World Without Dogs:
Fuzzy Doodah's New CD
Dateline: 4/13/99
World Without Dogs: Fuzzy Doodah (Sugar Fix 009). High drama and oblique poetry, wicked wacked humor and punk B bloody guns’n’mirrors -- for a sweet-voiced poet, Rich Ferguson certainly gives lots of angle. I like this blessed CD best for the pop hits in that category I place “World without Dogs” and “Up from Your Down,” either of which could be The One that breaks poetry to the masses as Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” did performance.
Ferguson is a mesmerizing performance, and this pro-produced CD makes the best of his young-Tom Waits pipes and rockin' band. I’ve always been fan No. 1 for “Quiet Ride” (it’s a lawn mower getaway after shooting the mayor), and it’s super here. But many of the pure spoken word pieces, which create such a trembling live, thanks to Jett Soto’s brilliant slide guitar, never catch fire here. “Sharing with someone who has the same bloodtype as her sense of life. . . .”
The band takes off, “Abilene Rising” blasts the heft and trigger: aight all night! “How could you explain all this blood, all this money, all this love?” Oliver Stone, direct this poem.
If you want to get in on the ground floor of what comes next for poetry, this CD is the place to start. Rich Ferguson and Fuzzy Doodah don’t have pat answers, don’t have all the answers, don’t have many answers. But they ask the right questions, and when they rock, everybody dances the night away.
--Bob Holman
- The official Fuzzy Doodah site has a veritable jukebox of RealAudio samples from the CD.
- You can also hear sample cuts from the CD at Borders.com.
- Ferguson's story “Abilene Rising” is in Oyster Boy Review 9.
- “A Hymn,” “Einstein at the Grill,” “James Dean vs. Sleeping Pills” & “Bones” were featured at the Poetry Super Highway.
- “Einstein at the Grill” also appeared in Zuzu's Petals Quarterly Online #17.
- His May 98 a cappella online reading with interview & video clips at Go! Poetry is in the archives, available for your listening any time.
