Entitled
Among the most well-mannered of rock bands, the Upper Crust are particularly delightful onstage, where his highness, singer/guitarist Lord Bendover, is quick with the quips and the band has been dazzling an increasingly larger and more rabid fan base. So after their two studio masterpieces, Let Them Eat Rock and The Decline and Fall of the Upper Crust, the Upper Crust chose to deign listeners with a double live album, Entitled, and it appears that the concept of wigged rockers enamored with '70s hard rock isn't getting any less hilarious.
Entitled includes 25 songs, 11 of which are new. The new tunes were supposed to appear on a third studio album, Once More Into the Breeches, for the Upper Crust's former label Emperor Norton. But Emperor Norton, showing very bad taste, abandoned the project. Some of the new songs are very funny and catchy, while others don't really distinguish themselves. Definitely "Matron," which borrows a bit from an Oasis song and has bassist Count Basie on vocals, "Bleed Me," "Once More Into the Breeches," and especially "Everybody's Equal" (hardly a socialist anthem) rank up there with their gold-plated hits. Of the best of the older material, there's the Upper Crust being shuttled about Hong Kong tune "Little Rickshaw Boy," the extremely rockin' "Tell Mother I'm Home," and the very silly "I've Got My Ascot and My Dickie." Though it seems likely that the Upper Crust will eventually grow tired of their own schtick, that will be a sad time because the jokes remain as funny as they were on their first record back in 1995.