Dr. Demento

If it only hurts when you laugh, then Dr. Demento is the M.D. for you. Though he's no more a real doctor than fellow radio personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger, people have been taking his weekly prescription for laughter for more than 30 years, and continue to find that in 2001, it is indeed still the best medicine.

Born Barret Hansen in Minneapolis, 1941, Demento says it was at the tender age of 12 that he came across a local thrift shop selling thousands of old 78 rpm records for a nickel each. It was right then and there that the young piano student found himself sucked into the world of comedy/novelty music, and equally immersed in music's myriad other forms.

He first took to the deejay booth at his high school sock hops circa 1957, and later, at Reed College in Portland, Ore., became student manager of the campus FM station. After receiving his degree in classical music, he moved on to UCLA, where he composed his master's thesis on the evolution of R&B in the Forties and early Fifties. During this period, he started up a program of pre-WWII blues and country on noncommercial station KPFK-FM.

In fact, some 40 years later, the good doctor still takes "serious" music seriously, plugging his recently published guidebook Rhino's Cruise Through the Blues.

"That's under my real name, because it's not in any way a spoof," says Hansen. "It's an introduction to the blues, from Blind Lemon Jefferson and before to Susan Tedeschi and that generation."

Turns out that young Barry also got rock & roll under his skin at a early age, roadie-ing for Canned Heat and Spirit back in the day. Around this time, he began working as a reissue compiler for Specialty Records, which is also when L.A. free-form station KPPC-FM asked him to do a weekly program of rock rarities. As requests kept increasing for oddball standards like "Purple People Eater" and "Monster Mash," Barret Hansen became Dr. Demento, vault keeper of corny classics and goofy greats.

Its host calls The Dr. Demento Show a "free-wheeling, unpredictable mix of music and comedy." You're less likely to hear Snoop Dogg than the Royal Guardsmen's "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron." Madonna no, "No More Madonna," by Austin's own Slightly Twisted Disappointer Sisters, yes.

As ever, the show relies heavily on its bread and butter, cuckoo legends such as Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Stan Freberg, Monty Python, and Frank Zappa. You could just as easily, however, be cracking up to freshly taped goofiness from the folks next door, which is how Demento perennial Weird Al Yankovic got his big break.

Hansen/Demento is also a liner-notes king, under either or both names. As the latter, he's been putting out compilation albums of crazy songs since 1975; the two most recent are last year's 30th Anniversary set and the brand-new, introductory-level Dr. Demento Project, with its biggest of the big hits -- "Fish Heads," "Dead Puppies," etc.

Not only do they serve as a perfect introduction to an alternate world of popular music, Demento's compilations also come in handy, because it's becoming harder and harder to locate his show. Fortunately for Austinites, KPEZ-FM (Z-102, "Austin's Classic Rock Station") runs the show Saturday mornings, 6-8am; it's also online at www.z102austin.com. The doctor's own Web site, Drdemento.com, offers recent and archived shows.

Whether they tune in every Saturday or not, it's a safe bet that most locals have never had the opportunity to see or hear the good Demento in person. That's because he's never actually been to Austin. South by Southwest tradition has it that Sunday night, when many of the serious record execs and industry types have crawled back to wherever they came from, is prime time for bringing out the fun and nutty acts and having a grand old denouement. This year, Demento's name came up as the perfect host for the evening of brain-damaging acts that will fill La Zona Rosa and is being billed "Gods & Monsters Nude Revue III."

"Plans are for me to play some pre-recorded music between the live acts," he explains, "some of the stuff I'm known for. That will be informal, of course -- I'll just bring a stack of CDs and play whatever the mood of the moment calls for."

The mood will certainly be weird, with Neil Diamond tribute band the Diamond Smugglers, scatological quasi-Liverpudlians the Dung Beatles, goofy glitter gang Glamourpuss, twisted KISS cover band Rip & Destroy, and Marilyn Rucker and Goose Gumbo on the bill.

Out of all the acts on the bill, Demento has only heard Rucker, whose work with the Therapy Sisters he's played over the years on his show. Her latest Goose Gumbo tune, "My Little Gun," an ode to little large-haired Texas ladies and their weapons of choice, has been getting regular airplay since last October.

"She made a new album last year and came out and visited," he says.

While there, Rucker also dropped off an advance of her new album, which Demento's been playing while the rest of the world awaits Teapot Lady's release.

Other acts familiar to Demento listeners could well stop by also. Daniel Johnston's official showcase with his punk band Danny & the Nightmares is the night before, and the doctor says he got an e-mail from piano man Dick Price expressing hopes the two can get together. Since he got the SXSW call late in the game, Demento probably won't make any in-store appearances, and Z102 says that while they'd like to broadcast the show live, there may be problems with that since competitor KLBJ is a major SXSW sponsor.

Demento fans need not despair, though. The doctor will be here Saturday afternoon through Monday morning, and says he's always glad to take recordings from anyone who cares to hand them over.

"We get 15-20 CDs and tapes a week," he says of his show's ever-expanding library of oddities. "Some are good, some are bad, some are so bad they're good -- and there's all shades in between."

Those who don't get a chance to shake the man's hand can always send their loony tunes to P.O. Box 884, Culver City, CA, 90232, or for that matter call the Demento hotline 562/ODD-TUNE.

"We still accept cassettes," he advises, "but CDs are groovier. If I get a cassette I wanna use, I have to burn it onto CD myself -- but I'm used to doing that."

Now, I couldn't say exactly where to call on the good doctor apart from the La Zona show, but consider this -- could the man possibly resist a pass at the Austin Record Convention? Why, he'd have to be, er, demented.