Doo-Dah Dada

I've been listening incessantly to last year's EMI reissues of the Bonzo Dog (Doo-Dah) Band's oeuvre over the past few weeks. Can't get enough of that stuff, and the remastering job they've pulled off is simply stunning. I'd always been particularly fond of their first album, Gorilla, with its early Jazz feel, but the upgraded sound quality of The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse has really brought this album up on my list. I've never heard it sound this good, and with its more ambitious approach and more detailed production, optimal sound quality is a must. It not only solidifies the comparisons to the Mothers of Invention that they've always kind of invited (though they lack the cynicism-bordering-on-mean-spiritedness of Zappa in favor of a more benign approach), but I started wondering upon listening if the boys in Pink Floyd might've been fans -- the interview segments of "We Are Normal" (along with the opening of "Shirt" from Tadpoles and especially "Slush" from 1972's Let's Make Up and Be Friendly) feel like the funny flip side of the similar interludes on Dark Side of the Moon. Purchase these essential works of British dada musical insanity from your purveyor of choice.