While on an early evening bike ride yesterday I happened into a public park where several of the local senior citizenry were gathered to hear a Big Band play hits from the 30s and 40s (“back when music was really music!” so I can hear them say when attempting to put words in their mouths). The band was just tuning up, and I was stirred when two saxophonists sitting next to each other blurted out the first note to the Wallpaper Remix of Brooklyn duo Das Racist’s “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.”
“Whoa, are they covering Das Racist?!” I unconsciously thought aloud, causing several octogenarians to look over at me, a man in dorky green football coach shorts on a stationary bike speaking to himself (since they all seemed hard of hearing, I can’t imagine what they thought I actually said). Suffice it to say, it was a coincidence–these guys haven’t heard “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.” I doubt they hardly ever even read this blog.
I first came upon “Combination” when I decided to listen to Pitchfork’s advice and check out some of their best new tracks. After flipping through standard indie fare, I found myself repeating this track over and over again. And thus my favorite track of summer 2009 was found.
Upon first listen, this seems like a dumb song. It’s just two guys singing back and forth that they’re at either the Pizza Hut or the Taco Bell and, lo! it turns out they’re at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. You can almost imagine two people on cell phones with bad reception trying to find each other on a noisy city street, one on the taco bell side of the titular fast food emporium, one on the other. It also reminds me of the way hard-of-hearing seniors sometimes communicate, so the whole intro to this post isn’t for naught.
But the brilliant thing about this song is that it’s intentionally stupid, the way only really smart people can make stupid songs. The Das Racist brain trust, Himanshu Kumar and Victor Vazquez, are pop culture tricksters, and this musical experiment with “rap” isn’t too different from what Sasha Baron Cohen is doing with movies and Neil Hamburger with comedy. Basically, you get trapped in the fact that they’re so good at the craft of intentional bad taste. I mean, their name is Das Racist after all.
Nevertheless, “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” is undeniably catchy, and once in its grasp, it’s hard to free yourself from it. And personally, I don’t really want to.
“Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” – Das Racist (original) [myspace]
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“Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” – Wallpaper Remix [Wallpaper myspace]
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Links
A fantastic interview in The Village Voice with Kumar and Vazquez
Now watch the cool kids start hating them: A Das Racist show reviewed in The New York Times
[Writer's note: I have nothing against old people. I think The Greatest Generation is great!]
One Comment
You’re killing me here.