If there was one thing I was really good at in college, it was writing parody songs in the style of Philip Glass. I unintentionally won the 10-minute play competition with an avant-garde presentation involving purchasing a meal at the campus cafeteria, Einstein at the Hub. My senior recital featured a spirited, surprisingly good, version of Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs And Ham (which will be heard by neither man nor beast for fear of me getting my pants sued off).

In the first year of graduate school, upon hearing rumor of an April Fool’s day concert, I decided to spring into action. I picked Beavis and Butthead (which I sometimes watched after orchestra rehearsal in previous years) as subject material, mostly because I could make fun of the title of Glass’s recent opera, La Belle Et La Bette, and partly because it would write itself.

So I coerced a few of my friends to sing and found the most B3 sound on my keyboard. Clad in the dread black that somehow gives authenticity to modern artistic endeavors, we took the stage, amused the sliver of the audience who was familiar with both Beavis and Butthead and Philip Glass and confused the other 80%.

Amazingly, a recording was made, and even more amazingly, it survived. The pinnacle of amazement is that both Tom Trent (Beavis, tenor) and David Ozab (Butthead, baritone, and a collaborator on the rather complex libretto) graciously gave me permission to put the recording on the internet.

And here it is: Le Beaveaux et le Butthead (8.5 MB).

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