It’s the middle of the week, there’s a presidential debate on tonight, the weather’s crappy and sometimes you just need something big and dumb and goofy to get you through the rest of the morning. And it’s perfect timing, because the AV Club chose codpiece-wearing, guttural noisemaking alien-shock rock group GWAR as the final band in their “Undercovers” series. And GWAR performs Kansas’ “Carry On Wayward Son.”
And what compelled the theatrical metal gods to choose this, of all songs? As lead singer Oderus Urungus (the one who looks like a devil-boar) explains, “I hadn’t even heard it until they played it for me the other day. I was convinced that they’d written it. And I was like, what are you guys doing writing that derivative, ‘70s crap, crap, crap?”
He goes on: “Kansas was a big part of a time in music when bands named themselves after geographical locations, and let’s hope that never happens again. Quite frankly, those bands suck.”
What’s surprising is that despite the band having a golden opportunity to go ham and spray bodily fluids everywhere and just gurgle through the lyrics, they stay fairly close to the original. Urungus gives his best power-ballad wail for the opening, but forgets the words, later ad-libbing some new (and well-fitting) lines about being unemployed and getting a job amid quick shredding from new guitarist Pustulus Maximus. Good times, good times.
