My relationship with Tenacious D started out on a rocky note (no pun intended). I was sitting in 12th grade biology class when my lab partner turned to me (I believe we were dissecting a mink) and started spurting out the following lyrics:
“Me and KG/ it’s all about sex-supreme/ we like to cream jeans/ Have you even been worked on/ by two guys who are hot for your snatch?”
Understandably, I hope, I was a little frightened, and a lot confused.
My lab pal then proceeded to explain to me that, no, I was not being propositioned, and that the sounds that had just fallen upon my impressionable young ears were composed by a dynamic duo known as Tenacious D, an up and coming comedy musical group.
At the time, the act, comprised of short and pudgy actors Jack Black (Shallow Hal, Jesus’ Son) and Kyle Glass (Seinfeld), had landed a half-hour show on HBO that featured some incredibly original musical sketch comedy.
No sooner had I fallen in lust with “the D” than their show was cancelled by HBO for legal reasons. For four years, I had access to only bits and pieces of new Tenacious D material as the group made cameos in a handful of movies and music videos.
But that has changed. Oh, how that has changed. Last month, Tenacious D released its first album, an ass-pounding collection of some of the group’s most profound “folk-metal” songs and comedy bits. The album has attracted more than its fair share of attention, and has been alluded to in mass media all the way from Esquire to SportsCenter.
To promote the album, the D have hit the road for a live tour, and will be opening for Weezer at the Coliseum in Madison this Sunday.
The Tenacious D live show is something of an enigma. Somehow, the fat and bald Kyle Gass weans the hardest and most rocking riffs imaginable out of his acoustic guitar. Comedian or not, Gass can play. And as if hard-core acoustic guitar were not enough to put asses in seats, Black’s lyrics get the crowd whipped into frenzy. He writes as though he were a fifteen-year-old’s hormones but sings like he were the most serious musician alive.
For Tenacious D, it’s all about delivery, and the best way to see them deliver is live in concert.