jihad jerry & the evildoers - mine is not a holy war
The brainchild and alter-ego of Gerald Casale (the bassist from Devo), Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers are here to (and I’m quoting) put the “fun” in fundamentalism and show how stupid the world is. Jerry even has a backstory: He’s the youngest son of an Irish-American midwife and a Persian barber who went to school in Tehran under the Shah. The record is full of satire and political jabs—“If the Shoe Fits” taunts G. W. Bush, and “Army Girls Gone Wild” is a send-up of our MTV world and MTV war (sample lyric: “What happens in Abu Ghraib stays in Abu Ghraib / Yeah, right”). It also basically sounds like Devo (no surprise here, since two other members of the band show up to help Jerry out). If you are a fan of Devo or the B-52’s, this is probably your kind of record, especially since it includes several hard-to-find songs from Devo’s past. If you’re not, it’s probably better to pass on it.