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Firesign: The Electromagnetic History of Everything as Told on Nine Comedy Albums
320 pages, Paperback
Published October 29, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 26, 2024
The book is about the comedy group the Firesign theater, and focused on its major early albums. It provides a brief history of the groups formation (including its non-comedy work) and progress through the years, discusses the albums, and then discusses the paradox of its decline in critical relevance being its rise in cultural resonance, including how some of its lesser works got the most traction in the public consciousness.
The criticism that sets this book apart from a more general history is looking at the "media archaeology" of the works. Firesign was working during a transformative era in history in terms of records, radio, movies, and television, (and books as a sort of foundation to each). Firesign shows a relationship with each. To a lesser extent, this is how they work within those media, or how the media affect their work. But the real argument here is that the art itself has a lot to say about each, and uses the ways in which people relate to each as part of the gag. In ways that feel oddly prescient when it comes to television and LLM AI.
It is a fun and useful read for any Firesign fan. I particularly liked the exploration of how the group's member's non-Firesign work affected its comedy. It is primarily an academic text and a weak introduction in and of itself, if only because even with the inclusion of quotes and explanations of what is going on in certain work, Firesign produces such dense material that it has to be heard to be explained.
The downside of this crit is where the frame requires a frame. I am not sure whether there are points that get beyond my range of knowledge but periodically the theory about some bit of Firesign's corpus requires accepting some other theory of media or media history. Sometimes, most notably in the cinema section, I felt unsure of the validity of the theory. I could apply the theory as described to Firesign through the text of their work itself, but I was unsure about how accurate or applicable the stated theory was.
Ultimately, though, the book did what I wanted a book like this to do, which is to provide a fresh look at old material and a new way of looking at great art.
My thanks to the author, Jeremy Braddock, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of California Press, for making the ARC available to me.
The criticism that sets this book apart from a more general history is looking at the "media archaeology" of the works. Firesign was working during a transformative era in history in terms of records, radio, movies, and television, (and books as a sort of foundation to each). Firesign shows a relationship with each. To a lesser extent, this is how they work within those media, or how the media affect their work. But the real argument here is that the art itself has a lot to say about each, and uses the ways in which people relate to each as part of the gag. In ways that feel oddly prescient when it comes to television and LLM AI.
It is a fun and useful read for any Firesign fan. I particularly liked the exploration of how the group's member's non-Firesign work affected its comedy. It is primarily an academic text and a weak introduction in and of itself, if only because even with the inclusion of quotes and explanations of what is going on in certain work, Firesign produces such dense material that it has to be heard to be explained.
The downside of this crit is where the frame requires a frame. I am not sure whether there are points that get beyond my range of knowledge but periodically the theory about some bit of Firesign's corpus requires accepting some other theory of media or media history. Sometimes, most notably in the cinema section, I felt unsure of the validity of the theory. I could apply the theory as described to Firesign through the text of their work itself, but I was unsure about how accurate or applicable the stated theory was.
Ultimately, though, the book did what I wanted a book like this to do, which is to provide a fresh look at old material and a new way of looking at great art.
My thanks to the author, Jeremy Braddock, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of California Press, for making the ARC available to me.
January 16, 2025
I first discovered the Firesign Theatre during High School (Madness?) with the release of their first album and, during my college career, habitually memorized and performed their skits at dorm parties. 60 years later, Jeremy Braddock's book opens up an entirely new perspective (several, actually) upon their work by rigorously delving into the many artistic and cultural influences (e,g, the Trail of Tears, Norman Corwin, HipHop!) on the Four or Five Crazy Guys and their schooling in the technologies that made this utterly unique brand of comedy possible.
This book has caused me to re-engage with the Firesign's albums and visual arts performances, listening and watching with a new set of ears and eyes. It astounds me that there are even more, and more pertinent, material references which expand my appreciation well beyond the initial response of "Hey, these guys are really funny, man!"
Great book!
This book has caused me to re-engage with the Firesign's albums and visual arts performances, listening and watching with a new set of ears and eyes. It astounds me that there are even more, and more pertinent, material references which expand my appreciation well beyond the initial response of "Hey, these guys are really funny, man!"
Great book!
March 3, 2025
Damn. This is what the doctor ordered! Read a little, go to the internet and look up stuff, get stoned, listen to albums. If you have no idea who the Firesign Theatre is/was, then go away. You will not benefit reading any of this. Go far away. Stay there until you get your shit together. Then we can talk.
June 2, 2025
Explaining a joke is often comparable to killing it. But explaining the jokesters isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can be very helpful.
This book is an excellent example. I knew, from my colorful past, a good number of silly, weird, and absurd bits from the albums released by the Firesign Theatre during the 60s and 70s. But I didn’t always know what the comedy was getting at, and I knew next to nothing about where the four members of this elusive, zany, and highly literate group were coming from. In fact, I didn’t even know the albums that well. Firesign, written by scholar Jeremy Braddock and published in October 2024, substantially changes all of that.
A few things that I know now: The title of Firesign’s first album, Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him (1968), was inspired by Samuel Beckett. The “tropical paradise” environment that’s evoked on the second album, How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All (1969), alludes to the Vietnam War. A series of talking road signs on that album—“Antelope Freeway, one-half mile…one-quarter mile…one-eighth mile”—alludes to one of Zeno’s paradoxes (obvious to me now, but not when I was in high school). Firesign’s third album (1970) was nominated for a Hugo Award, even though it’s neither science fiction nor a book. The talking-computer robot president on I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus (1971) was greatly influenced by Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program. Firesign made considerable use of recording technologies as they advanced—multitrack recording, Dolby noise reduction—in ways more comparable to rock bands than to comedy acts. Increasing frustration with the political process, especially after Kent State, led in 1972 to the group’s invention of a make-believe party (the National Surrealist Party) and a make-believe presidential candidate (George Papoon). Apple hid in its Siri assistant for the iPhone a couple of Easter-egg responses to Firesign-based questions that remained for 10 years.
The Firesign Theatre has for a long time been something of a secret, better known to the few than to the many. A good contrast is the comedy work of Cheech and Chong, which began to appear in 1971, and which still has enough of an audience that a documentary about the two was recently released. The Firesign Theatre, on the other hand, has gotten attention of another order entirely.
The book’s opening paragraph lists a handful of “signs of Firesign,” as I think of them—including a button saying “Not Insane” that former Beatle John Lennon wore at a press conference in 1973, and numerous samples by hip-hop artist Madlib—that, taken together, are far-flung enough to be almost arcane. Braddock’s second paragraph sums up these references as “covert signs of affiliation sent and sought over unknown distances.” Clearly, either a book or a new conspiracy theory is called for.
Now we have the book, and it’s more thorough, careful, amusing, wide-ranging, neatly written, analytical, appreciative, and even inspiring than I expected when I heard of it. Really, we have to be thankful for advertising now and then; a small ad placed by the University of California Press in a Los Angeles Review of Books email is what tipped me off. What’s needed next is a thorough and careful review of what Braddock has accomplished here. If, as a back-cover blurb suggests, the popular culture of the late 60s and the 70s is being reconsidered, this book is clearly a part of that, and a serious, knowledgeable review will follow, if it doesn’t already exist.
For my part, I’m just grateful to have Firesign. It’s a time capsule that’s delightful to sift through; it reconstructs and reassesses parts of our cultural history. What’s more, it has brought back and clarified parts of my own past, and in a way that’s less expensive and more fun—oh, much more fun!—than psychotherapy.
This book is an excellent example. I knew, from my colorful past, a good number of silly, weird, and absurd bits from the albums released by the Firesign Theatre during the 60s and 70s. But I didn’t always know what the comedy was getting at, and I knew next to nothing about where the four members of this elusive, zany, and highly literate group were coming from. In fact, I didn’t even know the albums that well. Firesign, written by scholar Jeremy Braddock and published in October 2024, substantially changes all of that.
A few things that I know now: The title of Firesign’s first album, Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him (1968), was inspired by Samuel Beckett. The “tropical paradise” environment that’s evoked on the second album, How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All (1969), alludes to the Vietnam War. A series of talking road signs on that album—“Antelope Freeway, one-half mile…one-quarter mile…one-eighth mile”—alludes to one of Zeno’s paradoxes (obvious to me now, but not when I was in high school). Firesign’s third album (1970) was nominated for a Hugo Award, even though it’s neither science fiction nor a book. The talking-computer robot president on I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus (1971) was greatly influenced by Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program. Firesign made considerable use of recording technologies as they advanced—multitrack recording, Dolby noise reduction—in ways more comparable to rock bands than to comedy acts. Increasing frustration with the political process, especially after Kent State, led in 1972 to the group’s invention of a make-believe party (the National Surrealist Party) and a make-believe presidential candidate (George Papoon). Apple hid in its Siri assistant for the iPhone a couple of Easter-egg responses to Firesign-based questions that remained for 10 years.
The Firesign Theatre has for a long time been something of a secret, better known to the few than to the many. A good contrast is the comedy work of Cheech and Chong, which began to appear in 1971, and which still has enough of an audience that a documentary about the two was recently released. The Firesign Theatre, on the other hand, has gotten attention of another order entirely.
The book’s opening paragraph lists a handful of “signs of Firesign,” as I think of them—including a button saying “Not Insane” that former Beatle John Lennon wore at a press conference in 1973, and numerous samples by hip-hop artist Madlib—that, taken together, are far-flung enough to be almost arcane. Braddock’s second paragraph sums up these references as “covert signs of affiliation sent and sought over unknown distances.” Clearly, either a book or a new conspiracy theory is called for.
Now we have the book, and it’s more thorough, careful, amusing, wide-ranging, neatly written, analytical, appreciative, and even inspiring than I expected when I heard of it. Really, we have to be thankful for advertising now and then; a small ad placed by the University of California Press in a Los Angeles Review of Books email is what tipped me off. What’s needed next is a thorough and careful review of what Braddock has accomplished here. If, as a back-cover blurb suggests, the popular culture of the late 60s and the 70s is being reconsidered, this book is clearly a part of that, and a serious, knowledgeable review will follow, if it doesn’t already exist.
For my part, I’m just grateful to have Firesign. It’s a time capsule that’s delightful to sift through; it reconstructs and reassesses parts of our cultural history. What’s more, it has brought back and clarified parts of my own past, and in a way that’s less expensive and more fun—oh, much more fun!—than psychotherapy.
April 9, 2025
First, the positive. Just the fact that a book like this was published warms the heart of someone for whom Firesign was the Shakespeare of my youth, where my friends and I quoted the albums in hallways of my high school. To this day, I quote lines from the albums to myself, to fellow fans and sometimes to people who have no idea what the heck I'm talking about. I learned a number of interesting things about the group, about the members' backgrounds and the influence of those backgrounds on the albums and about the making of the albums themselves.
But...
This book is a textbook. And it assumes the reader has esoteric knowledge of media studies and obscure literary texts. Let me give you an example from the final pages of the book. When discussing how Firesign albums were sampled by a number of hip-hop producers, the author writes "Placed in the service of a Black music, the recontextualization was an appropriate and interpretive act that may have drawn critical attention to the Firesign Theatre's arrogating aspiration to heteroglossia."
Arrogating aspiration to heteroglossia? Really?
(For those wondering. Arrogating means to take or claim (something) without justification," and heteroglossia means "the presence of two or more voices or expressed viewpoints in a text or other artistic work.")
Still glad I read it, though.
But...
This book is a textbook. And it assumes the reader has esoteric knowledge of media studies and obscure literary texts. Let me give you an example from the final pages of the book. When discussing how Firesign albums were sampled by a number of hip-hop producers, the author writes "Placed in the service of a Black music, the recontextualization was an appropriate and interpretive act that may have drawn critical attention to the Firesign Theatre's arrogating aspiration to heteroglossia."
Arrogating aspiration to heteroglossia? Really?
(For those wondering. Arrogating means to take or claim (something) without justification," and heteroglossia means "the presence of two or more voices or expressed viewpoints in a text or other artistic work.")
Still glad I read it, though.
July 21, 2025
At last, someone has written a book about the Firesign Theater! Their mind-boggling, eclectic, absurdist, political, nostalgic, witty, complex, challenging and just plain damn funny records have never been equalled – most likely because no-one else could figure out how they did what they did, let alone try to do it as well.
But how’s the book? Parts are wonderful: there are detailed histories of the 4 members, fascinating dissections of just how the records were made – and why – and a good analysis of what made them popular and why it couldn’t last. There’s some jaw-dropping trivia in there as well. On the other hand, the book is also part scholarly publication. Having survived the theoretical part of a film degree, my eyes frequently rolled when the literary theory jargon got going, but fortunately that didn’t last too long.
On the whole, though, I’m delighted that this book exists and that it’s so illuminating. I’m also delighted to be reminded of the brilliance of the Firesigns. And now to get those records out and have another listen…
Shoes for industry! Shoes for the dead!
But how’s the book? Parts are wonderful: there are detailed histories of the 4 members, fascinating dissections of just how the records were made – and why – and a good analysis of what made them popular and why it couldn’t last. There’s some jaw-dropping trivia in there as well. On the other hand, the book is also part scholarly publication. Having survived the theoretical part of a film degree, my eyes frequently rolled when the literary theory jargon got going, but fortunately that didn’t last too long.
On the whole, though, I’m delighted that this book exists and that it’s so illuminating. I’m also delighted to be reminded of the brilliance of the Firesigns. And now to get those records out and have another listen…
Shoes for industry! Shoes for the dead!
August 1, 2025
A very fine book that provides a solid overview of the history and the works of Firesign Theatre. It also works well providing an expansive cultural exegesis that places the group’s satire in context.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews