That Papa Crow; He's a Gas

Farts are musical.

No, it's true. Ask Michigan's Papa Crow, who just released a five-song CD, WHAT WAS THAT SOUND?

When I told my wife that I was reviewing a concept album about farts, her reaction (predictably) was, "Excuse me?" to which I rejoined, "Why? DID YOU FART!?!"

Papa Crow (aka Jeff Krebs) started this project a few years back as a way to amuse his nephew. It evolved (yes, the evolution of a CD about natural gas emissions) into five disparate songs. "Fart Like a Pirate" discusses the flatulence of humans and animals (elephants and fathers in particular).

The title track is self-explanatory, in the musical form of a madrigal. "Barking Spiders" is a gentle, male/female take on the age-old question, "who farted?" The term "barking spider" refers to an existing southern species that uses a foul odor as a defense mechanism. Who knew (here in the East, anyway).

"All the Things That Fart" is a jaunty midtempo guitar number and the CD rocks out with "Uncle Terry's Farts." Papa Crow assures listeners that Uncle Terry is a real person who thankfully did not threaten legal action when he heard how he was being immortalized.

It's a breezy, smiling way to discuss something that everybody does. Ben walked around singing just the first line of "Fart Like a Pirate" for about 30 minutes after the first listening. Now if Jeff can get just get a copy onto Howard Stern's desk.

Now that Papa Crow has gotten this all out of his system (so to speak), he is hard at work on his next full-length CD as well as another mini-CD of monkey songs. I wonder if any of those monkeys are gaseous...

WHAT WAS THAT SOUND? is available through Papa Crow's website, CDBABY, Amazon, and iTunes.