Gadfly
1978
Life In The Foodchain
About This Album
One of the best things about the late-'70s punk rock explosion is that it changed the rules for pop musicians across the board, and while Tonio K. wasn't a for-real punk rocker (or even really new wave), there's no way he could have made an album as willfully strange and bitterly witty as Life in the Foodchain without Elvis Costello or Johnny Rotten first raising the stakes in the rock outrage department. And it's a good thing; Tonio K. (aka Steve Krikorian) was actually a staunch Leftist moralist wearing the cloak of a raving lunatic, and on Life in the Foodchain, his rampantly cynical trades about the abuse of wealth, the collapse of values, and the emotional abuse that passed for love near the end of the 20th century cut like a chainsaw while also managing to be pretty damn funny. "The Ballad of the Night the Clocks All Quit (And the Government Failed)" is nearly as ambitious as its title (and even funnier), while "Life in the Foodchain" and "The Funky Western Civilization" say a lot more about the failings of our culture than most "serious" songwriters were offering in 1979, and side two's meditations on romance (especially "American Love Affair" and "How Come I Can't See You in My Mirror?") make Warren Zevon sound like James Taylor.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,5,6 and 7)

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