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A review by lkedzie
Firesign: The Electromagnetic History of Everything as Told on Nine Comedy Albums by Jeremy Braddock
5.0
The book is about the comedy group the Firesign theater, and focused on its major early albums. It provides a brief history of the groups formation (including its non-comedy work) and progress through the years, discusses the albums, and then discusses the paradox of its decline in critical relevance being its rise in cultural resonance, including how some of its lesser works got the most traction in the public consciousness.
The criticism that sets this book apart from a more general history is looking at the "media archaeology" of the works. Firesign was working during a transformative era in history in terms of records, radio, movies, and television, (and books as a sort of foundation to each). Firesign shows a relationship with each. To a lesser extent, this is how they work within those media, or how the media affect their work. But the real argument here is that the art itself has a lot to say about each, and uses the ways in which people relate to each as part of the gag. In ways that feel oddly prescient when it comes to television and LLM AI.
It is a fun and useful read for any Firesign fan. I particularly liked the exploration of how the group's member's non-Firesign work affected its comedy. It is primarily an academic text and a weak introduction in and of itself, if only because even with the inclusion of quotes and explanations of what is going on in certain work, Firesign produces such dense material that it has to be heard to be explained.
The downside of this crit is where the frame requires a frame. I am not sure whether there are points that get beyond my range of knowledge but periodically the theory about some bit of Firesign's corpus requires accepting some other theory of media or media history. Sometimes, most notably in the cinema section, I felt unsure of the validity of the theory. I could apply the theory as described to Firesign through the text of their work itself, but I was unsure about how accurate or applicable the stated theory was.
Ultimately, though, the book did what I wanted a book like this to do, which is to provide a fresh look at old material and a new way of looking at great art.
My thanks to the author, Jeremy Braddock, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of California Press, for making the ARC available to me.
The criticism that sets this book apart from a more general history is looking at the "media archaeology" of the works. Firesign was working during a transformative era in history in terms of records, radio, movies, and television, (and books as a sort of foundation to each). Firesign shows a relationship with each. To a lesser extent, this is how they work within those media, or how the media affect their work. But the real argument here is that the art itself has a lot to say about each, and uses the ways in which people relate to each as part of the gag. In ways that feel oddly prescient when it comes to television and LLM AI.
It is a fun and useful read for any Firesign fan. I particularly liked the exploration of how the group's member's non-Firesign work affected its comedy. It is primarily an academic text and a weak introduction in and of itself, if only because even with the inclusion of quotes and explanations of what is going on in certain work, Firesign produces such dense material that it has to be heard to be explained.
The downside of this crit is where the frame requires a frame. I am not sure whether there are points that get beyond my range of knowledge but periodically the theory about some bit of Firesign's corpus requires accepting some other theory of media or media history. Sometimes, most notably in the cinema section, I felt unsure of the validity of the theory. I could apply the theory as described to Firesign through the text of their work itself, but I was unsure about how accurate or applicable the stated theory was.
Ultimately, though, the book did what I wanted a book like this to do, which is to provide a fresh look at old material and a new way of looking at great art.
My thanks to the author, Jeremy Braddock, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of California Press, for making the ARC available to me.