There is nothing about Peter Dizozza’s Songs of the Golf Wars that doesn’t take getting used to. Nearly nothing on the album is immediately palpable—most of the lead parts are played on an electronic keyboard, the lyrics measure at least an eight out of ten on the what-the-fuck-o-meter (“When it comes to porn son, I have this to say to you / Make your own, make your own, or I’ll make you make your own”), and Dizozza’s voice is perpetually underscored by cigarette hiss (although, somehow, you get the feeling he was born that way). And if all that were not enough, the genre is musical theater.
Songs of the Golf Wars is actually the soundtrack for a low-budget, surrealist musical penned by Dizozza and produced in New York in 2002. This is not, however, an “original cast recording,” as Dizozza has arranged the songs for a studio context and sings almost all the vocal parts himself. And as risky as this sounds (imagine Phantom of the Opera sung entirely by Andrew Lloyd Webber), after a few repeat listenings, the sincerity comes gushing through. Suddenly, the music is melodic, the lyrics charming, and Dizozza’s voice actually strangely comforting. “Gated House and Garden” is particularly noteworthy—the periodic bursts of support from an unseen chorus and the occasional sneaking in of a drum-n-bass loop a perfect opening for this opus of the absurd.
The album comes with fifteen or so extra minutes of bonus tracks, culled from a live recording of one of Dizozza’s past productions, but they are somewhat forgettable when compared to the Golf Wars songs. What the album is really missing is a full band—even some simple percussion would fill some of the emptiness that makes the music inaccessible at first listen, and Dizozza’s creativity is worthy of all the cymbal crashes and string arrangements that the genre of the rock musical has to offer.
- M.R.
