional uses of the available equipment. Braddock does not shirk in his discussions of the technical magic used by the members of Firesign and their production team.
In his introduction, the author tells his readers that he is “not from the Firesign Theater generation.” It was an uncle of his who turned him on to the group and the records. Let me say that as someone who is from that generation, Jeremy Braddock’s book is not just a welcome publication, it’s a significant addition to the literature of the period often called the Long Sixties. In addition, it reminded me of Firesign Theater’s comic genius. Sure, some of it is a bit puerile, some of the ethnic representations would not pass muster in today’s more conscientious world and some of the references are pretty specific to the time (especially the references to Beatles songs in the Nick Danger skit from their second album). Still, the underlying politics and the sharp sense of humor stands the test of time. This text reminds the reader of that fact. From Braddock’s discussion of the troupe’s influences and personal histories to the clever and erudite analysis of the group’s work, his exploration of the Firesign Theater is certainly well worth the wait. Porgy Tirebiter might even agree.
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