No one but no one does bonkers quite like the British – and well done to all the good people in Cherry Red and Esoteric for getting this forgotten piece of stark-raving mad back out there.įollowing on from his daft-as-a-brush "Electric Shocks" album from October 1972 – one year later and the ex BONZO DOG DOO DAH BAND main man was at it again. Though it’s a shame there aren’t any extras or outtakes. He's right because there's songwriting/comedic genius amidst all of the tomfoolery (check out "Trouble With My Trousers"). Spear in fact felt that "Unusual" and its comedy suffered unfairly against the more popular "Electric Shocks" album from 1972 (see my review) - and that now in 2014 - it genuinely deserves reappraisal. You’ll find yourself giggling a lot and his brilliantly deadpan cover of Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" will have you wanting to You Tube it immediately (telling the world of your fab new find). It’s very classily done.Ĭarrying on in much the same tradition as the Bonzo albums on Liberty - the songs are full of madcap rhythms and old timey melodies (like he’s on the set of Boardwalk Empire). And as with the preceding "Electric Shocks" issue – there are superb further liner notes from noted writer MALCOLM DOME. Recorded between August and December 1973 and UK released April 1974 on United Artists – Spear shares his typically brill reminiscences of his second solo album after The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (the last three letters of the word Unusual are actually typed upside down on the original LP label and on the cover art) - discussing each song and how they came to be (the band HELP YOURSELF guest on "Bumpity Bump" while THUNDERCLAP "Something In The Air" NEWMAN plays the piano on his fabulous send up of The Who's classic "Pinball Wizard"). The 16-page colour booklet features photos of our Roger with his boggle-eyes, white lab coat and massive Tuba - looking like a doctor who shouldn’t be let loose in any ward. The dense multi-tracked original tapes have been given a right polish and all the instrument antics, funny voices and animal noises are here in fabulous sound quality. Quite apart from the sheer craziness of the proceedings - the first thing that hits you is the great remaster carried out to perfection by BEN WISEMAN at Audio Archiving. Tracks 1 to 11 are his second solo album "Unusual" - originally released on vinyl LP April 1974 in the UK on United Artists UAS 29508 My Goodness (Or The Revolutionary New Concrete Mixer Show) When Yuba Plays The Rumba On The Tuba Down In Cuba ġ0. I Love To Go Bumpity Bump (On A Bumpy Road With You)Ħ. UK released on CD September 2014 - "Unusual" by ROGER RUSKIN SPEAR is on Esoteric Recordings ECLEC 2464 (Barcode 5013929456440) and breaks down as follows (34:23 minutes):ĥ. Here are the Mad Dogs and their Certifiable Englishman… As you can imagine it's very funny - and very, very silly. "Unusual" is a another cocktail of wonderfully eccentric send-up - Monty Python type lunacy where men struggle with submersible trousers and go bumpity bump in roadsters made for two as vaudeville songs played on Tubas waft out of a wireless hidden by Billy Bunter in Felsham hedgerows. JTA then sued the construction company, who countersued, and nothing really ever came of it.Following on from his daft-as-a-brush "Electric Shocks" album from October 1972 – a year and a half later and the ex BONZO DOG DOO DAH BAND main man was at it again. Reece says that the bumpy surface was likely an accident – a construction defect, specifically. That being said, it’s still pretty unlikely.Īn alternate theory was presented in a 2010 article by Jeff Reece for The Florida Times-Union. There were concerns around that time about accidents happening at the intersection of Butler Boulevard and State Road A1A, so a design intended to have a speed bump effect isn’t necessarily unfathomable. Some say the bridge was designed this way on purpose as a way to slow down speeders. So why is the bridge so bumpy? Well, there are actually a couple of different stories about how it happened. The completion of the bridge brought major traffic relief – but then people started noticing the bumpiness. The new bridge was completed in the late ‘80s and dedicated as the Arthur N. At the time, that span of Butler Boulevard was a two-lane road. The eastbound bridge’s construction started in 1986 with the goal of easing congestion for traffic crossing the Intracoastal. If you’ve ever traveled toward the Beaches on Butler Boulevard, you have undoubtedly experienced the bumpy ride over the Intracoastal Waterway.
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