Let Me Be and He’s a Loser by The Mosguitos.
I must confess I only have two – but I am a fan of Chocolate and Cheese. 12 Golden Country Greats has some OK songs on it, but doesn’t have a high relisten value.
(With regards to this thread, the former album much better showcases their musical talents in doing multiple genres, whereas in 12GCC they only mockomage, to coin a phrase, one or two styles depending on whether you count the western swing of Mister Richard Smoker as another style. Plus they had session musicians – actual country session musicians, but still.)
Thanks. I knew nothing about them, but the few times I’d heard their name, I’d confused it with Weezer (and/or, maybe, Wilco).
How about Apocalyptica?
the mighty boosh
I bought it last night, and I’'m loving it already. Funny that my comment about Cafe Tacuba’s Re prompted you to mention it. The two albums share a lot of similarities, once you get past the fact that one is in Spanish and the other in English (and that about half of Cafe Tacuba’s homages are to Latin-flavored musical genres) . I think they were even released around the same time – mid-1990s.
Mention must be made of the Dictators, one of the originals… their debut LP, Go Girl Crazy!, was a wonderful parody of mid-70s “grunt, sweat & strut” style rock… a breath of fresh air during a period when American rock was woefully deficient in wit. After getting that out of their system they became a serious band.
A few choice tracks from the LP:
Weekend
Two Tub Man (younger listeners may not get all the cultural references)
Master Race Rock
But then again, so is one of Ween’s.
The Baseballs. German rockabilly band, covers modern songs.
Bob Rivers and his Twisted Tunes, I think, top them all.
I agree, and I’m not even really into heavy metal. But I like Dave “Oderus” Brockie’s vocals.
While not jokes per se I think that the Dead Milkmen’s career suffered from their humor and stopped them from being taken as seriously as their chops supported in the punk era. Mojo Nixon, the Dwarves, the Mentors and Anal Cunt all deserve honorable mentioned here as well.
A flame that burns so brightly, only burns half as long.
Also, Camper Van Beethoven (though they weren’t quite punk).
But they were never a ‘joke’, they just took other music and remade it using strings. They were serious about it.
Los Straitjackets are a solid band with a gimmick, not a joke band.
Their lead guitarist Eddie Angel has released at least one solo album and is highly talented in his own right.
And they are one of my favorites. Seen them at he Pittsburgh Blues Festival, and I believe one other venue. maybe “gimmick” is a better term than “joke”, as my entire point is that these are talented bands.
I think Toy Dolls may have been the kings of hiding serious musical talent behind a goofy facade. Those guys could play circles around most bands in any genre, and they’re best known for stuff like “Nellie The Elephant.”
Nobody mentioned The Wurzels!
I don’t generally care for the style of music the do, but I think their upbeat Elvis-like cover of “My Heart Will Go On” (from Titanic) is both wonderful and hilarious.
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AttZOm4tg7qbCvNKTWxhrZObvZx4?p=Youtibe+“Big+Daddy”+“My+Heart+will+go+on”&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-315
I don’t know if it counts as a “joke band”, but Otis Day and the Knights, the made-up band from the movie Animal House (fronted by actor DeWayne Jessie as Otis Day, who lip-synched for the film) has been performing and touring as a real band ever since. They performed on the Playboy Channel once.
http://www.otisdayandtheknights.com/bio.html
(I don’t know how many, if any, of the other “band members” from Animal House ever performed as part of the touring band)