LUDIC LOG

FATTEST BAND

The fattest band of the year is, without question, Olympia, WA's POUND FOOLISH. Tilting the scales at an incredible 2,364 pounds, this crushing five-piece has proven to be one of the heaviest bands on the scene since the release of their first album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Make Us Snacks, in 1999. The first single, "I Eat, Then Regurgitate, and Then Eat Again Cannibals", was a huge success and led to the launch of a North American tour. While well-attended, the jaunt was a money-loser, as most of the ticket revenues was eaten up by the expense of building a specially reinforced stage at each tour stop.

MOST PROLIFIC

The year's most prolific recording artist is Birmingham, England's MARD U.K. While their glo-core sci-fi epic, Sore Hmongs About Filking and Booths, contains only 21 songs averaging just over four minutes apiece, they take the prize because of the manner in which they were released: rather than putting out a single CD, or even twenty-one seperate CDs of one song eack, Mard U.K. released Sore Hmongs on over three thousand separate discs, each one containing a single note from each song. Listeners were instructed to make liberal use of the "shuffle" function on their compact disc players. Since each note was usually only a fifth of a second long or so, the remainder of the disc space was taken up by audio commentary from the band explaining at length why that particular note was chosen.

FASTEST

In marked contrast to the one-note-at-a-time style of this year's Most Prolific band, the winner of the Fastest Band of the Year prize gets you out the door in a hurry. New York's CHEESE 'N' RICE SUPERSTAR released their latest album, The Man Who Calclulated Liberty's Covalence, at 12:01AM on February 28th of 2003, and by 12:04PM, the in-store play copies had already concluded. The record, a collection of covers by the speed-loungers, featured over three dozen instant classics, including a 14-second version of "The End", an 11-second cover of "Inna-Gadda-da-Vida", and a playful 8-second take on the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight". Never ones to rest on their laurels, Cheese 'n' Rice Superstar followed up the smash release with a non-album single that quickly went to #1 -- a John Cage cover entitled "0:04".

SHORTEST SINGER-SONGWRITER

MARTIN HOUSE of Coventry, England took hom the prize for the most miniscule minstrel this year following the release of his daring and controversial album, Talking with the Taxman About Getting a Special 143-E Extention for Late Filing Due to Hardship. The folkie community was taken aback when they discovered that not one of the songs by this 3'7" troubador is about the travails of tininess. "Oh, sure," sneers the songwriter from his Victorian shoe box, "the little bloke writes a record about how it ain't easy bein' small. That's bloody predictable, innit? I don't want to paint meself into a corner right out the box. I decided to go in a different direction." And quite a direction it was: the pale-skinned, Irish-Anglo ex-subway busker and shoeshine kit wrote an album containing nothing but songs about how difficult he imagines it must be to be an Eskimo woman.

MOST GUITARS DAMAGED

Rich parents, an apartment just down the street from the Fender factory showroom, a violently retarded lead guitarist, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the principal operating procedures of an electric guitar resulted in Scottsdale, AZ's WHEN PEPPLE WERE DUMER AND LIVED NAIR THE WATEER taking home this highly desirable award. Since their formation in late 2001, WPWDALNTW has damaged, ruined or utterly destroyed 279 instruments by burning, smashing, melting, running over, dropping from a height, submerging in motor oil, stringing improperly, snapping in two, and in one memorably case, eating. Pacing not only aging pioneers like the Who and up-and-comers like Trail of Dead, WPWDALNTW wrecked over three dozen fine electric instruments before their first-ever practice due to their failing to understand that the guitar cord should be plugged into the amp jack and not directly into a wall socket. The band's first album, Tard to Earn, was recorded by means of singing over an old Angry Samoans record, since they have as of yet been able to play a single song without wrecking at least one of their instruments.