SpenniesNancy Vandal - The Debriefing Room
June 15th 2006 04:13
NANCY VANDAL
The Debriefing Room (1997)
Half-Arsed Records
Produced by Billy Joe Armstrong from Green Day*
To put it extremely bluntly - Nancy Vandal were just a big joke band. You can never take the seriously because each of their albums and pretty much all of their songs are just great fun piss-takes. Not in the same vein as Guttermouth or early Blink 182 or anything though - these guys are just complete yobbo's with an aspiration for glam metal and a frontman (Fox Trotsky) with an eye for comic-relief and creating funny song titles that I'm pretty sure are the basis for most of their tunes.
The Debriefing Room is their third release, and the only with Frenzal Rhomb vocalist Jason Whalley on bass duties. It sticks to the punk rock formula, fast and simple, for pretty much the whole 16 or so songs. The only times when they mix it up is during the ska of "Will Drop Pants for Airplay" where they pull out the brass section, and a couple of moments of true 80's cock rock (even covering Twisted Sister with "I Wanna Rock").
The humour comes thick and fast, and it's definitely not for everybody. It's not like it is in bad taste or anything, I have just found that people either appreciate it or they don't - depends if you can leave your maturity at the door and just enjoy. In saying that though, The Debriefing Room is arguably the most popular NV release amongst fans - their later efforts brought in keyboards, full-time horns and girls to sing; and I think most people just wanted them to keep bashing out the punk tunes. It's very Australian, in that super-daggy way that only we can muster - with song titles such as "Piss In My Weetbix" "Ray Martin Has a Shed Full of Giant Robotic Killer Wasps" and the highly amusing "Frenzal Rhomb Were Better When Ben Was In The Band" it is obvious the band were about having a good time and having a dig at everyone and anyone. For testament to this, have a listen to the secret track on the album, about 10 minutes of the band stuffing around in the studio on acoustic guitars and bongos - if it doesn't make you laugh at all, then I would say Nancy Vandal is definitely not for you.
Oh yeah, the cover art is really brilliant - the booklet an hilarious montage of cartoons drawn by Fox that basically rule.
*From the inside sleeve...
"We refer to of course the Lithgow based Billy Joe Armstrong from Green Day, not to be confused with the other infinitely more popular and non fictional one from So Cal USA. We apologise profusely to any Rolling Stone Editor/s who accidentally gave us column space as a result of this misunderstanding."
The Debriefing Room (1997)
Half-Arsed Records
Produced by Billy Joe Armstrong from Green Day*
The Debriefing Room is their third release, and the only with Frenzal Rhomb vocalist Jason Whalley on bass duties. It sticks to the punk rock formula, fast and simple, for pretty much the whole 16 or so songs. The only times when they mix it up is during the ska of "Will Drop Pants for Airplay" where they pull out the brass section, and a couple of moments of true 80's cock rock (even covering Twisted Sister with "I Wanna Rock").
The humour comes thick and fast, and it's definitely not for everybody. It's not like it is in bad taste or anything, I have just found that people either appreciate it or they don't - depends if you can leave your maturity at the door and just enjoy. In saying that though, The Debriefing Room is arguably the most popular NV release amongst fans - their later efforts brought in keyboards, full-time horns and girls to sing; and I think most people just wanted them to keep bashing out the punk tunes. It's very Australian, in that super-daggy way that only we can muster - with song titles such as "Piss In My Weetbix" "Ray Martin Has a Shed Full of Giant Robotic Killer Wasps" and the highly amusing "Frenzal Rhomb Were Better When Ben Was In The Band" it is obvious the band were about having a good time and having a dig at everyone and anyone. For testament to this, have a listen to the secret track on the album, about 10 minutes of the band stuffing around in the studio on acoustic guitars and bongos - if it doesn't make you laugh at all, then I would say Nancy Vandal is definitely not for you.
Oh yeah, the cover art is really brilliant - the booklet an hilarious montage of cartoons drawn by Fox that basically rule.
A later pic of Nancy Vandal
*From the inside sleeve...
"We refer to of course the Lithgow based Billy Joe Armstrong from Green Day, not to be confused with the other infinitely more popular and non fictional one from So Cal USA. We apologise profusely to any Rolling Stone Editor/s who accidentally gave us column space as a result of this misunderstanding."
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Comment by Luke
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
Comment by Anonymous
I actually thought that last album was pretty good. sure it was corny as hell and covered in synths and stuff, but good on em for doing what they wanted. it had some cool pop songs (and quite a few bad ones)
-Rhys