In five seasons on Adult Swim and a handful of specials and live concert tours, "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" has established itself as one of the most aggressively strange programs in the history of television as well as one of the finest sources for oddball novelty music. Among the show's musical highlights include the cheeseball rock tunes of Pusswhip Banggang, the alarmingly cheerful "All the Food Is Poison", Frank Stallone singing "we're turning your bedroom back into the computer room" to a befuddled little girl, and the entire ouvre of the hapless duo Casey and His Brother. In all of these songs, Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, and their composer Davin Wood display a jingle writer's knack for melody, packing absurd humor into compact, ruthlessly effective hooks.
Starting From Nowhere, an album of new music by Heidecker and Wood, takes their musical collaboration in a different direction. Heidecker's deep fascination with tacky 1970s and 80s aesthetics is foregrounded in a set of songs that strive to evoke the sound and feeling of vintage soft rock, but the comedy is dialed down considerably, to the point that many of the tracks barely register as comedy.
For example, the opening track "Cross Country Skiing" is such a close approximation of earnest, gently harmonized folk pop that if it appeared on a new Fleet Foxes record, you would just take it as a given that Robin Pecknold enjoys winter sports. Other tracks are spot-on pastiches of Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers, Jackson Browne, and the Eagles. The lyrics are often ridiculous, but even the silliest moments could pass as sincere if you didn't know anything about Heidecker's comedy career. If there is a joke here, it's that this music sounds like what it sounds like.
The thing is, all of the songs on Starting From Nowhere are written and executed with far too much precision and care to come off like a shallow mockery of soft rock. (Like, say, Yacht Rock.) Heidecker and Wood may be connoisseurs of kitsch, but they obviously love this music. The sophistication and detail on display here is rather stunning; you just can't arrive at pastiche with this kind of accuracy without genuine obsession.
But without funny jokes, what exactly is the point of this album? Cut-out bins around the world overflow with music that sounds exactly like the contents of Starting From Nowhere. Indie bands such as Belle & Sebastian and Destroyer filter these sounds through the sensibilities of distinct, modern songwriters. Wood may nail the aesthetics of a particular era, but that high level of competency isn't the same thing as writing great songs. This is ultimately mediocre music that sometimes recalls the sound and feeling of excellent music, and the only thing that Heidecker brings to the table is a smirking irony that is not particularly appealing when separated from hilarious comedy. If you genuinely want to listen to this kind of music, you're better off with the real deal. (In particular, investigate Steely Dan's back catalog-- their slick, jazz-influenced rock has a darker, dryer wit than anything Heidecker can manage on this album.) If you want excellent novelty pop, cross your fingers for another season of "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!"
