Greatest Mix You Will Ever Hear Series: Bizarre Comic Book Songs

LET fave and friend ekko over at the always wonderful Berkeley Place was bitching and moaning, er, mentioning the sad, sad fact that bloggers seldom seem to show love to one another anymore. As the LET crew still is waiting to celebrate its second birthday in about a month, we can't really say how things were "back in the good, old days," but we certainly can agree with the sentiment that we could all use a little bit more love in our lives, so today is all about BP. Well, maybe, but kind-of, sort-of, in a not really kind of way.

For those of you not in the know, BP focuses on a bit of this and a bit of that, but the two primary "functions" of his wonderful blog are music and comic books. Clearly, a man after my own heart. Perhaps foolishly of him, ekko even has me write the occasional piece for him. Speaking of which, assuming you read this, ekko, i swear to Kitty Pryde's corpse that I'm going to finish that X-Men piece as soon as humanly possible.

Any which way but loose, today we "officially" are starting a new feature here at LET, The Greatest ____ Mix You Will Ever Hear" series. You've already got most of the zombie triumvirate and you tasted the beauty of that which is the finest in breakfast raps, but today's launch is in tribute to the Wise and Sagacious ekko. May I present to you, the Greatest Bizarre Comic Book Songs Mix You Will Ever Hear. Pay no attention to the fact that most of these tracks probably came from BP in the first place; I'M the Mixmaster here, and that's all you need to worry about regarding that.

mp3: Stop Talking About Comic Books Or I'll Kill You (Adam Selzer from Geeks Gone Wild in Chicago!)

You're going to notice inclusion of folks that correctly character name drop in their songs. This would be one such example. What's more, and my geeks out there can back me up here, every single comic book guy out there has had this conversation at least once with at least one loved one.

mp3: Boy Wonder, I Love You (Burt Ward from The Boy Wonder Sessions)

I believe I found this one on some "uber-obscure songs that never should have been made" website. Either that, or this was used in someone's trial to prove psychopathic tendencies were, in fact, a mitigating circumstance and I copied it from Court TV. What we have hear is the one and only Burt Ward of "...& Robin" fame reading fan letters he's received. Could be the most creepy, inappropriate thing ever set to wax. Oh, and who's that backing band, you ask? Goddamn Mothers of Invention. I shit you not.

mp3: Spiderman (Tenacious D from a live show; if I had to guess, I say it was from a Largo show, but that's because EVERYTHING from their early career seems to come from a Largo show)

I've seen the D do this song live once or twice, so let me see if I can set the stage appropriately. Kyle and Jack start out doing a straight cover of the old cartoon theme song before a guy comes out dressed in a Sasquatch costume. At this point, things devolve into a sort of improv gross-out comedy fest that cracks me up every time I hear it. Essentially, JB simply describes what's happening on-stage. I am fairly confident this is the only song on the planet that discusses chodas and Bigfoot in the same verse.

mp3: Kookies (MF Doom from MM...Food)

ekko is one of the few cats out there that seems to like Metal Face as much, if not more, than i do. Beyond the fact that Doom's entire persona is based on the Fantastic Four's premier villain, he often samples old FF records from the 60s and 70s into his music, clearly making him a perfect addition to this list. While you have to wait for the end of the track for the FF record sample, you should notice immediately that, yes, this motherfucker sampled Sesame Street as the back beat for the entire track. GENIUS, I tell you!

mp3: Spider Pig (Hans Zimmer from The Simpsons Movie Soundtrack)

Sure, having an orchestra and full choir substitute "pig" for "man" in the classic theme song would be enough for inclusion here. More importantly, i'd like to say we're the first and only mp3 blog out there today with multiple Hans Zimmer posts. LET Rules, bitches!

mp3: Jam On It (Newcleus from Jam On This! The Best of Newcleus)

Alright, I'll be the first to admit I'm really stretching it on this one, but there is a full verse about Superman losing in a DJ battle, so there's list placement justification right there. To be honest, though, I just freaking love this song and wanted to put it in here. Don't question the Mixmaster, son, just go with it.

mp3: Super Heroes (Planet Asia and DJ Toure from Marvel vs. Capcom 2: Hip Hop Mixtape)

mp3: Who's a Hero? (MF Doom & Trunks from Unicron)

Between these two tracks, damn near every major comic book character from the past three or more decades is mentioned. Major props for these cats even knowing all these names, yet alone for their ability to actually make raps out of that knowledge. Geek, geek, yo!

mp3: Superhero (Stephen Lynch from Superhero)

The one true "comedy" inclusion in the bunch, I've seen Stephen live a couple of times now, and this one always is a crowd pleaser. For the part of the show where he asks the audience to shout out names of potential superheros, the last time I saw him someone yelled out "Bukake Boy!" You can't make this stuff up, folks. Well, I suppose you could, but why bother?

Old Skool Review: The Gas Face

For today's lesson, kids, we're going to deal not just with one band, but with a track and a couple of follow-up tracks it spawned. Today, we learn about the Gas Face.

Time upon a once, there was a white rap duo out there that attempted to bring legitimacy to a honky grabbing the mic. Note, this was well before Eminem took the stage. At this point, we essentially had Vanilla Ice and the Beastie Boys back when they were considered nothing more than crazy frat rap. The band in question was 3rd Bass, known pretty much for this hit.

MC Serch and Prime Minister Pete Nice, along with the turntabilist stylings of DJ Richie Rich, first hit the scene in 1987 with The Cactus Album. With produce Sam Sever, the Bomb Squad and Prince Paul in the booth, this was a pretty tight debut. While more albums followed, no other singles hit as hard as Gas Face. (Well, maybe Pop Goes the Weasel, too, but this is my Old Skool Review, so there.) The track essentially is a diss on a variety of folks 3rd Bass did not respect. They particularly did not like the MC Hammer/Vanilla Ice direction the genre was taking, as is evidenced by the numerous insults thrown in their direction.

Towards the end of the track, you might notice the boys introduce a guest, Zev Love X. X was in a little band called KMD. Following the death of X's brother, Subroc, X disappeared for a while before coming back to the scene donning a mask and going by the name of MF Doom.

And thus, it all comes back to footwear here at LET. And if you can follow that obscure reference, let me know and you'll get a special LET prize consisting of my undying admiration.

We've got three versions of Gas Face for your listening pleasure today. First up is the original, followed by a response given by KMD. And then, just to keep things interesting, a lyrical remix by none other than 3rd Bass and Prince Paul themselves.

mp3: Gas Face (3rd Bass)

mp3: Gas Face Refill (KMD)

mp3: Gas Face Remix (3rd Bass remixed by Prince Paul)

Singles Club: MF Doom

Clearly, we're not huge hip hop heads here at LET. Alliterations aside, I firmly believe rap hit its high water mark in the early to mid-90s and hasn't been particularly entertaining/engaging since. Of course, there are still a handful of players in the game worth listening to and almost all of them are MF Doom. His style is unique, a mush-mouthed thing of brilliance. Then there's the lyrical content, which revolves heavily around comic book and cartoon characters, and let's be honest, who doesn't love that?

Now, if you're familiar at all w/ the Masked Villian's latest exploits, you've probably been wondering what the hell is going through his metal head lately. With the exception of some guest tracks, he really hasn't done much since the DangerDoom collaboration. And who knows what was going on with that whole "Fake Doom" concert series last year. Leaving all that behind us, it appears that Viktor Vaughn is finally going to drop his next one, Born Like This, sometime in the spring. For your listening pleasure, here's the latest track he's released on MySpace and elsewhere 'round the webospheres.

As a side note, I just figured out that MF Doom is, in fact, none other than Zev Luv X from the incomparable Gas Face by 3rd Bass. I've loved Doom for years and Gas Face for even longer. To find out it's the same cat on each kind of blew me away, thus bringing us back to footwear. So I've got that going for me.

mp3: Ballskin