VAUDEVILLIANS AMONG THE MARSHALL STACKS
I was always at odds with bombastic arena rock when I was young, or at least with its culture. Many of you may not remember when this wailing wall of whiteness held sway over mainstream popular taste, but it was big, loud and dumb as all getout--and, according to those who joined in the big-haired clamor, terribly fun.

Despite my impatience with its aggressive normality, I still grudgingly appreciated its more vaudevillian, slapstick aspects, as I also have with genres like garage, psychedelia, disco, and funk: the overstated stagecraft, the artfully calculated vulgarity, the unapologetic gimmickry, the schmaltz, the humor, the makeup, the stock personae, the costumes, etc. It made no bones about being pure escapism for hardworking people.

Even though I would rather have gnawed off every mole on my body (I'm a Celt, so do the math) rather than attend one of these odious fist-pumping denimfests, I've always felt that, at least in some sense, the dopey antics of these hairlequins were a damn sight more legitimate and generous than the brittle, priggish pretenses proffered by many of the willfully obscure, cryptic (you know--"important") bands I favored at the time--many of which, truth be told, took themselves far too seriously and now aren't even enjoyable enough to qualify as kitsch.

Of course, some of the 'underground' music of the time outstripped both ends of this spectrum, managing to be smart in a deliciously dumb way, thus ensuring its enduring appeal, at the very least as divinely enjoyable camp:

Despite the above being among my preferred flavors of rock hilarity, I still must tip my hat to its ostensibly less clever cousins. Chunklet has provided a particularly hilarious example of that comic busker ethic, stripped to its purest essence, as performed by one of its most notable (or depending on your perspective, egregious) practitioners.

So: what examples of latter-day vaudeville do you enjoy?

~W