Psychedelic old time radio.

• Author: Walker, Jesse
• Position: Briefly Noted - Firesign Theater's comedy album - Brief article

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In the late 1960s, a quartet called the Firesign Theater created a striking new species of comedy album. These records told dense, non-linear stories, with scenes linked by the logic of dreams, puns, free association, late-night channel-surfing, and a psychedelic anti-authoritarianism that wasn't so different from the libertarian politics of The Prisoner or the Illuminatus! trilogy. (At one point the Firesigns mulled the idea of optioning Illuminatus!, but they never followed through.)

The second half of their second album was devoted to the entertaining exploits of Nick Danger, a detective whose adventures...