Fegh Maha

Fegh Maha is:

1) A little know Morocan tennis player.

2) An album from Australian comedy trio Tripod

3) Both 1 & 2

Alert and interested readers (who number in the low single digits) will remember that a while back, I linked to a video by Tripod.

Which led me to order their album Middleborough Road through Amazon. Which is a pretty good album - I especially like "Hot Girl in the Comic Shop", which passes well for an Elvis Costello tune. But it's a studio album.

Studio albums are not the strength of comedy trios. It becomes more about the music - adding instruments, getting clean tracks - and less about the comedy, since there's no live audience. And yes, Tripod can sing, but like "A lonely grain of corn" by Uncle Bonsai (another comedy trio backed with a single guitar, hmm...), there's something missing in the studio. Comedians do not relate to microphones the way they do to real people.

So, after listening to M. Rd. for a while, I went on the website and ordered a copy of Fegh Maha, their live album. Which is genius.

Disc one features the 60's inspired "Krap Karate", which is about the kind of karate you learn if you only watch bad martial arts films, and the touching "Fabian", about one of the lesser known christmas characters.

Disc two features "Ghost ship", an "Iron Maiden" style song, and Maryanne, a touching ballad. Both of which are some of the funniest bits of performing I've heard in a long, long time.

Highly recommended.