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COURTESY PHOTO -- Sony/Epic
Jack Black (right), Kyle Gass (left) and the Foo Fighter's Dave Grohl (middle) who played drums in a few of the tracks on the band's debut album.
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Tenacious D rocks hard
By Anthony Wagenseil
The Flat Hat
With the release of the highly anticipated Tenacious D debut comes a tsunami of irreverent humor blended around rock music. Although at first glance it may just look like another comedy/music album a la Adam Sandler or Weird Al Yankovic, this album is different. It's new, it's invigorating, it's hilarious and it just plain rocks.
Tenacious D is made up of Jack Black (also known as JB or Jables), most famous for his role as the anal-retentive rock connoisseur Barry in "High Fidelity," and Kyle Gass (KG or Kage). People do not know much about Gass because he's just a nice, quiet buddy figure; he gets up on stage and plays his acoustic guitar with a smile on his face, only speaking when prompted to by Black. While JB relentlessly steals the spotlight by never shutting his mouth and managing to be constantly funny, KG's presence and influence on the band and its music must not be overlooked.
Tenacious D is both a band and a stand-up comic routine. Their humor is tongue-in-cheek and vulgar. It revolves around Satan, beating people up because they ate your food and something that can only be described as "pushups without using hands," among other subjects. One particular song about proper love-making technique features Black proclaiming that sometimes the way to go is to tell your woman that "I'm going to fuck you... softly/ I'm going to screw you... gently/ I'm going to hump you... sweetly/ I'm going to ball you... discretely." Seven of the 21 tracks are purely comic bits, sprinkled in because these guys just enjoy being funny. "Inward Singing" and "Drive-Thru" are the funniest non-music tracks, but in the end they can't compare to the songs themselves.
The songs on the album are great because of the way that they're executed. Black and Gass come up with a theme or story, write funny lyrics about it and present it with wonderfully primal rock music to back it up. There is nothing particularly awe-inspiring about the musical abilities of either guitarist, but they know when either to strum furiously or to slowly pick a classical solo. They're great because they can play like Kurt Cobain or Liam Gallagher, not Ynqwie Malmsteen or John Petrucci. "Tribute," "Wonderboy" and "Rock Your Socks" are the best songs on the album, precisely because they're funny and are supported by extremely catchy music, magnificent in its heavy simplicity and the occasional solo.
The album, however, is not "pure" and "genuine" Tenacious D. Black and Gass have been touring for years playing sold-out shows across the country and gaining a strong cult following. But those concerts only featured the two guitar-wielding forever-doomed-to-be-single comedians. Now, they have an entire band behind them, with big names such as Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, a longtime supporter, on drums. Additionally, many concert favorites such as "Jesus Ranch" and "Rocketsauce" have been left out.
The song "Tribute" is about JB and KG defeating the devil by singing the best song in the world but then not remembering how it went, so instead of recording the song, they have to record a tribute song. In concert Gass would open with Led Zeppelin's opus "Stairway to Heaven," giving the impression that Tenacious D felt the best song in the world was "Stairway." Now, however, the Zeppelin influence is unheard, because the song underwent modifications for the album.
It's pretty clear to see where Tenacious D is coming from. Their take on the essential, every-great-band-has-one epic song, "City Hall," is a story of popular uprising and starting anew, a common theme of teenage angst at the hands of "the Man" which only rock 'n' roll can cure. In "City Hall's" new world, Black proclaims that "the first decree is to legalize marijuana." This is one of a few references to the drug throughout the album, and it does not really come as a surprise to the perceptive fan that they're listening to two lazy video game-addicted, beer-guzzling, pot-smoking, underachieving cartoon-geeks finally rising to fame by doing what they do best.
"The Road" is a song about one of the oldest cliches in rock history: the difficulties of life on the road, the only life a band knows. "Wonderboy" sounds like something out of a comic book.
They dedicate an entire song to classic heavy metal figure Ronnie James Dio, praising him for rocking for so long but telling him that "it's time to pass the torch." One does not have to wonder whom they expect the torch to be passed to. The "D" is here to rock -- hard.
Tenacious D - *****
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