Tag: comedy

Brett Domino Trio | The Pub

The Brett Domino Trio is a British comedy music duo consisting of Rob J. Madin and Steven Peavis. Madin (a comedian with many alter-egos, including the eponymous Brett Domino) and Peavis create their unique style by blending meme humor and awkward comedy with driving pop, disco, and funk beats. From the name of the band (which has no third member) to small Easter eggs interspersed in many of their music videos, Madin and Peavis keep their music light-hearted.

However, the theory and rhythm is often more complex than one would expect from songs which nit-pick marathon runners for being too healthy, or are written entirely with snippets from fly-fishing magazines … to pick just two of the many wonderfully quirky songs produced by the Trio. Madin is a talented musician and writer, proficient in several instruments. These skills ensure that the band’s tunes – whose accompanying videos regularly feature the Trio awkwardly dancing – somehow still achieve maximum groove. The Brett Domino Trio have a loving online community which has co-created two entirely virtual collaborative tunes with the band: the fans submitted recordings of themselves playing their instruments, which Madin and Peavis then edited into a cohesive song. 

The Trio’s most recent release, “The Pub,” feels like an introvert’s view of post-pandemic socialization. Over a solid funk/disco groove, Madin excitedly anticipates the prospect of sitting in a pub, with or without friends. The song begins in G major, then modulates to C major at the end of the bridge at the 2:06 mark. Hope you enjoy!

Fresh Prince: Google Translated

In 2013, Mother Jones magazine asked “what happens when highly trained musicians and actors do Broadway and pop culture with a meta twist?” The answer is CDZA, short for Collective Cadenza. CDZA creates “viral videos starring Juilliard-trained musicians, local rock and jazz artists, Broadway singers, and sketch comedians — done in a single Steadicam shot. ‘Our creative process looks like us sitting in an apartment, saying, this would be funny, this would be cool — and then we begin to divide and conquer.’”

The process for 2013’s “Fresh Prince: Google Translated,” according to Joe Sabia, the group’s lead “conceptor”/director: “’One of our main things is producing videos that also serve as a commentary on American culture. Google Translate is something everyone uses, so we put together a song everyone knows and a device everyone knows.’”

This expanded version of the tune is built on the theme from the wildly popular 1990s sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Featuring a much stronger accompaniment than the original, the entire tune centers around a I minor –> bVII major/I vamp. As the lyrics grow progressively more inane with each pass through Google Translate, the key ascends a half-step at 2:02, 2:27, and 3:09.

The Blues Brothers | Rawhide

“Rawhide” was written by Ned Washington (lyrics) and Dimitri Tiomkin (music) in 1958. “The song was used as the theme to Rawhide, a western television series that ran from 1959 until 1966. According to the Western Writers of America, it was one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

The tune has been covered by Johnny Cash, The Jackson 5, The Dead Kennedys, Liza Minnelli, Oingo Boingo, Sublime, and many other artists. It was featured prominently in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, where it saved the day as as a last-second substitute opener for an R&B/Blues band haplessly booked into a Country/Western bar. Fortunately, the band had a lot more chops than luck …

The half-step modulation is at 2:13 at the start of a short guitar feature. The tune itself doesn’t begin until the 1:25 mark. Many thanks to MotD regular Rob Penttinen for this submission!

Flight of the Conchords | I Told You I Was Freaky

AllMusic describes Flight of the Conchords as “New Zealand’s self-proclaimed ‘fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo a cappella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo,’ (who) became international stars in the 2000s thanks to a successful television series that fictionalized their exploits. Formed by actors, comedians, and musicians Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, FotC were the rare comedy band whose music was often as celebrated as their gags. Their songs fused witty lyrics with music that often parodied various artists and genres.”

The title track to the 2009 album I Told You I Was Freaky strays a long distance from the duo’s early days of acoustic self-accompaniment: an electronics-driven absurdist funk romp which lands somewhere near the stylistic confluence of Prince, Cameo, and George Clinton. Starting in G major for the intro, the verse transitions to a static G7 chord with a flexible “blue note” third degree at 0:18; at 0:53, the chorus transitions to Ab minor, then back to G7 at 1:11 for the next verse. At 2:05, the percussion drops out to bring us a hushed bridge in A major; 2:34 returns to G7 for a rap outro.

The shorter version included in the TV show lacks the rap outro, but gives an idea of the series’ fearlessly eccentric visual style.

The Lawrence Welk Show | One Toke Over the Line

San Francisco-based folk duo Brewer + Shipley scored a top 10 hit in 1971 with “One Toke Over the Line.” Their website details that “while the record buying public was casting its vote of approval by buying the single, the (soon to be disgraced) Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew, labeled (us) as subversives, and then strong-armed the FCC to ban ‘One Toke’ from the airwaves just as it was peaking on the charts.” The band was even added to Richard Nixon’s notorious Enemies List!

Songfacts.com reports that “some radio stations refused to play this song because of the drug references, but not everyone got this meaning. In 1971 the song was performed on the Lawrence Welk Show by the wholesome-looking couple Gail Farrell and Dick Dale, who clearly had NO clue what a toke was. Welk, at the conclusion of the performance of the song, remarked, without any hint of humor, ‘there you’ve heard a modern spiritual by Gail and Dale.'”

The original tune has no modulation, but the Welk crew’s cover, which broke the earnestness meter from its first few bars, added a half-step upward key change at 1:36. The AV Club adds that “Welk’s big band had been carefully pulled together over his years touring and on the radio, and it was filled with the sorts of nice, Midwestern boys like Welk himself (a North Dakota native). The primary goal of the program was to make sure the music never stopped playing, and that it never got to be too much for the show’s predominantly older audience. And that audience was loyal, sticking with the program as it moved from a locally based Los Angeles show to a national one to one that ran in first-run syndication. Welk had a program on the air somewhere in the country from 1951 to 1982, a staggeringly long run that no other musical variety program can really touch. And he did it all without catering to changing whims or fashions, outside of the occasional badly misjudged musical number, such as …”

…and just for good measure, the original:

Tom Lehrer | We Will All Go Together When We Go

Today we feature a guest post from frequent MotD contributor Jonathan Jharms Harms — Tom Lehrer’s “We Will All Go Together When We Go” (1967).

“Lots of unprepared modulations to communicate the unhinged nature of the song, while still keeping the ‘high propriety’ style intact to mask the insanity. Guess I’m specifically referencing verses 3 and 6. Those two have unnatural unprepared modulations that both evoke military marches and unstable harmonic shifts, but they’re mixed in with more natural 1/2 step increases from verse to verse, a much more normal form of modulation.”

Charles Cornell | Imagine

As a response to the COVID-19 crisis, actress Gal Godot recently convened a group of celebrities to cover John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The vocals, while heartfelt, are a cappella and all over the place in terms of key. Multi-instrumentalist Charles Cornell has devised an accompaniment which knocks some of the harsh edges off of the, um, transitions.

Many thanks to MotD contributor Alex Mosher for this submission!

UPDATE: a few days later, the YouTuber Charles Cornell uploaded this update, explaining how he approached smoothing out the modulations:

Let’s Give Up (from “Portlandia”)

As its final season reached its end, the music-packed TV comedy Portlandia featured the tune “Let’s Give Up” (2017). The lightweight pop feel of the track is completely out of character for the personal musical style of vocalist Carrie Brownstein, who’s spent much of the past 25 years as a vocalist and guitarist for the punk-tinged indie rock band Sleater-Kinney. But it’s 100% on-brand for the series, which saw both Brownstein and her vocalist/multi-instrumentalist co-star Fred Armisen lightheartedly hop from genre to genre throughout.

From Stereogum‘s review: “The song flips through a series of major topics, like global warming and trying to tune out the news, before taking on the numbing convenience of social media and binge-watching TV.” Portlandia’s final seasons weren’t among its best overall, but you’d never know it from this glittery, cutting satire.

Starting in F# minor (the track starts at the 0:28 mark), the kicky funk/pop tune modulates up to G# minor for the chorus at 1:02, reverting to F# minor for verse 2 at 1:19.