Los Doggies, Onebody

I specifically requested Onebody by Los Doggies from the myriad CDs available for review under my cursor because they seemed, for lack of a better phrase, cuckoo for Coco Puffs. I have since amended my opinion. They are not insane, but they are certainly only minor acquaintances of normalcy.

A first listen through Onebody is going to bring on an inevitable comparison to great absurdist bands like The Presidents of the United States of America and They Might Be Giants. I believe, however, that the roots of Los Doggies grow in the soil of a jam-band orchard, in the shade of the giant Zappa Oaks, Grateful Dead Willows, and Electric Light Orchestra Pines. Essentially, they are standing on the forward slash of ’60s pop/rock and using their vantage point to explore modern geek culture.

Case in point: “I Lost a Sai.” Now, here we have a song that’s only four lines long yet clocks in at well over six minutes. You have to go way back to 1990, when the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was released to fully appreciate this track. After the turtles save April O’Neil in the first several minutes of the flick, we return to their sewer hideout, where Raphael laments that he lost a sai and thereby has revealed that ninjas inhabit New York City. The song takes his lines almost verbatim and lays them melodically over a Pink Floyd ambient dirge.

Based on that description, you might be tempted to write off Los Doggies as another vapid candy-band catering to the nerd demographic, but if you look just a little more closely at what’s going on, you’ll see that there’s often something a little more. The last line of “I Lost a Sai” is “Master Splinter don’t be upset / It’s just the voices in your head.” That line is not in the movie, and you have to wonder why they would include it if they were just trying to play Where’s Waldo with the lyrics. It’s the kind of sudden shift that turns a Weird Al record into The Wall, and Los Doggies pulls it off several times.

Though “I Lost a Sai” is very indicative of the kind of tracks you’ll hear on Onebody — and I think almost anyone would like the song — it is also a measure of the album’s flaws. It is extremely jam-heavy. Almost every track exceeds five minutes, and most of those minutes are filled with elaborate but somewhat repetitive instrumental breaks. Ultimately, it gives the album a fuzzy sense of focus, and the primarily comedic subject matter (a love song about the two Abobos from Double Dragon, for instance) doesn’t help that. Sometimes the instrumental breaks are filled with lines unspoken, such as in “Tackleberry.” Beating “I Lost a Sai” by a minute and with only one lyric (“Why did you have to die, Tackleberry?”), the fast-paced, Wagnerian song makes an action-revenge drama play in your head with a scientifically perfect progression of progressive guitar work. Mostly, though, the instrumental breaks serve as the elevator ride to the lingerie and lyric departments.

If you find yourself drawn to the madness of bands like Peelander-Z, the Billy Nayer Show, or the Consortium of Genius, you will like Los Doggies and Onebody. If you will settle for a jam with inside jokes, you’ll like it, as well. I certainly did.