Roller Maidens from Outer Space
Roller Maidens from Outer Space | ||||
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Studio album by Phil Austin and the Firesign Theatre | ||||
Released | March 1974 | |||
Genre | Comedy | |||
Label | Epic | |||
Producer | Phil Austin | |||
The Firesign Theatre chronology | ||||
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Roller Maidens From Outer Space is a 1974 comedy album by Phil Austin, one of the members of the comedy group Firesign Theatre.[1] Although the record is considered to be Austin's "solo" album, the other three Firesigns make vocal contributions throughout, and are thanked by Austin in the liner notes. A complex lampoon on television and society, Austin's record is much in the same vein as the Firesign Theatre's Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers and fellow Firesign members Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman's TV or Not TV. The television theme is carried over into the record sleeve, which features liner information displayed as if it were a TV Guide listing, complete with stylized channel numbers and little blurbs of content.
Track listing
Side one
- "Lord Jim Crappington - 1:49"
- "C'mon Jesus - 3:40"
- "Carhook - 3:34"
- "The Regular and Ethyl Show - 1:28"
- "Switchblade Pitchforks - 2:21"
- "The John Fresno Story - 10:15"
Side two
- "The Bad News - 4:12"
- "T.V. - 1:03"
- "Celebrity Roller Rassling - 2:56"
- "A Square Dance - 2:19"
- "Dick Private's Personal Peril - 3:38"
- "The Thrilling End - 8:35"
Story
Like Firesign's Nick Danger, Dick Private (Austin), the hero and narrator of this album is a hard-boiled detective. Normally he is the hero of his own detective show Carhook, but when he takes on client Regular Boinklin (who sounds like Ozzie Nelson), he finds himself crossing channels to Boinklin's Regular and Ethyl Show, a sitcom parody of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. He aids Boinklin, neighbor Tricky Retardo (David Ossman) (who, along with his wife Juicy (Philip Proctor), parodies the principal characters of I Love Lucy), and Tricky's brother Jesus (Austin), who all want to know what Juicy and Ethyl are doing at the weekly meetings of their club, the Roller Maidens From Outer Space.
It turns out the Roller Maidens have been subverted by a plot that involves both malevolent aliens and a character who might actually be the Devil.
The album features contemporary drug references, references to pop culture, and songs in a variety of genres that advance the plot. It ends with an apocalyptic battle, including "...pillars of fire taller than I'd ever seen before."
References
- ^ Larkin, Colin, ed. (2002). The Virgin Encyclopedia of 70s Music (3rd ed.). London: Virgin Books in association with Muze UK. p. 132. ISBN 978-1-85227-947-9.
- v
- t
- e
- Phil Austin
- Peter Bergman
- David Ossman
- Philip Proctor
- Dear Friends
- A Firesign Chat with Papoon
- Nick Danger: The Case of the Missing Shoe
- Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him
- How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All
- Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers
- I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus
- TV or Not TV
- How Time Flys
- Roller Maidens from Outer Space
- The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra
- Everything You Know Is Wrong
- In the Next World, You're on Your Own
- Just Folks... A Firesign Chat
- Give Us a Break
- The Three Faces of Al
- Eat or Be Eaten
- Anythynge You Want To (Shakespeare's Lost Comedie)
- Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death
- Boom Dot Bust
- Bride of Firesign
- Dear Friends
- Forward Into the Past
- Lawyer's Hospital
- Box of Danger
- Shoes For Industry: The Best of the Firesign Theatre
- Papoon for President
- Duke of Madness Motors: The Complete "Dear Friends" Radio Era
- Dope Humor of the Seventies
- Not Insane or Anything You Want To
- What This Country Needs
- Fighting Clowns
- Back From the Shadows: The Firesign Theatre's 25th Anniversary Reunion Tour
- Radio Now Live
- B-17 Bomber (voiced by Proctor and Bergman)
- Pyst