![]() From novelty and comedy songs to songs that seem to have just been written as an early form of musical trolling, they’re brought together and presented by your requisite carnival barker and odd music enthusiast, Barret Eugene “Barry” Hansen, aka “Dr. Specializing in playing the otherwise unplayable, it’s not just strange or unsettling music - it’s music that is often so over the line that it would never see the light of day but for the desire to put it on display in what amounts to an audio freak show. Since 1970, the show has carved out a space in the air waves as an alternative to the alternative. Demento Show” is something of a legend if you’re past a particular age. ![]() He turned Elmo & Patsy’s “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” into a perennial holiday favorite, and he also made Barnes & Barnes’s “Fish Heads,” the SNL-popularized video of which was directed by and starred a young Bill Paxton, a massive hit.The Dr. “Weird Al” Yankovic wasn’t Demento’s only discovery since he took to the airwaves in 1970. Jett instead contributed a previously unreleased recording of the Rocky Horror theme, “ Science Fiction/Double Feature.” Other demented highlights on Covered in Punk include William Shatner’s cheeky take on the Cramps’ “ Garbageman,” the late Adam West doing “ The Thing,” B-52’s mouthpiece Fred Schneider’s “ Fluffy,” and Space Ghost sidekick Brak’s utterly hilarious interpretation of Suicidal Tendencies’ anti-authority anthem “ Institutionalized.” (Incidentally, Demento, who has a master’s degree in folklore and ethnomusicology, is a punk-rock fan he even played the Sex Pistols on his show back in the day.) “And I put it on, and though it was crudely recorded, probably with one of those little cassette machines with a self-contained microphone, the balance was right, you could understand his words, the words were funny, and he played the accordion - which by itself was new and unusual at that time, for somebody young to play the accordion, and not a polka, not ‘Lady of Spain’ or anything like that.”įor Covered in Punk, along with Yankovic’s surprisingly faithful version of “Beat on the Brat,” Caifero and Demento enlisted Japanese pop-punk trio Shonen Knife to cover one of Al’s most popular parodies, “ Eat It.” But another genius idea - for Joan Jett to remake Al’s “I Love Rocky Road” - was shot down by her management. “I used to get, like, 25 to 30 tapes every week, and one of the cassettes that came in was this one from ‘Alfred Yankovic: Lynwood, California,’” he recalls. Visiting Yahoo Entertainment with Covered in Punk producer and Ramones associate John Cafiero, Demento (real name: Barry Hansen) says, “Nobody could have predicted” the young Yankovic’s massive success - but he recalls being impressed the first time he heard Al’s music. ![]() Demento, I’d probably have a real job now.” Yankovic - who went on to win four Grammys, sell 12 million albums, and most recently break the internet with “ The Hamilton Polka” - has even been quoted as saying, “If there hadn’t been a Dr. Demento’s new Covered in Punk compilation, it was a full-circle moment for both comedy legends: The year that “Beat on the Brat” came out, 1976, is the same year that the good doctor first played anything by the teenager then known as just “Alfred Yankovic.”Īnd the rest was history. When “Weird Al” Yankovic agreed to record the Ramones’ “Beat on the Brat” for radio pioneer Dr.
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