VIA PRESS RELEASE | Legendary comedy group The Firesign Theatre and Stand Up! Records present a new double-LP compilation, Dope Humor of the Seventies: a two-record set including 83 minutes of previously uncollected funny bits from The Firesign Theatre’s notorious “Dear Friends” era of freeform Los Angeles radio broadcasting, 1970–1972.
Dope Humor of the Seventies which goes on sale Friday November 27th, is an extremely belated sequel to Firesign’s 1972 double-LP Dear Friends—a freewheeling demolition derby of old-time radio tropes seen through the subversive lens of Nixon-era Los Angeles freeform radio. The record will be Firesign’s first new vinyl release since Eat or Be Eaten in 1985.
Dope Humor of the Seventies contains 34 tracks spread over four record sides. Meanwhile the download version of the record is greatly expanded, and includes 46 tracks totaling over two hours. Customers who buy the download directly from Stand Up! Records will also get a 56-page PDF which includes scans of scripts used in the original radio broadcasts. The new release includes soon-to-be-classic chunks of surrealism like “Pluto Water,” “Shakespeare Sunday Sunday,” and “Bob Dog Dog & Dog Hot Dog Son & Foot Tires.”
The Firesign Theatre, whose founding members were Philip Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor, came together on Los Angeles radio station KPFK in 1966 on Bergman’s program Radio Free Oz. During their time together they released over 35 albums, including Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, called “the greatest comedy album ever made” by Rolling Stone, described by the New York Times as “A multifaceted work of almost Joycean complexity,” and now are part of the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry of Historic American sound. Dope Humor of the Seventies will be available for order directly from Stand Up! Records and all major music retail outlets.
THE FIRESIGN THEATRE | Called “The Beatles of Comedy” by The Library of Congress, the four-man Firesign Theatre wrote and performed together for over forty years, but their early studio work (1968-1975) for Columbia Records remains their best known and most influential. Innumerable phrases from their albums have entered the English lexicon: What’s all this brouhaha? More Sugar! What you don’t mean won’t hurt you! Not Insane! Forward Into the Past! Shoes for Industry! Your brain may no longer be the boss!
The iconic comic voices of the counter-culture generation, Firesign chronicled pop, politics, media, and technology in a tense one listener called “the Future Inevitable.” The Firesign Theatre has been compared to Kurt Vonnegut, Ken Kesey and Bob Dylan in their original use of language, and to the surrealists in their psychedelic storytelling methods, including the time-and-space altering concept of “channel-switching.” The original albums, intricately produced in multi-track recording, were designed for multiple listenings and meanings—an audio Theatre of the Absurd.
Entertainment Weekly ranked The Firesign Theatre among the “Thirty Greatest Comedy Acts of All Time.” The group received Grammy Award nominations for three of their albums: The Three Faces of Al (1984), Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death (1998), and Bride of Firesign (2001).
The Firesign Theatre’s Peter Bergman passed away in 2012. Philip Austin died in 2015. Remaining Firesigns Phil Proctor and David Ossman have worked since then to preserve the long heritage of their partnership. Their classic scripts were gathered in the book Marching to Shibboleth in 2013.
Firesign’s Philip Proctor has written an autobiography, Where’s My Fortune Cookie, and co-stars in the podcast and YouTube series “Boomers on a Bench.” Multi-hyphenate David Ossman recently published his second novel, The Flying Saucer Murder Case, and second memoir, Fighting Clowns of Hollywood, featuring a collection of Firesign performance scripts 1979-1981.
