Pitchfork

Until this year, Liam Lynch was best known-- if he was known at all-- as the man behind one of MTV's biggest cult hits, Sifl and Olly. Taking bedroom stoner humor farther than ever before, his crescent-fresh sock puppet standup-- recorded with cheap microphones to four-track and/or Mac-- has developed a postmortem fanbase in exactly the same way as HBO's Mr. Show: in both cases, fan outrage over cancellation motivated a mostly intoxicated, late-night audience to get up off the couch and trade every episode over the Internet. Sifl and Olly fans even had a codename for each other: Sockheads.

The show was equal parts gag humor and parody, and made no secret of Lynch and costar Matt Crocco's underlying rock 'n' roll aspirations. What most of their fans couldn't know was that Lynch had attended Paul McCartney's Institute for Performing Arts in Liverpool while developing and taping Sifl and Olly, a school that at the time accepted only 40 students from all over the world. A member of the first-ever graduating class, Lynch worked with Sir George Martin and was one of five students selected by McCartney for personal guidance. And for this expanded reissue of his 2000 release Fake Songs (the original version was available online), Ringo Starr guests on an added new song, "Try Me". Liam Lynch, not yet 30, has performed with every living Beatle.

Landing in the UK Top 10 with the novelty hit "United States of Whatever"-- a song first featured on a 1999 episode of Sifl and Olly-- Lynch is exploring every avenue open to him, directing commercials, videos and soon films, gobbling up songwriting offers, and surely penning more of his own intentionally childish spoofs. Typically, the word "spoof" in relation to popular music conjures memories of Dr. Demento satire-- old records that value cheap laffs over musical worth. But Liam Lynch is torn between his love and loathing for pop music, drawn to its power but repulsed by the insane celebrity behavior it always degenerates into. This is a guy that more than understands the music he's goofing on-- he worships it. While he viciously exposes some of the artists he sets his sights on, it's a backhanded compliment from someone who could make a lot of this music himself if he could keep a straight face.

First and most cruelly, he nails Björk to the mixing desk, effortlessly imitating "Hyperballad" with dollar-store equipment, mimicking every unnecessary, emoting wave of her arms. Unfortunately, conservative resequencing cuts out the funniest moment on the original release, as "Fake Björk Song" no longer segues into "Rock and Roll Whore", a Spinal Tap/Tenacious D anthem that begins, "Baby you're a garbage dump, and I'm your garbage truck!" While in most places he's wittier and more musically relevant than Tenacious D, here it's an intersection of identical aims (though never a competition). Liam, a total prodigy, has directed a number of Tenacious D's videos, and Jack Black recorded a new vocal track to lay over the reissue's version of "Rock and Roll Whore".

I almost wet my pants twice listening to this record, during "Fake David Bowie Song" ("Sorry mum, I'm five years late for teatime") and "Fake Pixies Song", where Lynch cold-cocks Black Francis, perfectly imitating his detached bombast: "I didn't mean to get used to you/ But I'm gettin' USED TO YA COLLEEN!!!" Complete genius. The fake Depeche Mode and Talking Heads songs aren't as precise, however: the former a little too lifeless, the latter as easily passing for a Weezer dig, though he studiously cops Byrne's approach to harmony. The Talking Heads send-up is a particular shame, as it was swapped out for the other great period piece on the original Fake Songs, "Iggy Bird Band", which levels Blur, Pulp, and Oasis in just over two minutes.

Now, obviously there's some wince-inducing Adam Sandler and They Might Be Giants shit here-- some of the humor relies on the whole "Oh my god he swore!" gag. But Lynch makes up for burnout goof-offs like "Happy Song", "A Horny Kind of Love" and "Toe Bass Ace" with a hilarious gospel tune in honor of "Electrician's Day" and (though he's no MC Frontalot) some smartass rhymes on "Rapbot 2000": "I download nasty fatass beats/ And anything less I will delete!"

While I'd forgive anyone tapping the web for the cuts missing from this reissue, I'm uncomfortable knowing how many people will surely download this record as a novelty to skim through and discard. Liam Lynch is as obsessed with music as you are, as literate as most critics-- he knows every word to every song by the bands he's taunting. Still, for my puritanical zeal, this kind of scattered comedy record is a posterchild for try-and-buy, and given the bootlegging surrounding Sifl and Olly, I can't imagine Lynch is opposed to the practice. Let's just hope he got a nice advance from Virgin.