COSMIC DENNIS GREENIDGE

"Cosmic" Dennis Greenidge is a 60-something Londoner who sings off-key nonsense lyrics over other people's instrumental music playing out of a boombox in the background. Ha! In fidelity as low as early Daniel Johnson, Greenidge enthusiastically warbles lyrics like "Psychtronic, psycho-sonic boom! Don't leave the room!" or "the amazing colossal cucumber man" over a wide variety of musics. Sometimes he likes just a snippet of music (the intro perhaps) and audibly keeps hitting 'rewind' to play the good bit over and over, "singing" all the way. The songs are often under a minute, hence we've got a whopping 66 tracks here.

They're not all songs, e.g. "Horror Interlude," a brief radio drama that's far more funny than scary. Other highlights include the kiddie march "Lavender Castle," the bizarre beach party of "Satellite Beach" ("Space Dracula, Space Frankenstein, Space Mothra, party down!"), the literal laugh riot of "The Laughing Cavalier," and the quite wonderfully bonkers "Spaghetti Yeti": "Spaghetti, you eat it! Yeti can eat you!" There's even the inspirational sincerity of "The Windows Are Open." Such delightful torture!

Musos will of course consider Cosmic Dennis to be utterly without any musical talent, but, like The Note-Ables, he's obviously having such a grand time with this lunacy that many Maniacs will find themselves getting swept up into Greenidge's mad world. Or is it madness? Perhaps it's just good ol' English eccentricity.

Cosmic Dennis Greenidge "Giant Man Giant Plan" (66 tracks - 2008)
(tracklist here)