Here's the thing about Son of Salami. It takes a certain kind of person to think this kind of thing is brilliant. Prerequisites include: a fascination with similarly bent solo crazies, like R. Stevie Moore, Daniel Johnston, Wesley Willis, and so on; an interest in unique and inventive neo-Luddite recording techniques; patience. But if you possess these qualities, consider yourself blessed, because Son of Salami is one of the best Vermont hippies since Ben OR Jerry.
Using his eraserhead-less recordng style, where he cant hear anything that he's overdubbing, Joey Pizza Slice records the Son of Salami songs as they come to mind. In fact, when he plays live, he makes the crowd a fresh song, which I saw him do sitting in a wheelchair at Cameo Gallery on Wednesday. “Be very quiet during this part. I'm going to make you guys a song,” he said, and then he smashed a bunch of chords on his keyboard, and then rewound his tape recorder and pressed play. Every time he pressed record on the tape recorder, the chords became silent and he sang a series of harmonies by rewinding and re-recording right where he left off. While slightly out-of-sync, overall, the process was impressive. Then he threw the tape into the crowd. “That song sucks anyways.”
You can see Son of Salami on Sunday as the headliner of Toiletpalooza, a three-day houseparty benefit to get a punk house called Bohemian Grove in Brooklyn a new toilet. (Has anyone told them that toilets cost, like, fifty bucks?) It should be a wild party, and although some of the bands playing are really not that good, when you are as drunk as you should get at a féte like this, it won't matter. Make sure to wait around for Son of Salami, and for extra mindfuck, buy his $5 DVD.
