Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him

I often describe Firesign Theatre by making a comparison with Cheech and Chong. With C&C you really don't have to think. It's not very deep, just plenty of superficially funny stuff... kinda like laughing at someone "farting"! With Firesign, to really get the humor, you have to "understand" the humor, and the best way is to listen to it undisturbed, and alone! It is "educated" comedy at its absolute best! And from personal experience, not for the masses.

"Temporarily Humboldt County" teaches you about westward expansion beginning with the Spanish - "got any gold?" - and ending with the Hippies "living like Indians, dressing like Indians, doing all the simple, beautiful things you Indians do - got any peyote?". Historically accurate and funny at the same time. "Waiting for the Electrician..." explores the fear when you cross the border into a new country and don't know the language and customs. All of your paranoia in one sketch, from having your luggage searched to wandering into a revolution when you don't know which side you're on (and it could mean life or death), from being imprisoned when you don't know what you've done to an outbreak of disease, with a scathing game show parody in the middle. "The Mantras and the Shakras" is not on my original copy of the album, so I can tell you no more than you can hear on the sample.

This was the first Firesign Theatre record I heard and is a fantastic introduction to the Firesign. The thought provoking satire on the expansion of the American west that opens the record is roll on the floor funny and makes a much needed point about how the white migration west was not exactly a great thing for the people that already lived there.

Who ever reviewed this album must not have listened to it or was so closed minded that the hilarious and currently relevant ideas were completely missed. I discovered this in my teens and now that I'm almost thirty I find even more that was lost on me in my youth. This is an epic album. Also... If you don't buy it, we'll kill this dog. (relax PETA, check out National Lampoon)