Atom & His Package

Redefining Music (Hopeless)
by Scott Hefflon

Having put out two wildly unsuccessful “joke” records myself, I know what it’s like to think you’re amazingly clever and witty and have everyone else tell you how wrong you are. But you persevere, once you look up what it means cuz yer on a mission of cheese. You revel in ’80s John Hughes movies, argue that Bruce Willis’ best work was Moonlighting, and discover it helps to dance around your bedroom with a bra on your head and later shower with Kelly LeBrock, but you could have a thing for goats like Atom does, or wanna tour the U.S. on your bike, and you secretly want to cover Duran Duran straight-up and think that Men Without Hats were tragically underrated. A&HP’s previous hits include “Hats Off to Halford” (offering kudos for coming out) and “Pumping Iron for Enya,” and this release covers Madonna’s “Open Your Heart.” Geekier than “Weird Al” but not nearly as well-rounded, Atom & His Package is a sequencer-loving closet-romantic punk/dork, a younger version of Boris the Sprinkler and King Missile, and he’s opened for Tenacious D, which is good enough for me.
(PO Box 7495 Van Nuys, CA 91409)