Consumer Guide Album

Holy Modal Rounders: 1 & 2 [Fantasy, 1999]
An Xgau Sez question alerted me to my failure to review Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber's amply annotated, still-available 29-track double-CD, which resurrects without quite replicating the 1964 and 1965 LPs they put out on Prestige in their mid-twenties. How could that be, I wondered, and indeed, in the reissues portion of the 1999 Dean's List found I'd placed it fifth behind Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, A Tribe Called Quest, and Hound Dog Taylor best-ofs and ahead of five others I'd also reviewed. I'd rank it ahead of Taylor and Tribe now, and leave Crosby second out of respect more than use value. Illimitable fiddler Stampfel is in full cartoon voice on these 29 mostly traditional, mostly wacko songs, while doomed speed freak and ace guitarist Weber applies his high-baritone coulda-been-a-croon to such ploys as converting "Mr. Bass Man" into "Mr. Spaceman" and pretending the all too prophetic "Junko Partner" is a bagatelle. Freak folk started here. Would it were still thriving, though Stampfel's young potna Jeffrey Lewis does do his part. A