NEIL HAMBURGER - Presents Seasonal Depression Suite

T
he curtain rings down on 2023,
and so much more, with the proverbial "Opus You Didn't Know
You Were Waiting For"-a new musical from Erik Paparozzi and Gregg
Turkington - and the first-ever
Drag City Christmas/Holiday album
-Neil Hamburger Presents Seasonal
Depression Suite.
Over the past two decades, Turkington's conception of the rotten existence
of "America's Funnyman" has evolved
in unexpected ways. Drifting first from
an entirely fictive milieu into our actual
reality, Neil Hamburger has stubbornly
fallen upward ever since, performing live all around
the world, appearing on television and in motion
pictures, eventually starring as himself in 2015's
Entertainment. Whether performing in front of
hardcore acolytes in bars and clubs or unsuspecting crowds on the arena circuit, Neil's stalwart
character has endured and and grown into an
all-round entertainer, entering the musical realm
on 2008's Sings Country Winners. On 2019's Still
Dwelling project, Turkington collaborated with
arranger/producer Erik Paparozzi (Cat Power,
Lizard Music, RuPaul's Drag Race), whose sensibilities aligned perfectly with Turkington's own
musical obsessions; together, they created a lush
sound redolent of long-forgotten television variety
shows and underappreciated pop songs from the
dementia-tinged golden years of the golden age
of American entertainment, the 1960s and 70s.
Thus inspired, Turkington and Paparozzi
began to write new songs for other voices, an
assembled group of which sing the Seasonal
Depression Suite. This song-cycle is filtered
through the lens of various guests stuck in a perfectly average chain-hotel during the holiday season, wallowing in self-pity and paranoia, re-living
personal catastrophes both real and imagined, or
simply trying to use the hotel vending machine.
Influenced by everything from Thom Bell to Tommy
to the troll-ish misery of Trip Advisor reviews, Seasonal Depression Suite provides another entry in
the sprawling satirical critique of America that
Turkington has been engaged in with his multifarious enterprises and collaborations since the
early 90s, including but not limited to Zip-Code
Rapists, Great Phone Calls, Faxed Head, Yellow
River Boys, On Cinema at the Cinema, and of
course, Neil Hamburger.
The musical tapestry woven by Paparozzi and
Turkington draws from the stage musicals, pop
vocal albums, film scores, rock concept albums,
new wave mini-masterpieces, and singer-songwriter epics that have captured their imaginations
since childhood, in pitch-perfect support of their
fictitious hotel guests and their tormented concerns. To sing these parts, a once-in-a-lifetime
all-star cast was assembled-including
Neil Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House,
Fleetwood Mac), Annabella Lwin (Bow
Wow Wow), Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls),
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, acclaimed singer/
performance artist Puddles Pity Party,
voice actress Natalie Peyser, J.P. Hasson (Pleaseeasaur), enigmatic vocalist
(and Frank Sinatra's granddaughter)
A.J. Lambert, Paparozzi himself and,
of course, Neil Hamburger. Among the
many musicians accompanying the cast
were Scarlet Rivera (Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue), Danny Heifetz (Mr.
Bungle), B r McKinnon (Mr. Bungle),
Prairie Prince (The Tubes), Atom Ellis (Dieselhed), Jason Schimmel (Secret Chiefs 3), and
Alex Jules (The Monkees band)-an international assemblage whose talents give Seasonal
Depression Suite its epic sweep. With all hands
on board, Turkington and Paparozzi created their
own kind of masterpiece, like Sinatra's late-period
concept album Watertown fused with the misfit
comedy of Neil Hamburger-a work that looks at
a cast of characters both ordinary and bizarre, as
they make their way from one grievance to another,
traveling from place to place, hoping to live, while
waiting to die.
There won't be another album like Seasonal Depression Suite anytime soon-if ever.
And that's a shame. But don't focus on the
existential truths-instead, take a holiday
trip to the heart of American joy and sorrow,
with Gregg Turkington, Erik Paparozzi and a
cast of thousands (metaphorically speaking)-
as they sing the Seasonal Depression Suit

Vinyl release of Neil Hamburger - Presents Seasonal Depression Suite. Released through DRAG CITY and available on LP.