Barnes & Barnes

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Barnes & Barnes
Also known as "Dangling Participles", various aliases on The Dinosaur Album
Origin Lumania (Los Angeles, CA)
Genre(s) "novelty rock", New Wave, synthpop, experimental
Years active 1970 - present
Label(s) Lumania, Rhino, Boulevard, Oglio, Collectors' Choice
Website Voobaha.com
Members
Art Barnes (Bill Mumy)
Artie Barnes (Robert Haimer)

Barnes & Barnes, fictional twin brothers Art Et Barnes and Artie Et Bet Barnes (Bill Mumy and Robert Haimer, respectively), are a "novelty rock" duo based in "Lumania", a fictional mythological civilization (similar to Lemuria or Atlantis). Most of their music is standard rock or pop with heavy comedic elements. They are best known for their 1978 novelty song "Fish Heads".

Contents

[edit] History

Robert Haimer and Bill Mumy were childhood friends who occasionally performed together on their musical instruments. Around 1968, they would shoot short films with a Super 8 motion picture camera, dubbed "Art Films". The two began calling each other "Art" as a result of these films.

Barnes & Barnes formed in 1970. Their surname, "Barnes" was taken from a Bill Cosby comedy routine called "Revenge", in which a character called Junior Barnes throws a snowball at Cosby as a child. Originally, both Haimer and Mumy were named "Art Barnes", but Haimer's alter ego was publicly renamed "Artie" in 1979 to differentiate between them. Their middle names were revealed on the Wild Man Fischer album "Pronounced Normal", which they produced.

They first received airplay on The Dr. Demento Show in 1978 with their songs "Boogie Woogie Amputee" and "Fish Heads". The latter recording was released as a single on their own Lumania Records in 1979 and remains their best-known song, as well as the most requested song in the history of The Dr. Demento Show. The song was often misattributed to The Chipmunks for its processed high-pitched chorus:

Fish heads, fish heads
Roly-poly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads
Eat them up, yum!

In 1978, Damaskas and Barnes & Barnes recorded "A Day in the Life of Green Acres," a song that combined the music of The Beatles "A Day in the Life" with the lyrics to the theme song of the television show Green Acres. It was inspired by Little Roger and the Goosebumps' similar intertwining of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and the theme to Gilligan's Island. It was released as a single with the original song "High School Gym".

In 2005, Barnes & Barnes were inducted into the Comedy Music Hall of Fame.

[edit] Discography

With the exception of Soak It Up and Yeah: The Essential Barnes & Barnes, all of their original albums were released on Rhino Records. All of their rereleases were on CD, with bonus tracks, on Oglio Records.

[edit] Produced work

Barnes and Barnes have produced two albums for Wild Man Fischer, and one album for Crispin Hellion Glover.

[edit] Trivia

  1. Actor Bill Paxton appears in the videos for "Fish Heads" and "Soak It Up."
  2. Bill Mumy played Will Robinson in the TV series "Lost In Space", and

Lennier in the TV series Babylon 5. He was also co-creator, with Peter David, of the Nickelodeon show Space Cases.

[edit] External links