Sophomore year of high school. Picked up a copy of "Don't Crush That Dwarf.." because the girl who'd stolen my first boyfriend (she would sleep with him, I would not) was talking about it (so of course it must be cool). I played it twice. I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. Put it safely away. Picked it up a year later, after having made friends with the sound man, so to speak... Whoa. Could. Not. Stop. There was, in fact, hamburger all *over* the highway...

Rapidly progressed through the cannon (does anyone have a pet name for the original foursome of albums?), memorizing as I went. Noticed far too many occasions where quotes from the Firesign were clearly perfect "in real life". A prospective boyfriend wasn't either already familiar with or rapidly converted to Firesign Afficionado? He was outta there.

Life goes on. I still listen and I still quote and my kids (now 14 and almost 17) know when we're "speaking Firesign" to each other. When we headed to the hospital for the birth of our first, we put on the outgoing message on our telephone answering machine the "Ohhhhh, it's PAISLEY!" clip. My youngest's first and middle name is Philip Austin... I finally realized one day why that had sounded so right at the time. (D'oh!)

Nice to meet all of you, but isn't that bridge built *yet*?!

1970, being 14 and Very impressionable. It was summer camp, Hippie, freeschool,summerhill,woodstock kinda summer camp. By the second week it was the only language we spoke.
Until several of us went on the canoe trip and rewrote Nick Danger with camp people and references so sometimes when i'm quoting people look at me funny cuz i did the camp version "oh you mean Carrie ( my mom, the art teacher), she's out on the porch, stuffing beads....","all those curves showing through that flimsy tie-dye".

i understand i am not the only person of my acquaintance whose father fined them for quoting.

Guess I was about 14 or 15 (this would've been about 1970-71)...a buddy of mine one day came over with "Don't Crush That Dwarf..." and an ounce of primo Panama Red...after indulging in the Red, we listened to "Dwarf" about 10 times in a row and spent the next week amusing our friends with renditions...haven't owned that album is many years (although I looked for a copy just this last weekend!), but I still remember a lot of it!

"Oh Blinding Light
Oh, Light That Blinds
I cannot see...
Look out for me!"

I was 18, a few months into majoring in drugs at Western Illiniois U, it was 1970. I tagged along with some friends to a a house where the smoke was thick and Firesign was playing. I sensed this was something awesome, but I recall feeling mostly confused :)

Many years later now I look back at a life enriched and deepened by countless hours of Firesign listening, and I realized I'm still confused! <grin>

/me shouts "What is Reality?" from back of auditorium

Ah yes, I remember it clearly...a cold day in cape cod it was....

But no, not at all clearly now that I remember -- Was at the local aemoeba record store, going through the dollar bins. Buying albums based on the cover art. And so of course "ALL HAIL MARX LENNON" was a sure taker.

Didn't listen to it for at least a month. Then (ah yes, here's the cold day in cape cod) my roomie and I were painting some murals up on some walls and played the album simultaneously with recorded speaches of JFK.

Ah sweet nothing.

I guess I count as a “Second Generation” fan. My dad played the records all the time when I was growing up. I am sure I was the only 6 year old who knew all the words to the opening of The Further Adventures of Nick Danger.

He walks again by Night…..

Storm

gee inspector!

I had almost forgotten about these guys until my 30th (HS) class re-union and I ran into the guy who first turned me on to firesign back in jr hi skule (denver) right after how can you be in two places at once came out...

nobody has outdone them since in my humble opinion...

pity, what is humor coming to?

Ich broucht ein stink von schwein pizza!!!! Pink Floyd! Pink Floyd!

"Pooorrrrrgy Tirebiter, he's your friend and a girl delighter"

I was *tapping finger on tooth* 13, when a friend, knowing of my passion for the music of Frank Zappa, recommended Firesign to me...

"Cooooommmmming Mother" "He's so good with the staff"

I really didn't appreciate it until I heard it with headphones for the first time, as I had a really crappy, monophonic record player, and well the rest is lust.

"Eat it, eat it raw" That's the spirit here...."

Do you mean live or on vinyl? I bought "How can you be in two places at once when you're really nowhere at all", in 1970 when I was in high school in Westland Michigan. Use to hear a little of them late at night on WABX out of Detroit. Bought the albums up through "Everything You Know is Wrong." The classic stuff. Turned on all my friends to intelligent humor.

Didn't catch all four in a live show, but saw Proctor and Burgman in '73 or '74 at Eastern Michigan University, the TV or not TV tour .

Hddd

just so all of you are well aware,
Firesign is still funny. even for us durn kids these days.
They first hit me about six years ago...I was twenty or so...
student at u. of michigan, just flipping records with some buds, passing time while we invented "homework" through the haze...
I believe it was the one with Marx and Lennon on the jacket,
i don't know,
(the one with the ever widening hole in it...)

so now i come to you, the wisened elders of the tribe,
for direction in the hunting and gathering of FST material.

Hello from yet another 1970 14-year-old....

I first heard them, unwittingly, on late-night FM radio in San Jose. Some DJ played the clip of Jim, Barney, and uh Clem asking the President a question. I was still four years pre-pot (pre-everything, really). I was, like, WHAT WAS THAT????

Weeks passed. Then, my friend mentioned Bozos & Firesign. Diligent student that I was, I immediately consulted Stereo Review magazine to find out which album was best. Some reviewer (was it Steve Simels?) declared Dwarf their masterpiece.

I remember my first listening, mercifully headphoned. The revival'ers despaired as the buzz fell, then cheered as it rose, and I was HOOKED.

My faves are really the endpoints of their spectrum -- the meticulously crafter Dwarf and the ruthlessly sabotaged improv of Dear Friends.

==scott