Life in a Blender: Happy Enough

photo: David Barry

It's quite difficult to pin to the music of Life in a Blender, but smart, high-brow, jazzy cabaret rock comes close. They have been at it for 25 years and when main man Don Rauf assembles the troops for another album expectations are always high. Happy Enough lives up to the band's standard with two songs inspired by Kurt Vonnegut novels, as part of the sessions for the Bushwick Book Club, which requires its members to compose a song inspired by a book. Rocket to Love You is a powerpop anthem based on Galapagos and the vaudeville meet The Beatles' Revolver-era rock song What Did You Hide in the Potato Barn? came from Bluebeard.

Not all songs requires a degree in English,, but it surely helps to have a working knowledge of the canon of literature or the ability to appreciate the wordplay in a freak rocker like Submarine. A Celtic violin hoovers above guitar and bass channeling They Might Be Giant in Winner Takes All. O, and the title track is actually about trouble in the guts department. Happy Enough is a geeky indie cross-genre album that will put a smile on the face of those in the know.

Life in a Blender: "Frankenstein Must Be Stopped" video

Watch the new Life in a Blender video for Frankenstein Must Be Stopped, a track from their We Already Have Birds That Sing album. The clip was directed by Larry Fessenden for Glass Eye Pix, the go-to guy in NYC for independent horror movies.

Live date:

• 07/30 New York City, NY @ New York Plaza. (free show)

» lifeinablender.net

HCTF review of We Already Have Birds That Sing.

Life in a Blender: We Already Have Birds That Sing

Don Rauf - photo: Monique Vescia

Brooklynites Life in a Blender are an obnoxious lot. In the business for more than 25 years they are about to release their new EP We Already Have Birds That Sing, singing satirical cabaret songs about starfish, politics, strip clubs, cigarettes and Aerosmith, all neatly wrapped in a vaudevillian pop with a jazz twist. Lead single Tongue-Cut Sparrow is based on a story by Japanese-American author Mitsu Sundval. Like They Might Be Giants they can spin a tune about almost anything.

Lead vocalist Don Rauf has the aloofness of s singer who has been playing dives and speakeasies for longer than he cares to remember. His hoarse delivery is a nice contrast with the upbeat mood of most of the tracks - a Master of Ceremony leading his band of merry (wo)men through the back streets filled with ordinary Joes and Janes who would like to have a good time.

Life in a Blender: "Cool Mom" for mother's day

Twenty years ago NYC band Life in a Blender released their It Likes Me album. They have dug out one of the tracks, their tribute song Cool Mom, for mother's day. You know, the kind that teaches their kids how to swear and keeps them safe from little prats called Justin.

Cool Mom sounds like a mash-up of Television and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. If those bands would have been blessed with a sense of humour.

The song was written and performed by Life in a Blender frontman Don Ralph, accompanied by Ken Meyer, Dave Moody & Chris Rael. Producer: Al Houghton.

Download Cool Mom from Bandcamp.

» lifeinablender.net

Life in a Blender: Homewrecker Spoon

photo: Stephanie Keith

Brooklyn band Life in a Blender have been around for twenty-five years, creating their unique blend of vaudeville, rock and Americana. Their seventh full-length is entitled Homewrecker Spoon. Songwriter Don Ralph has a sardonic outlook on life, creating vignettes and stories about hustlers (Go To Man), troublesome drug-stained cutlery (Homewrecker Spoon), and a great Scotsman (Sean Connery).

The music sounds like The Kinks in their Preservation Act phase, with a bit of Tom Waits, the B52s and David Bowie thrown in. Life in a Blender is not above throwing a spanner in the works, inserting a snippet of If I Can't Have You into the album's most remarkable song, The Rain Makes Me Thirsty, which also gives a nod to acoustic jazz maestro Django Reinhardt.