Time of the ‘Signs
I was recently given a paperback copy of Phil Austin’s Tales of the Old Detective which reminded me of how much I love The Firesign Theatre.
If you haven’t come across them, they are a comedy group who initially operated in the late 60s and the 70s who started on radio and then made a series of groundbreaking comedy albums.
Inspired by The Goons and the radio dramas of the 40s and 50s, they created a set of characters in a surreal world which allowed them to riff off cultural references and just be silly.
Their masterpiece is generally reckoned to be Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers where one of their recurring characters – George Tirebiter – watches himself on TV, regularly switching channels in parodies of Archie comics, war movies and more. However my favourite is Everything You Know is Wrong which eviscerates every new age fad in a brilliant overarching story about a radio podcaster trying to explain mysterious happenings. I am also fond of their Sherlock Holmes parody The Giant Rat of Sumatra.
Apparently their working method was to each write sketches and then weave them together into a single album. Their tag line – Four or Five Crazy Guys – comes from their feeling that there was a fifth member who contributed when they worked together.
They officially split in the mid 70s – partly due to burnout after making so many albums over a short period – but continued to appear on each other’s solo or duo work. They then got together again in the late 90s and came up with more original material – some of which matched the level of their early work.
Phil Austin’s book (which I first found as a cassette tape) is a collection of surreal short stories which match the brilliance of his work with Firesign and his solo album Roller Maidens From Outer Space which is probably the best of their solo projects. Noir detective parodies were one of his specialities in the group including the iconic Nick Danger first featured on How Can You Be in Two places at Once.
I was fortunate to discover them when Virgin Records were selling remainder copies of their records cheaply, but if you go to their website or search for them on Amazon you can experience their talents for yourself.
