Very Close to, if not actually in, the CD player:
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seen/heard ° listen ° preorder
stream full album ° seen/heard ° buy
One Hundred Percent Guaranteed Foolproff Instant Hangover Cure!
Good MORNING! Happy NEW Year!
What's that? Overdid it a bit last night? KEEP MY VOICE DOWN?!?! It's been years since I've had one, but my hangovers were real humdingers. And the way to deal with them, I found, was to shock them into submission. Best defense is a good offense! Just like, you know, when you break your leg? How the best way to make it heal is to run a marathon? Just like that.
Bring on the pain! Try this! Try this LOUD!
King Uszniewicz and His Uszniewicztones - If I Had a Hammer (mp3) (buy)
You're welcome!
"King" Ernie Uszniewicz (pr. you-SNEV-vitch, like you care) led a 1970's Detroit outfit widely respected as the worst garage band ever. Ever! King U played sax and sang, but his real talent was drinking huge quantities of cheap beer. The rest of the band - His Uszniewicztones - played different instruments, shared the same talent. They ruled a world where rhythm and pitch could find no foothold. We have a winner!
(Just before their classic recording of "Kung Fu Fighting," the engineer asks, "Are you sure you want to cut this?" The band's response is a host of noncommittal grunts. Someone finally says, "The chicks like it;" demolition ensues.)
That up there was the U-tones gang-tackling ye olde Weavers nugget about hammers and bells and love between brothers and sisters. Because I believe 2008 will be a year full of justice and freedom and activism and incest. Further down the keg, the boys ponder their ability to can't-get-no. I'm pretty sure some of the lyrics are correct!
King Uszniewicz and His Uszniewicztones - Satisfaction (mp3) (buy)
You might be thinking, by this point, that this can't be forreals. (Actually, you're probably just thinking, "Stop, stop, please God stop.") You might be thinking right! King-U and his ‘tones seems to have been a lark perpetrated by the late, legendary (?) rocker/collector/critic Cub Koda. He'd make his band, Brownsville Station - the first crüe to chart Koda's "Smokin' in the Boys' Room" - swap instruments and record lousy cover tunes. Their rock and roll is better than my Lithuanian!
Presumably beer was actually involved. Wouldn't it have to be? Don't you wish it still were?
Let's close this out with the soothing sounds of Johnny Mathis. Well, the soothing sounds of Johnny Mathis as vomited out by King Usznetcetcetc. and His Broken-Legged Marathon-Runners.
King Uszniewicz and His Uszniewicztones - Chances Are (mp3) (buy)
You can order three whole LPs of this stuff from Norton Records. If you'd like to sample more (and why wouldn't you?) there's a King U. tribute myspace (along with one for Koda).