FYM REVIEW: HEIDECKER & WOOD - STARTING FROM NOWHERE

It's a pretty fair thing to say that when one puts on the forthcoming debut album, Starting From Nowhere, by Heidecker & Wood, you're practically forced to ponder whether the whole thing is an expertly crafted prank of an album or a legitimate tribute to Yacht Rock of the 1970s and 1980s. Why this dilemma? Mostly the Heidecker half of Heidecker & Wood is none other than Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job / Tom Goes to the Mayor co-creator Tim Heidicker. It's not a stretch, seeing how Tim & Eric already have a soundtrack to their TV show out featuring their many brilliantly absurd songs, many of which also came from the mind of Heidecker & Wood's Davin Wood.

If you can appreciate (or, better yet, legitimately enjoy) some of the novelty themes in these songs, then this is an album that you can play between cuts from the likes of Chromeo or Hall & Oates. For example, the song "Life On the Road" heavily recalls Pink Floyd before jumping into a chorus featuring Heidecker crooning the line "I thought giving autographs would be better somehow/Who'd have thought that signing my name would cause me such pain" and then immediately doubles its tempo to a prerecorded crowd cheering the sudden Abandoned Luncheonette-style jam. The appropriately wintry "Cross Country Skiing" is a warm, wooden lodge with a fireplace and plenty of hot cocoa in the middle of a blizzard. 

Whether or not you believe Starting From Nowhere is pure novelty or a pure send-up of 70s/80s soft rock (and there are no rules saying it can't be both concurrently), there's no denying the musical prowess and talent at hand here. This album is a collection of songs that very realistically could have been played at the wedding of the parents of most of the people in Tim & Eric's fan demographic without anybody batting an eye. 

Listen below to the horn-soaked jam "Wedding Song", which easily could have been an Aja b-side:

Click HERE to head on over to Little Record Company's website to order Starting From Nowhere this instant!

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In other Tim Heidecker news, what's up with a recent Taco Bell commercial blatantly ripping off the classic Awesome Show sketch 'The Beaver Boys' (white wine and shrimp!)? I can't tell whether this is an alarmingly fitting use of bros loving their shrimp taco (and presumably white wine too) in a fast food ad or the cause for some legal action:

The original Tim & Eric sketch:

The Taco Bell commercial:

Words By: Will Sellers

Graphic By: J. Thomas Codling