5 comments about Robert Schimmel Comes Clean.

1. I'm not a big fan of comedy CD's, but Robert Schimmel is fantastic. I actually got this as a copy from a friend, and I ended up buying it - it's that good! I won't lie - I literally cried beacuse I was laughing so hard. My face hurt from laughing, and my side ached. He is disgusting, and perverted, and raw - but, oh so truthful. He comments on the most mudane things in life, but brings out the humor in them. If you want to laugh like there's no tomorrow - buy this CD.



2. This album is hilarious start to finish.

   The highlight:

   Not only that, who took it to the patent office?

   "Next."

   "Yeah, it's a cone you stick up your a**."

   "Security!"




3. Not so clean language, but if you are into that, it is a fabulous CD!



4. This is typical high quality Schimmel stuff. He's very polished, funny, lots of body parts and body fluids humor!



5. Schimmel is a very funny comedian, but I have to give this 3 stars simply because it's entirely too short. Just when you're really getting into it, it's over. Now I have to buy his other CDs to get what most comedians give you on one CD.

2 comments about Weill: Stranger Here Myself.

1. A singer's singer. This lady is an excellent interpreter of Kurt Weill. She has a an expressive classically trained big voice. Most of the famous Kurt Weill's are on here arranged in a song cycle... A woman in dark glasses in a fur coat checks in to a hotel room, sits on the bed and opens her suitcase... and we are shown through song the meagre contents of her life...

   Good companion artists are Patricia O'Callaghan and Ute Lemper.

   Singingweasel




2. No one will ever interperate Kurt Weill like this genious lady. She has the most captivating voice in show business! I could never give a good enough review to this excellent album. I wish everyday that I could've seen this show live.

   Other albums of her's to buy:
   La Boheme with Leonard Bernstein, Jerry Hadley, and Angelina Reaux and Frida, an album in which she portrays the famous artist Frida Kahlo.

   Love this lady,
   Zac Bush

No comments about Dirty Dirty Jokes.

1 comments about Incitation to Desire: Tangos for Yvar Mikhashoff (1945-1993).

1. Yvar Mikhashoff was born in 1941 and died of Aids in 1993. He was deeply involved in the contemporary music scene, as composer, pianist, professor of music (at the University of Buffalo), commissioner of new works, producer of concerts, artistic director of numerous festivals. He made various transcriptions for two pianos or chamber ensemble of compositions of Nancarrow, which can be heard on Nancarrow: Pieces Nos. 1 & 2; ¿Tango?; String Quartet No. 1 and Conlon Nancarrow: Studies for Player Piano (arranged for Chamber Orchestra) / Piece No. 2 for Small Orchestra / Trio / Sarabande & Scherzo. Among his centers of interests were the popular dance forms (as a young man he had worked as a professional ballroom dancer). In the seventies he recorded a two-volume Waltz project for Nonesuch (not reissued on CD), and in the eighties he began assembling short tangos by commissioning composer friends: at the end, he had a collection of over a hundred, and performed 8-hour martathon concerts devoted to tango. This recording of a few samples (19 of them, with Cage's Perpetual Tango given in two out of the three versions he wrote) was made in May 1992, shortly before his untimely death.
   
   Some of these are old pieces that, in response to Mikhashoff's request, the composer pulled out of the drawer in which they had been gathering dust (Copland, Rudhyar) but most are indeed new works. The moods and styles are varied; there's the dreamy (Bright's appropriately titled "Tango Dreaming", Foss' "Curiculum Vitae Tango", Hill's Japan-inspired "Tango No Tango"), the pointillistically jaunty (Nancarrow's "Tango?"), the playful (Raschke "Tango auf drei Beinum" - Tango on three legs - , Pender's "Ms Jackson Dances for the People", Berkman's "Thorn Torn Lips"), the meditative (Copland, Rodney Bennett), the pointillistically enigmatic (Cage's "Perpetual Tango", in fact a rewriting of a wonderfully terse tango by Satie - #17 of Sports et Divertissements - but unrecognizable really), the nostalgic (Rudhyar, "Tango d'Antan", Tango from the past), the echt tango-woeful (Schimmel's "Fromage dangereux" - Dangerous Cheese, title unexplained), the merrily repetitive peal of bells (Duckworth), the Restaurant Romantic (Sahl's "Tango from the Exiles' Café") . Chester Biscardi's "incitation to desire" is the most romantically florid and lends its title to the collection, after the hilarious entry in an old, 1944 Groves Dictionary of Music, deeming the dance "unpresentable" to "a polite audience".
   
   In some of these compositions, the traditional, cliched tango is very immediately present and recognizable (Rudhyar, Sahl, Schimmel...), and Pender even starts with the Habanera rhythm from Bizet's Carmen. But, as in the small selection presented by Ursula Oppens in American Piano Works, my favorites are those that transcend their origin and take the tango as a springboard to imagination and invention rather than stay bogged down in it: Rodney Bennett (a tango elaboration of the main theme from Debussy's Syrinx for solo flute), Foss (enigmatic, ending with harped strings alla Cowell), Jaggard (ever wilder flourishes on the tango's fourth beat), the pointillistic and enigmatic Laszlo Sa'ry, and Nancarrow of course. In comparison to Oppens or Seltzer on Nancarrow: Pieces Nos. 1 & 2; ¿Tango?; String Quartet No. 1, Mikhashoff plays "Tango ?" in a wonderfully pointillistic manner too, so much so that you might think Sa'ry's Tango has a second movement, as Nancarrow is on the succeding track. Duckworth's "Tango Voices" is as good as anything written by John Adams, if you enjoy that kind of style.
   
   Mishakhoff shares four pieces with Oppens (Nancarrow, Jaggard, Foss, Sahl). Compared to her he is usually slower, and cleaner, more articulated in his runs.
   
   There is nothing really essential here, but it is a pleasurable collection, and a fine tribute to Mikhashoff. For another one, see Opera: Virtuoso Fantasies, Paraphrases & Transcriptions.

5 comments about If You Buy This CD I Can Get This Car.

1. Robert Schimmel is one of the most twisted, yet the most NORMAL, comic voice out there! Sure, what he talks about is gross at times, but most of it is stuff that WE have done! His material is hilarious, his timing impeccable, and he has the sweetest sounding voice when he tells his hilarious stories. Many times I have been feeling depressed, and his CDs have pulled me out of it and made me feel good! I recommend it. I own all of Robert Schimmel's CDs.



2. Schimmel is funny, but not as loaded with "classic" lines that you instantly memorize - you find these in superb Denis Leary's acts.

   Sometimes it feels that he could go easier on four-letter words; excessive usage lessens the effect and blunts the sharp edge. This is a shame.

   The title track - cheerful, silly and hilarious - is probably the highlight. I catch myself humming it every now and then.




3. This cd was just as I expected. Never a dull moment. Schimmel keeps you in stiches continually. He is very graphic, so if you are not into that style of comedy. I suggest you not buy it. I was very satisfied with this cd and do recommend it to all those who enjoy a good hard laugh. ...



4. Typically hysterical stand-up gets marred by novelty songs at the end. He begins the bit(s) at the end of the album by talking about how he's being pressured to release a novelty song to promote, but ends up spending way too much time with his take on them, including a full length song at the end. The crowd eats it up, but as per irony, that's the point - but it never should have been put on the album. Absolutely worth the purchase price for the first two-thirds of the album, though.



5. A lot of pieces of this CD are passed on to the next, Unprotected, this one was much dirtier. Schimmel did a better presentation in the next, although this CD still has its jewels.

5 comments about Robert Schimmel Comes Clean.

1. I'm not a big fan of comedy CD's, but Robert Schimmel is fantastic. I actually got this as a copy from a friend, and I ended up buying it - it's that good! I won't lie - I literally cried beacuse I was laughing so hard. My face hurt from laughing, and my side ached. He is disgusting, and perverted, and raw - but, oh so truthful. He comments on the most mudane things in life, but brings out the humor in them. If you want to laugh like there's no tomorrow - buy this CD.



2. This album is hilarious start to finish.

   The highlight:

   Not only that, who took it to the patent office?

   "Next."

   "Yeah, it's a cone you stick up your a**."

   "Security!"




3. Not so clean language, but if you are into that, it is a fabulous CD!



4. This is typical high quality Schimmel stuff. He's very polished, funny, lots of body parts and body fluids humor!



5. Schimmel is a very funny comedian, but I have to give this 3 stars simply because it's entirely too short. Just when you're really getting into it, it's over. Now I have to buy his other CDs to get what most comedians give you on one CD.

5 comments about Unprotected.

1. mr.robert schimmel is the funniest comic i ever heard, but i think if he would sell it on video it would be a lot funnier. you can see the expresions behind the joke....keep up the good work.



2. As a pretty big comedy fan thanks to XM radio, i have listened to a lot of comics and I own a lot of comic CD's (Mitch Hedberg, Bill Hicks, Emo Philips, Lewis Black, Steven Wright, Pablo Francisco etc.) and my absolute favorite is Unprotected. There is not a slow part on this CD and it never fails to bring everyone to tears on a long car ride. His quick and merciless wit is better than any other comic in the US. His family must be very understanding since he doesn't hesitate to include every detail of their personal lives in his act, but it all serves to create a punchline that we can all relate to. The highlights of this CD are his daughter's boyfriend and guidelines for resuming sex after a heart attack. I highly highly reccomend this.



3. This man is so irreverent and funny, its good to see comics who dont pull any punches. I laugh out loud everytime i listen to the cd.



4. I saw Robert Schimmel's performance for Unprotected on HBO and thought it was funny as hell. It's very strange that a material and performance this good is not made available on DVD. If you think it's funny hearing him on this CD, you should have seen him on the screen (or better yet, live on stage) .. infinitely funnier.
   
   HBO, please produce the DVD.



5. I had heard some of his material on XM radio, and his stuff is very, very funny. I ended up buying 2 of his CDs at the same time. What I didn't realize is that there is a large overlap of the same material from the CD "If you buy this CD, I can buy this car" to this HBO performance. Of the 2, I would recommend this one...but not both!