AJFOne’s Customs 6/3 – Broken links????
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LATEST UPDATE 4/6 – Alpocalyptic April Day 2 – Everything You Know is Wrong
VOCALS/BASS: Seil
GUITAR/KEYS: Oddbrother
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“Everything You Know is Wrong”, is Al’s loving tribute to They Might Be Giants. It’s one of those songs where Al gets everything right. According to Al: My They Might Be Giants homage. What can I say about that? TMBG is one of my favorite groups. I know they don’t like the association with novelty music, but I’ve always admired their quirkiness. I tried to write a song sort of in their style, but perhaps even a little bit more twisted, and for fans of The Giants I put little references in here and there, little allusions to other songs of theirs, and I’m proud of that because it’s one of those songs where I think it definitely sounds like them, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly which song it sounds like. A lot of my pastiches are like, “Oh that’s sort of like this song mixed with that song,” and this one is a little bit harder I think to decipher exactly where the inspiration is coming from.LATEST UPDATE 4/7 – Alpocalyptic April Day 3 – Here’s Johnny
VOCALS: BassSinger313
BASS: Seil
KEYS: EmotionalFlight
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“Here’s Johnny”, a parody of “Who’s Johnny” by El DeBarge from the film Short Circuit. The song, a loving ode to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson announcer Ed McMahon, features John Roarke of the television series Fridays fame doing an impression of McMahon’s voice. According to Yankovic, Peter Wolf, the man who wrote “Who’s Johnny”, enjoyed the parody idea so much that he personally brought the floppy disc program that had all the synthesizer parts for the original song into the studio when Yankovic was recording his parody.the preview video for Here’s Johnny is now up thanks to MrPrezident
” src=”/wp-content/uploads/invision_emoticons/default_SA_smile.gif” />LATEST UPDATE 4/8 – Alpocalyptic April Day 4 – One More Minute
VOCALS: Seil
GUITAR/BASS: Cheesecake Militia
KEYS: EmotionalFlight
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“One More Minute,” is in the style of Elvis Presley and doo-wop groups of the Fifties, but it’s not modeled after any particular song. According to the liner notes of Permanent Record, Yankovic was preparing to write songs for Dare to Be Stupid when his then-girlfriend broke up with him. In order to mentally deal with the heartbreak, Yankovic decided to write a humorous song to express his anger, eventually into “One More Minute”. Weird Al is often completely G-rated, but there’s an actual masturbation reference in this one: “I’m stranded all alone in the gas station of love/And I have to use the self-service pumps.”LATEST UPDATE 4/9 – Alpocalyptic April Day 5 – A Complicated Song
GUITAR/VOCALS: Seil
BASS/KEYS: EmotionalFlight
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“A Complicated Song” is spoof of “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne. The song is composed of three vignettes: in the first, the singer laments that he is constipated, in the second, he discovers that he and his girlfriend are related, and in the third, he expresses regret that he recently was decapitated. In interviews, Al said that he was unsure of which concept to finish, so he just used all three instead, one per verse. Due to the first section of the song being about constipated from Pizza, the song on the internet has often been mislabeled as “Constipated”.LATEST UPDATE 4/10 – Alpocalyptic April Day 6 – Callin’ In Sick
GUITAR: Seil
VOCALS: Atruejedi
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“Callin’ In Sick” is Al’s post-Nirvana/“Smells Like Teen Spirit” grunge pastiche. Now we all know that the only “jobs” grunge rockers have involve being depressed and getting addicted to heroin but “Callin’ In Sick” imagines a world in which they work the same kinds of jobs us normal folks do, you know, like writing about every “Weird Al” Yankovic song in obsessive detail. As always, Al and his collaborators nail the sonic details: the groove here feels effortlessly authentic. The vibe of “Callin’ In Sick” is dramatic and intense but the lyrics are low-key and observational as Al adopts the perspective of an ennui-addled wage slave who decides to engage in a little low-level, everyday rebellion by shucking off the onerous responsibility of going to their place of employment for a day of avoiding labor, meaningful or otherwise. It’s probably the only grunge song ever to reference Ernest Goes to Camp.LATEST UPDATE 4/11 – Alpocalyptic April Day 7 – Young, Dumb, & Ugly
GUITAR: Onyxite/PhantomBlade8
BASS: naginalJJ
VOCALS: drummerockband
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
According to Al himself: Ah, that was my big parody of heavy metal in general and AC/DC specifically. I recorded it in a register that was really too high for my singing voice, but my manager thought that it was funny that I was cracking my voice trying to reach the notes.LATEST UPDATE 4/12 – Alpocalyptic April Day 8 – Midnight Star
GUITAR/BASS/VOCALS: Sideshow
KEYS: EmotionalFlight
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
According to Al himself: That was, at the time, my favorite track on the album. My first album was very quickly recorded and cheaply produced. With the second album I was able to spend a little more time, because I had back-up singers and a professional bass vocalist, and I got kind of excited, and my original thought was for it to be the first single off the album, until cooler heads prevailed and they said, “Why don’t you go with the Michael Jackson parody? That has a little more commercial potential.”LATEST UPDATE 4/13 – Alpocalyptic April Day 9 – Genius in France
GUITAR/BASS/VOCALS/KEYS: Seil
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
This song is a tribute to Frank Zappa; his son Dweezil Zappa plays the opening guitar solo. The lyrical premise may be a reference to the fact that American comedian Jerry Lewis was a respected filmmaker and actor in France (and other European countries) while in America he was often viewed as lowbrow and unfunny. According to Al himself: While I’ve never been a big fan of long solos, I’ve always admired Frank Zappa’s compositional acumen, which I studied religiously while writing my Zappa homage, ‘Genius in France.’ To create my ‘style parodies,’ I dissect my favorite artists’ work and try to step into their shoes and, I hope, create a composition not unlike something they might have done themselves. I felt extra pressure doing that with Zappa; he’s one of my all-time heroes and, frankly, I didn’t want to screw it up. One reason ‘Genius’ is nine minutes long is that Frank’s style consists of so many components, I felt it would do him a disservice to try to emulate it in three or four minutes. And he’ll always have a warm place in my heart for categorically proving to the unwashed masses once and for all that humor really does belong in music.LATEST UPDATE 4/14 – Alpocalyptic April Day 10 – I Was Only Kidding
GUITAR: Seil
BASS: BassSinger313
VOCALS: Bansheeflyer
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“I Was Only Kidding” (the ultimate break-up song) takes a soft love ballad in the beginning, saying sweet loving things to a girl, then goes into a raucous barrage, including animal sounds that tells her he was only kidding. Al says the line “I really love you… NOT!” is specifically a reference to the movie Wayne’s World. As a 90’s kids I remember the one year that this was a common burn for the masses. Al ended up recording one too many original songs for Off the Deep End, and chose to include this one over “Waffle King” (which was later included on Alapalooza) in case the “NOT!” joke became too dated. According to Al himself: I’m not sure how many people know who Tonio K. is, but he’s one of my favorite artists and I’ve actually done two style parodies of him (“Happy Birthday” and “I Was Only Kidding”).LATEST UPDATE 4/15 – Alpocalyptic April Day 11 – You Make Me
GUITAR/BASS: Seil
VOCALS: BornGamerRob
STANDARD KEYS: EmotionalFlight
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“You Make Me” is a song involving a person’s desire to engage in strange or violent behavior compelled by the weirdness of another person. According to the liner notes of The Permanent Record, “That was kind of an Oingo Boingo soundalike, a fun one to do. It’s about as close as I ever come to writing a real love song.”LATEST UPDATE 4/16 – Alpocalyptic April Day 12 – This is the LifeGUITAR: Seil
BASS: naginalJJ
VOCALS: kueller
KEYS: EmotionalFlight
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“This Is The Life” describes the narrator’s overly lavish lifestyle and had originally been commissioned for the gangster spoof movie Johnny Dangerously. Musically it sound like a ragtime number which pays tribute to the glorious gangster lifestyle of the roaring ’20s. It’s also easy to see it paralleling the excess of the ’80’s and if you don’t see it, then dig this verse: “They say that money corrupts you / But I can’t really tell / I got the whole world at my feet / And I think it’s pretty swell.”LATEST UPDATE 4/17 – Alpocalyptic April Day 13 – Dog Eat Dog
GUITAR/BASS: Seil
STANDARD KEYS: EmotionalFlight
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“Dog Eat Dog” is an homage to Talking Heads classics like “Once in a Lifetime” and “And She Was,” but the live performances features Al in full-on Byrne regalia and mannerisms. According to Al himself: “That’s one of my favorite songs off the album,” says Al. “It’s inspired by Talking Heads, and also by my days working in the traffic department at Westwood One — my first and hopefully only desk job. At first I thought it was kinda cool that I had a phone and a desk and a little cubicle to call my own, but after a while I felt like my soul had been sucked out of me. The song is kind of a tongue-in-cheek look at office life.”LATEST UPDATE 4/18 – Alpocalyptic April Day 14 – Generic Blues
GUITAR: PhantomBlade8
BASS: BassSinger313
VOCALS: drummerockband
KEYS: TheSheepQueen
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“Generic Blues”: It’s a blues song as you’d expect, but with the sadness turned way up, and the hilarity too! Also a great solo, with Al yelling “Make it talk son, make it talk!” and eventually, “okay now, make it stop!” According to Al himself: “I just wanted to write the ultimate blues song. I was told recently that B.B. King mentioned it as one of his ten favorite blues songs of all time.”LATEST UPDATE 4/19 – Alpocalyptic April Day 15 – Truck Drivin’ Song
GUITAR: PhantomBlade8
BASS: Cheesecake Militia
VOCALS: Seil
PREVIEW VIDEO: MrPrezident
“Truck Driving Song”, a detailed account of a truck-driver working, while at the same time worrying about their clothing and makeup, is a style parody of truck-driving country. While writing the song, Yankovic listened to C.W. McCall for inspiration. The lyrics begin with begins with a flurry of macho truck talk, with the singer singing in a voice deeper than he’s ever attempted before about his “diesel rig” being “northward bound” and it being “time to put that hammer down” on the “twenty tons of steel” in his truck. Ah, but our country crooner isn’t just devoted to the open road and the grubby romance of the trucker lifestyle. He’s equally devoted to cross-dressing. In that respect, “Truck Drivin’ Song” is an homage to Monty Python’s thematically similar “Lumberjack Song.” Both toe-tapping ditties glean laughs from the incongruous juxtaposition of an almost cartoonishly manly profession (lumberjack, truck driver) and decidedly unmanly garb. Al has never sounded more conventionally masculine than when singing about crotchless panties, feather boas, pink angora sweaters, mascara, high heels, nipple rings, rhinestones, sequins and chiffon. Al recorded the vocals for the song first thing in the morning, when his voice is naturally lower in pitch.
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