“Its [sic] really awesome. The packaging is a lot better than even some things on Rhino [???—ed.].”

“[It’s] a nice, legitimate (maybe that’s a bad word choice...) CD.”

“I had no idea that the CD would be so...pink.

I thought the...is it More Than August? That stuff was pretty good—I’ll have to listen to it again.

Speaking of listening to something again, that’s what no one is ever going to do to the police scanner stuff. [I am speaking strictly of the police-scanner-phone-conversation tracks here.] The sound quality is just complete shit...I don’t think any amount of mastering could make these tracks less than horrendous. Much of the time it’s really difficult to tell what the fuck is going on, and when you can tell what’s going on, you often find that not much is what’s going on. Yes, there are some gems of human weirdness scattered in the mud here, but for too much of the time what you have is simply two unintelligent North American humans conversing and it’s just not worth all the effort of wading through the sonic sludge to get to it. I have always felt strongly that these bits—in their raw, unedited form—don’t belong on a CD. My criteria for what should be put on a CD (right or wrong) is this: Would most people that I know and respect want to listen to this more than twice? More than once, even? I think a lot of people would find it a chore to get through the police scanner collection once in its entirety, primarily because of the sound quality. It’s also the age-old problem of comedy albums—(there are exceptions, of course, but) who wants to listen to the same performance of the same ‘joke’ (or whatever non-musical material it is...) over and over? Well, usually people who are kind of dumb or who are usually drunk or otherwise fucked-up or both—and those people are likely to recognize their own voices on the CD and come after your ass, which brings me to [my final point]. I’m pretty sure that no one could ever really pin anything on Also-Ran (probably), but these CDs are actually evidence that Also-Ran illegally recorded other people’s phone conversations. I just wouldn’t have done it, that’s all. Now I’m done with that.”

—Paul Ivey of Powhatan, VA, amateur musician

Offbeat Magazine

The Freedom to be Weird
Joseph P. Larkin
Songs of Freedom & Joy
[Also-Ran Rekkids]

My able compatriot, Miss Brenda Lee, was in shock, clutching Mr. Larkin’s all-pink CD in trembling hands. “I can’t review this!” Miss Lee moaned, shortly before the two burly gentlemen in white suits escorted her to a waiting ambulance and two weeks of “absolute silence” in a padded suite at a private sanitarium. As she departed, Miss Lee dropped the note Mr. Larkin had enclosed with his album: “Dear friend, please kindly review the enclosed CD—it features two songs by local superstars Amerigo. And be gentle, for we are ever so sensitive, much like your whore-mother.”

I immediately noticed that Mr. Larkin was a resident of Slidell, located in the same lovely parish where I reside, a place where people chew tobacco, live in trailers surrounded by discarded beer cans and molest their children. Hey—like Mr. Larkin, I’m just joking! Sorta…

Despite Miss Lee’s sensitive reaction, Songs of Freedom & Joy (subtitled “A Celebration of Bad Music and Random Weirdness”) is the work of a comic genius. Sure, there are a couple of songs by Amerigo (“Free Yourself” and a tune called either “No. 5” or “Stomp”) but the rest of the stuff (noises, “found” dialogues, electronica, a frenzied flute medley of “Camptown Races,” “Yankee Doodle,” “London Bridge Is Falling down” and similar rudimentary fare) is supremely, totally nuts. There’s a telephone conversation, recorded via a police scanner, between a Slidell crack user “Kelly,” endowed with a perfect St. Bernard accent) and what sounds like a male relative. Kelly’s been driving in a pick-up truck with another man who, according to her testimony, has beat and raped her. The man sees his girlfriend’s car in the parking lot of a Slidell motel. Incensed, he leaves Kelly in the truck and takes the keys. Kelly doesn’t know what to do: If she returns home without the pick-up, her family will think she’s sold it for crack. The police are summoned. A detective tells Kelly that since she’s on crack and OxyContin, no jury will buy her rape story. Her companion is arrested for unauthorized use of a vehicle. The motel owner gives Kelly a Coke and a towel for her bloody eye. In the midst of recounting this sad tale, Kelly—a crackhead but domestic nonetheless—pauses to tell her whining children: “Da food’s in da oven.” On the CD, this track, titled “Not 4 Rape On Me,” is credited to the Crispin Glover Experience on the back cover and to the Danny Glover Experience in the liner notes. Mr. Larkin is consistent in his madness. Production credits are issued to Rick Rubin, Suge Knight and Fred Durst; on the pink CD itself is the notation: “Garth Brooks is a puppet-asshole.” Even the times listed for each track are sheer whimsy. Track number seven, credited to either Snatch Machine or Dick Envy and titled “I Wish U Could Feel What U Do 2 Me,” is yet another snippet of an illicitly seized telephone conversation, this one between two lesbians who spend nearly thirty minutes talking dirty and intensely masturbating. When they reach orgasm, they scream like they’re dying. It is a long, slow, very loud death.

Track number sixteen—either “Who Wants Cake?” by Hornless Unicorn or “Way down In Old Alabama” by More Than August—was recorded live at a Battle of the Bands at “Our Savior Lutheran Church, Cheap Trickford, IL.” Sounds like “Sweet Home Alabama” to my ears, recorded on a creaky cassette, but what do I know?

Really, there’s no use in me writing anymore. If you’re a sensitive person, if your mother is a whore, if you’re a patriotic American, you need to clean out your savings account and buy as many copies of Songs of Freedom & Joy as your funds will allow. Examine www.josephlarkin.com and heed Mr. Larkin’s warning: All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. Sex in a hammock is fun but dangerous.

—Bunny Matthews

Offbeat Magazine’s Ten by Ten

Bunny Matthews
Casey & Jessica Sanchez (Independent)
PJ Harvey: Uh Huh Her (Island)
The Crimea: Lottery Winners on Acid (Warner Brothers)
Drowning Pool: Desensitized (Wind-Up)
Local H: Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles? (Studio E.)
Death from above 1979: You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine (Vice)
The Polyphonic Spree: Together We’re Heavy (Hollywood)
Mosquitos: Sunshine Barato (Bar/None)
Joseph P. Larkin: Songs of Freedom & Joy (Also-Ran)
Various Artists: Sahara Lounge (Putumayo)

Joseph P. Larkin, direct from Slidell, presents the actual sounds of crack whores and lascivious lesbians.

[I guess this is some kinda Best of 2004 deal; stuff not related to Songs of Freedom & Joy has been edited out—ed.]

Another Satisfied Customer from Amazon.com

Music to fall asleep to
February 29, 2004

Unfortunately, I was driving when I found this out. This disc is mind-numbingly tedious, and believe me, I am being kind. If you are interested in listening to inane police chatter, just buy a scanner and rip the calls to disc for posterity yourself. Consider yourself warned, should you be so foolish as to buy this.

—Perry Truart from Disappointment, DE, USA

Stylus

Various Artists
Songs of Freedom & Joy: a Saturday Compilation
[Also-Ran Rekkids]
2004
{4}

What do you make of an album that, on the one hand, proclaims (in its liner notes) the work’s purpose is to “increase faith in the hearts of growing Christians,” and on the other hand includes song titles like “Finger U Tonite” and “Not 4 Rape on Me” (not to mention band names like Snatch Machine and Crooked Dildo)? Clearly, the folks responsible for Songs of Freedom & Joy are a bunch of twisted fuckers. The music here is generally awful, but at least the makers of this disc went out of their way to emphasize this fact, proudly proclaiming on the back cover, “A Celebration of Bad Music and Random Weirdness.”

There are twenty-three tracks here, all attributed to various bands that I’m guessing don’t exist. The liner notes mention who is responsible for what, but I think the band names are just made up, and for good reason: They’re pretty funny. There’s The Crunchiest of Tacos, The Crispin Glover Experience, Hot Beef Injection, The Fuck Whistles and the aforementioned Snatch and Dildo joke bands. And, yes, the names here are much more interesting and more entertaining than the songs, which range from police scanner transmissions to country crap to awful R&B to hardcore punk to rambling, drunken singing recorded at a party somewhere in Illinois to stolen cell phone transmissions to even more country crap.

Of course, some songs are just plain mediocre. The second track, Amerigo’s “No. 5,” is a good example. It begins with a U2-styled operatic guitar sound and then devolves into a whole lot of guitar and police scanner noise all twisting around a beat. It’s basically a punk version of U2, and while that can be interesting, it’s not really interesting enough to listen to more than a few times.

The only truly engaging thing about the music here is that some of it is the Ed Wood kind of bad—the “that’s just so awful it’s funny” bad. Take Stinkbot’s “Love Syrup,” which is just about the world’s worst R&B song, with lyrics that South Park’s Chef would envy and vocals that make Wesley Willis sound like Al Green. It’s pathetic, but at least it’s original in its own, pathetic way. Most of the other songs are just stupid, especially the intercepted cell phone transmissions, which are boring and annoying, just like all cell phone conversations.

It’s always a bad sign when the liner notes are more interesting than the music. That’s the case here, I’m afraid. Still, it’s good for a laugh or two, so I can’t dismiss it outright.

Reviewed by: Michael Heumann
Reviewed on: 2004-05-24

Splendidzine

“Please kindly review the enclosed CD. And be gentle, for we are ever so sensitive, much like your whore-mother.” So begins the pithy missive accompanying Songs of Freedom & Joy, and the injunction proves that sometimes, you can judge a disc by its cover letter, since this compilation is nothing if not feral. Now, I’m all for irony in measured doses, but this nearly unlistenable assemblage of phone sex calls, police scanner transmissions, disparate snatches of live performances recorded on hand-held trinkets and very occasional music is a testament to the glutted apathy borne of too much spare time and a sense of humor that screams, “Hey, look! I’ve got lesion-pocked testicles!” Two of these twenty-three tracks fall just this side of outright vacuity, but the liner notes don’t agree with each other, so I can’t even honestly tell you what they’re called, how long they are or whom to aim your glock at, and perhaps that’s the point. However, while keeping your fingers crossed behind your back has its place, Also-Ran impresario Joseph Larkin’s tongue is rammed so far through his cheek that the resulting face could melt the monogram off of Barbara Bush’s girdle.

—Jason Kirk

Aiding and Abetting

It’s hard to figure out exactly what’s going on here, though the sub-sub-title does seem to be reasonably accurate: “A celebration of bad music and random weirdness.” Lest you think the compiler is making a judgment on these acts, many of the bands on the disc are listed as Also-Ran acts on the label’s web site.

There are all sorts of statements about the Saturday web site, Also-Ran Rekkids and even the songs themselves. Most of them are obvious jokes (if cleverly written), and so it’s hard to tell what might actually be true or not. But that thing about “bad music and random weirdness”? That’s true.

In truth, the bands listed on the Also-Ran site put out some unusual, but intriguing stuff. A lot of the rest of the CD falls into the “bad” category. Actually, mind-bogglingly annoying is probably more accurate. And so, what is the point?

I dunno. Maybe it’s the strangest label sampler I’ve ever encountered. Maybe Also-Ran Rekkids is also a joke, and all of this is one big put-on. Maybe Joseph P. Larkin (the apparent man behind Also-Ran) is a raving egomanic with nothing else to do other than drive the rest of the world crazy. Or maybe he just wants the attention. But, hey, it worked, didn’t it?

Stickfigure.com

Songs of Freedom & Joy is a demented ride for even the more adventurous listener. A whole horde of unknown artists are featured on this CD. Standouts include Partial Birth Abortion, who according to Snackcake “don’t sound like anybody and that is impressive in this day and age. [Their songs are] just like old episodes of The Twilight Zone where the neon signs flash on and off and the guy is slowly losing his mind.” Amerigo according to Lagniappe is a “stylistically adventurous act.” Frombert according to New City “ is a tall lanky fellow whose voice possesses both the ghostly timbre of a dark balladeer and the alluring but ultimately dangerous tone of a carnival huckster drawing you into a nightmarish freak show. The music–in part anchored by accordion and accented at different points by guitar, piano, organ and horns–echoes with a sullied innocence.” Remember, Stickfigure hates compilations more than you do! But this compilation CD might very well change your life! Released by Also-Ran.

[Joseph made up the vast majority of the press that was quoted in the above review—ed.]

Blastitude

A song by “The Crispin Glover Experience” called “Not 4 Rape on Me” is a story about something like a rape drama, which isn’t that cool, and really not feminist in any way, as it’s about a woman who was raped, but won’t fess up because the cops “woulda had to take a hair sample, woulda had to inspect your pussy,” which is not cool, I guess, and why is it by “The Crispin Glover Experience”?

This difficult album claims to be music made by a number of different people. The song titles don’t match up with each other on various printed matter, and there are also a number of outright lies regarding the mastering and making of this CD. I will not indulge any creators by even mentioning who they bothered to falsely namedrop here, but it seems obvious that this is a practical joke that went way too far.

—Patty Hearst [probably not that Patty Hearst—ed.]

Take me back to the top, Goddamn you!

Aiding and Abetting

Yet another compendium of the weird and truly far out, including a really bizarre telemarketing message from Doug E. Fresh that wound up on someone’s answering machine. I’m not sure how Joseph Larkin has come by all this material (some of it seems to have been discovered in a shoebox), but he does have a handle on the difference between simply bad and spectacularly, impossibly strange. Hey, there are a lot worse ways to blow five bucks.

Splendidzine

Wonderkabinet’s electropoppy “Speak & Spell Tonight” showcases a charming, tongue-in-cheek appreciation of the archaic spelling device—and the song delivers some actual Speak & Spell contributions as well. Sicily contributes a pair of interesting ambient tracks, “Do What You Do” and “Conjugate, ” that effectively mix guitars, programmed beats and glitchy computer effects. The results aren’t stunning, but the songs are well-constructed and easily enjoyable. The disc’s best song, though, is Go Metric’s “Wyoming,” which starts out with a jazzy drum intro, then segues into a keyboard-heavy rock song that’s somewhat reminiscent of a more understated VSS.

It’s clear from all the oddball, non-music material that the compilation’s creators are trying to be amusing, but nothing here makes enough sense to inspire laughs. There are a couple of decent musical moments, but, overall, More Songs of Freedom & Joy is a waste of time.

—Parker Campbell

Take me back to the top, Goddamn you!

“Larkin makes dysfunction and maladjustment uncomfortably humorous, impossible to ignore.”

—Phil Smoker, reluctant fan

“I read a good chunk of [The Slope] and it was enjoyable. Crazy, obsessive, scary and overly personal. I guess that’s probably what people think of my stuff too. So, I mean all this in a good way.”

—Unnamed Moderately Famous Cartoonist That Is Admired Greatly by Joseph, So Much So That Joseph Is Far Too Embarrassed to Namedrop Said Cartoonist in a Shameless Congratulatory Blurb on This Website

“Sir Joseph is not afraid to throw his cock out and have it...well, bludgeoned.”

—Matt Martin, famed emo-rocker and singer/guitar-slinger for New Orleans-based rock combos Amerigo and World Leader Pretend

“I’ve been reading The Slope, it’s pretty short, which is something I look for when I consider a read...I have to say, I’ve laughed, but I’ve winced almost as much. Brutally honest, yes, but also just plain fuckin’ brutal. Relentlessly! Some of it reads like the classics (‘only the head’ dilemma and the ‘friends that fuck’ speech), and some of it is new to me...I don’t want to give away the ending, but...Rita Moreno gets him off.

Fuck, man, sometimes when I was reading the book I thought back to those Internet smut stories I’d always bump into (you might call them ‘sex fantasy tales’ or something), and thought [Larkin was] parodying them. I just thought smut story + sitcom mishap = The Slippery Slope. That’s the big secret, isn’t it?”

—Kirk a.k.a. Sneedy, Internet luminary

“It’s like adult romance from a twelve-year-old boy’s perspective. I love it.”

—Some anonymous guy

“J’ai lu récemment le livre d’un jeune écrivain américain indépendant nommé Joseph Patrick Larkin. Intitulé The Slippery Slope, il est présenté dans sa plus grande partie sous la forme de “piécettes” de théâtre. Je vous conseille de faire un tour sur son site www.josephlarkin.com (pas terrible, mais permettant de se familiariser avec le personnage), et de télécharger les 2 zines qu’il a édité en pdf. Si le style vous plaît, il ne vous reste plus qu’à lui envoyer 6 dollars pour recevoir son livre!”

—Some anonymous French guy

Think Tank Magazine

Books, I get ‘em. On top of the pile this month is an artless affair entitled The Slippery Slope, which was penned by a truly misguided individual named Joseph Larkin. This must’ve been printed up by a vanity press or paid for by Larkin’s parents cuz [sic] no one else would be dumb enough to put up the cash to publish something so excruciatingly bad! This book munches more scat than yer [sic] average dung beetle. Poor Joseph! His girlfriend dumps him in favor of someone else (can you really blame her?) and he’s filled with rage—so what? This makes an interesting read? I don’t think so. Mr. Larkin, perhaps it’s time to GROW UP! Instead of being a creepy jerk who uses his trust fund money to publish his offensive and emotionally retarded rants, why not invest that money in some therapy? You are a hateful little boy and you need help. Ever thought of getting on lithium? (It’s not just a song by Nirvana, kids!) After reading this book, I have come to the following conclusions: First, Mr. Larkin needs to be locked up (hopefully somewhere far, far away from typewriters and paper) and, second, only a dope would like The Slippery Slope.

On the flipside, we have a book called Pussy Blood Bubble by Alison Kraut. This book is everything The Slippery Slope isn’t and wishes it could be: smart, thought-provoking and brutally honest. Ms. Kraut paints what it’s like to be a woman with vivid prose. Walk through her shoes and find out what it’s like to experience your first period, your first rape and your first baby. Witness all of this as seen through Kraut’s unflinching eye. Imagine a Bikini Kill song on paper and you’ve got the idea. This book cannot come highly recommended enough—it will change the way you view the battle of the sexes.

—Tom Donut

Jerkhammer Press

Interview with Joseph Larkin regarding his self-published literary masterpiece, The Slippery Slope:

Q: Why do you feel the urge to make private things public like you are doing in your book, The Slippery Slope—why even publish a book in the first place?!

A: I dunno. I just had a mania for writing.

Pataphysics Research Journal

Joseph Larkin’s The Slippery Slope

More than you ever wanted to know about how relationships fall apart.

Certainly from my perspective, potential always trumps mediocrity and Joseph Larkin’s The Slippery Slope shows much promise in its semi-autobiographical dissection of a romantic relationship’s collapse. Composed of two dialogues and a prose piece, Larkin drags the reader into his own dark obsessions, displaying the full pathology of a break-up in all of its desperation and emotional—and physical—violence. The first dialogue, “Untitled Play for Crispin Glover,” sets the stage in its graphic depiction of the couple struggling to have sex with each other while also laying the groundwork for “Black Valentine,” the second dialogue and heart of the collection. The couple’s difficulties in physically connecting contains within the deeper problems of their inability to emotionally come together, the desire for the act replacing the desire for each other. In the second dialogue, “Black Valentine,” the relationship has come apart, the former partners clawing at each other until the very end, each attempting to justify their actions, including one hitting the other in a fit of anger. The longest piece in the book, “Black Valentine” is a splatter of accusation and self incrimination displayed in all of its desperation. The Slippery Slope concludes with a short prose piece, “A Many Splendored Thing,” in which the “Joseph” of the book reflects back and attempts to understand what had happened while also attempt to find someone new to fill the void inside himself. If The Slippery Slope suffers from anything, it is the author’s inability to separate himself from the “Joseph” in the book, the scales tilted so to speak towards himself and not “Mia”, his portions of the dialogues at times becoming self righteous monologues. In the end, though, The Slippery Slope is more than worth reading, introducing a fresh and raw talent that I hope will only get better with whatever he decides to release next. The Slippery Slope may be flawed, but Mr. Larkin more than reveals that he has the intelligence and heart to produce something even better. If you get his book, be ready to squirm.

—Jack Cole [not the dead comic book artist of the same name—ed.]

Take me back to the top, motherfucker!