flight of the concords, "formerly new zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo" combine smart lyrics and acoustic guitar to create hugely witty cult/folk/comedy music.  concords, made up of bret mckenzie (guitars, funny-man) and jemaine clement (funny-man, guitars), got their start at victoria university of wellington in the their native new zealand.  in 1998, before performing as flight of the concords, the  serious music the duo attempted to write what was mistaken as intentionally humorous, so they decided to focus on the comedy.

in 2002, concords scored an improvised radio series with british radio station bbc2.  the show focused on the band as they searched for success in the uk.  many television and radio appearances later, they got the attention of hbo and were offered a half-hour comedy series titled flight of the concords.  this time, this show follows the band as they search for success in the us.  on april 22, 2008, soon after the end of season one the band released their debut l.p., flight of the concords.

season 2 premieres january 18, 2009.  if you don't have hbo, get off the internet and subscribe now!  if you already have hbo, but don't watch flight of the concords, then no offense, but you may want to do some inner-soul searching to determine you level of lameness.  because these guys are huge!  in fact, they were recently compared to none other than the beatles!  "on seeing a photo of the kiwi two-some, jemaine’s grandma said ‘oh you two look a bit like the beatles in that one, they used to get really hairy too’." the band was humbled by the comparison, as they responded, "it is very flattering, the beatles were really good".

click here for a january 13, 2009 story from npr's morning edition.  if you have netflix, click here to see what you missed during season one.  click here for a bunch of videos from their hbo series.  don't forget, the album cover image always links to sample songs and the band's image to their website.

the concords don't have any dates scheduled.  they've toured, probably will in the future, right now they're trying to make a tv show.  give them a break, dang.

as always, please buy this album from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like wal-mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand).  incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the united states.  that my friend, bites.