Twenty years ago, one of the biggest buzz albums was the debut of a singer-songwriter whose bitterness and anger was so palpable it was nearly opaque. His bleak world view was summed up in the album’s title, Life In The Foodchain, and he went by the unlikely moniker of Tonio K, after a character in a Thomas Mann short story. Song subjects ranged from political science primers (“The Funky Western Civilization”) to breakup angst (“H-A-T-R-E-D”) to impending social upheaval (the eerily Y2K prescience of “The Ballad of the Night the Clocks All Quit [and the Government Failed]”). Musically, Tonio ran the gamut from punky pop to raging rock to frenetic folk, coming off like a weird confluence of Bob Dylan and the New York Dolls.
Tonio should have been able to capitalize on the enormous swell of the first album, but label mishandling and confusion bounced him from one corporate home to another, resulting in his first four albums being released on three different labels. His fifth album was recorded nearly eleven years ago, and shelved until last year, when it was unearthed, titled Ole, and released by Gadfly (which has re-released Tonio’s entire catalog). Rodent Weekend is an odds-and-sods package that collects a number of Tonio’s rarities and demos from the past couple decades.
The highlights include a handful of demos for the great lost EP, La Bomba (particularly the sonic bluesy blister of “Mars Needs Women”), glimpses of the spiritual Tonio (“Hey John” and “Too Cool To Be A Christian”), and a reinterpretation of an old favorite (“The Funky Western Civilization, Phase II”). Also present is “I’m Supposed To Have Sex With You”, a track ostensibly written for the soundtrack of Carl Reiner’s 1987 film Summer School. It didn’t end up in the movie, but the song, its tongue firmly embedded in its faux-disco cheek, became one of the most played and requested on KROQ in Los Angeles that summer, but was never officially available until now.
While Tonio’s recording career has been spotty, he has found considerable success as a songwriter, penning “Love Is” for Vanessa Williams and Brian McKnight, as well as tracks for the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Al Green and Aaron Neville. This may ultimately turn out to be Tonio’s year, with the release of Rodent Weekend, not to mention the inclusion of his “Stop The Clock” on the soundtrack for the quirky indie film Clay Pigeons, and a few co-writes on the new album from Adam Cohen (the son of Leonard Cohen). Maybe there is some justice in this funky western civilization after all.