Pleaseeasaur :: Pleaseeasaur Outdoes Himself!
2003-10-02
VILLAGE VOICE
Artist: Pleaseeasaur
Album: The Yellow Pages
Label: Imputor?
Grade: 10 out of 10
Reviewer: Mark Prindle
Pleaseeasaur is a two-man band composed of costume maker Thomas Hurley III and keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter JP Hasson, who hails from Seattle, WA, thus implying that he considers himself more talented than Jimi Hendrix and is GLAD that Kurt Cobain killed himself (he’s never SAID these things, but they’re pretty much implied, I would have to think).
JP writes and performs ridiculous keyboard music that has all the warmth and emotion of morning show theme songs, then simply TALKS over them in a ridiculously smarmy and not quite in-any-key-at-all voice, turning coffee muzak into hilariously stupid ruminations on early 80s icons and outdated male fantasies of hot tubs and Trans Ams cooling you down on those hot Los Angeles nights.
On this, his third CD release, JP has outdone himself. The lyrics are hilarious AND smart from beginning to end, and the music is so ludicrously smarmy and fake (similar to what you hear when a dentist's operator puts you on hold), you'll wonder how on Earth somebody from our generation (the YOUNGER generation) (not that young though) would be capable of composing it.
But thank Goodness he's capable, because no other type of music would mesh nearly as well with such mind-scratching lyrics like "I'm telling my friends to tell their friends to call my new friends at No Prob Limo right away!" and "Good job! Have an Orange Slice! I'm proud of you - because you are so good at sports!" and "Burned beyond recognition? Slipped on a banana peel? You need a lawyer who knows just how you feel!"
This is JP's brand of humor - focusing obsessively on subjects that no other musician on Earth would bother with (especially bad local TV advertisements), and throwing in strange, nearly meaningless lyrics that just come across as unbelievably witty in the context of a "song". Like the jingle for a new pharmaceutical product called "Paradontex," in which the adman excitedly exclaims, "The difference - is in the DONTEX!" Or the "Pizza Brothers & Sons Incorporated" spot that brags, "We've got Sprite/And extra cheese/We've got a new logo of a pizza tree." Or in "LA Nights 2...Even Hotter" -- perhaps the most memorable song on the record (out of a LOT of good songs) -- when JP anxiously recites the lines, "Here's the song for a new movie - it's called 'LA Nights 2'/It's 'Even Hotter'! 'Cuz it's 'Number 2'/Again, the title is 'LA Nights 2'/It's coming soon to a theater near you!"
I could sit here and quote funny lines for you all night, but I have a dermatology appointment. Besides, you need the background muzak to really appreciate what this oddball is doing. It's a form of entertainment that I'm fairly certain nobody else is doing these days (if they ever did), and it's JP's finest pile of whatever-the-hell-genre-this-is yet! It even has a song on it called "Warning: These Cobras Are Totally Cool."!!!!!
