The Pizza Underground — Macaulay Culkin has a Pizza-Themed Velvet Underground Tribute Project

This is one of the rare times for us when the title of the article really does pretty much say it all.

Over the last week, I’ve seen a handful of links pop up regarding The Pizza Underground, on Facebook, so I finally broke down and checked them out.  The group, which is getting most of it’s hype because of it’s inclusion of Uncle Buck and Party Monster star, Macaulay Culkin, among their ranks, posted a single track on a bandcamp page back on December 2nd and it is, apparently, beginning to spread.  The nearly 9-minute jam is a medley that consists of 9 different Velvet Underground related tracks with the original lyrics substituted for content pertaining to pizza.  And I mention that it’s VU “related,” because there are technically parodies of the late, Lou Reed‘s solo work on there, as well as one of Nico‘s Jackson Browne-penned classic, “These Days” (now titled “Cheese Days”… of course).

The bandcamp page states that the music was “recorded live at Macaulay Culkin’s house on November 11, 2013” and it would just sound like a handful of friends simply fucking around on the spot, if it weren’t for the clever precision of the lyrical changes and the preparation that it must’ve taken to be able to run through those cuts straight and pull off the take.  Still, it has the same vibe that the material that my friends and I used to record on 4-tracks in high school and, when everyone is dedicated to that same cause, regardless of how ridiculous it might be–and sometimes because of it–the turnaround can often be accelerated substantially.

Aside from Culkin, the band is comprised of the husband and wife team of Matt Cobourn and noted anti-folk musician, Phoebe Kreutz, as well as writers, Deenah Vollmer, and Austin Kilham.  This reflects strong ties to the New York anti-Folk scene, reinforced by Macaulay‘s connection to former Moldy Peach and Cash Cab winner, Adam Green, whose 2011 iPhone movie, The Wrong Ferarri, he starred in, and whom he joined live on stage to sing the Beach Boys‘ “Kokomo” earlier this year.  The new lo-fi pizza outfit even performed their one and only show during an open mic at at the infamous Sidewalk Cafe, often credited as being in the center of the anti-folk movement.  This performance occurred the same night as the recording of the “demo.”

Other than that… well… these friends seemed to have gotten together, rounded up such accompaniments as a glockenspiel, a kazoo, and a pizza box to rap out some rhythms on, and pushed out the singular medley.  For all intents and purposes, one would assume that would be the end of it, but that hasn’t stopped them from creating Facebook and Tumblr pages, or a Twitter account that continues to pump out updates and wacky new entertaining images.  But, I guess that’s the beauty of the internet, a simple project among friends, can spread like a aids-fire across the globe with minimal effort.

Macaulay Culkin has had plenty of ups and downs in his career, but maybe now this guy can finally just get some plain cheese pizza!  [You didn’t think that I was going to be able to get away with at least one Home Alone reference, right?  I’m pretty much obligated.]

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