Rocks Off loves extreme personalities. Whether it's the serene, spiritual symphony that is Tyagaraja, or the pre-frontal lobe melting experience that is Tubby Chubcakes we just can't get enough of people who go screaming over the edge of normalcy like Thelma and Louise.
And ladies and gentlemen, the undisputed king of those people is a man who goes by the name Dr. Milo Thaddeus Pinkerton III from a New Orleans band called The Consortium of Genius.
Picking a genre for C.o.G. is daunting. To call them a comedy band is as unfair to them as it is to Weird Al., though the two share much in common. When you venture past the parodies into the album tracks that Weird Al has done, something like "Albuquerque" for example, you realize that you are dealing with a very talented musician who uses jokes like shoegazers use glasses and delay petals.
The same is true for C.o.G.. The band's mastery of genres as diverse as punk, jazz, metal, New Age, sea chanteys, ballads, and industrial is astounding. You literally never know what you're going to get musically when you put on one of their albums.
Well, you do know one thing. You know that each CD is not so much an album as an audio play with musical interludes. Each opus takes us through one hair-brained mad scientist scheme of Dr. Pinkerton's after another as he tries to take over or destroy the world with about as much success as Donald Trump had proving Obama was from Kenya.
That is the secret behind what makes C.o.G. such an amazing group. Like GWAR, they are not so much a band as a vast, multimedia experience. For instance, we thrilled to their short-lived Web series with its surprisingly high production values and guest appearances from other bands like Beth Patterson and Fatter Than Albert.
Their last album, Music for Supervillains, had a tie-in comic book that was very well put together. Hell, we even have porn based on their work. Rule 34 remains absolute.
So when we heard that Dr. Pinkerton was loading up his brain-removing machine, drumbot, and all the assorted bells and whistles that make their show an absolute must-see and were trekking across East Texas to finally play Houston, we peed a little. Of course they're playing Super Happy Fun Land - where else in Houston do you stick a combination of Bill Nye the Science Guy and David Lee Roth?
To see is to believe. Rocks Off is pleased to welcome Dr. Pinkerton live via satellite from his evil lair for an interview.