RELEASED 2001
Music Composed by Colin McGrath
Listen to tracks from the album

BUY THE CD NOW

Typically Colin came into the Lobster’s lives riding a bike with his guitar on his back. He showed up, a friend of a friend, ready to play at one of the Clatterbridge performance evenings the Lobsters used to throw. Setting up in a Lower Haight kitchen he asked that the lights be dimmed, he launched into his song and it’s been one hilarious and ridiculous collaboration ever since.

Colin first partnered with Brian L. Perkins on the puppet show musical “On the farm…a post historic nostalgia act” in the summer of 1998 and by the time “Killing My Lobster Throws a Hissy” hit the stage in the winter of  ‘99 he was  the leader our orchestra.

Since then, at live shows all over town and on the road, in the films we’ve  done and now on this record you’re holding Colin and his orchestra have defined the lobster sound. The recipe is complex - part klezmer, part big band, a little cabaret jazz,  a sprinkling of rock, some classical spices and some pop music seasoning – but the music swings like the tassles on a sombrero and jangles like chandeliers on a rolling ship.

It’s the vitality,  color and playfulness of Colin’s songs and the charismatic  mania of his conducting style that have transformed Lobster productions from funny shows to wild nights at the theater.  Over the course of his Lobster tour of duty Colin and his band have been made to parade around on stage, get in fights with the cast over fictitious types of mountain huts, and even act as a choir master in a sketch about a capella car alarms.

In addition to the songs from the shows this album includes compositions of Colin’s that pick up where his Lobster tunes take off. Ranging into middle eastern melodies or veering into other worldly odysseys, the music lays a foundation for the increasingly full bodied work that Colin’s music is sure to comprise.

The Lobster sound, and this recording,  would never have been possible were it not for the community of ridiculously talented and inspiringly generous musicians who have dedicated  themselves to this nonsense for the past several years.

It is the relentless conviction that no riff, note or musical detour is too silly not to be explored and committed too that lies at the heart of the Lobster sound. We hope you enjoy it half as much as we do.

Marc Vogl
Producer, Killing My Lobster
April 2001