Dry-Humping the Cash Cow

They Say...

Review by Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

Recorded with the audible help of fake mass rock audience cheering at the right points (supposedly lifted from Kiss Alive!, which is referenced throughout the disc -- check out the "Cold Gin"-inspired spoken-word intro to monster stomp "Demonologist" -- and which itself has been rumored to have used audience tapes), Dry Humping combines live tracks from a CBGB show with a private party done the following year for longtime engineer and N.Y. production legend Martin Bisi. The result is Alice Donut in excelsis, at once hilarious and pure rock, man. With songs from all over the band's career, plus a few new ones for good measure (the heavy groove swing of "Hose," with such lines as "I want to see the picture they took of Michael Jackson's penis," and a version of "Helter Skelter" which manages the trick of being a lot better than the original by using squalling trombone in place of lead vocals), Dry Humping is convincing evidence that Alice Donut may well have been the '90s' great lost rock act. Their basic formula is simple enough -- kick-ass heavy-duty hard rock -- but add the band's often utterly out-there lyrics to the stew along with Antona's unique, if you will, vocal quaverings, not to mention the odd bit of Schulmeister's slightly more controlled sleaze, and what in lesser hands would just be a joke becomes something to equal the masters. If anything, Marilyn Manson made famous what Antona and company were regularly performing, namely hearty eviscerations of the American Dream left, right and center. With all this going on, Antona's in-between-song rants (the story about being Elvis' love slave, with the taped audience cheers rising at the weirdest moments, is a keeper) just become a little more icing on the cake.