OFF TOPIC: Mike Tiano on the Firesign Theatre

Our mate Mike Tiano of 'Notes from the Edge' has just started writing for Something Else Reviews, and has made his debut with this excellent piece on The Firesign Theatre. It is off topic but who cares? I like Mike's writing, and The Firesign Theatre have always made me laugh...

One of the great comedy teams that sprung from the 1960s counterculture is the Firesign Theatre. It was formed around Peter Bergman’s show Radio Free Oz on Los Angeles station KPFK, where Phil Austin, David Ossman, and Phil Proctor came into Bergman’s orbit and formed a team that created off the wall, improvisational comedy culled from popular culture, historical events, and literary works.

Having been influenced by the likes of the Goon Show, Spike Milligan and Bob and Ray, the Firesign Theatre eschewed punchline-based jokes and obvious sketch comedy. Instead what they went on to create could be best described as a cinema of the mind, as evidenced by their side-long (and later album-long) pieces released on LP by Columbia Records throughout the 1970s.

It was through those albums where Firesign Theatre gained national popularity beyond their origins at one local radio station. While the Columbia releases brought them a modicum of fame, their original brand of off-center (and occasionally very adult) comedy never reached the heights of some of their later, more conventional contemporaries like Steve Martin, or Cheech and Chong.

Read on...