STRANGE STUFF: Our Rock Opera of the...

STRANGE STUFF: Our Rock Opera of the Month Award goes to the Coolies, the Atlanta-based band best known for cutting an album last year devoted almost entirely to Paul Simon songs. The group recently released a new concept project titled “Doug.” Its hero is an addled skinhead who, after abandoning his plot to find and kill the Grateful Dead, becomes a culinary tycoon through the publication of a best-selling cookbook (“A La Doug”). With a band whose drummer is named Drogg Jaguar Melonball you should expect anything. And “Doug” delivers, offering an outlandish Who parody (“Cookbook”), droll spoofs of everyone from R.E.M. to U2 and several lampoons of John Lennon. (“Crack Pipe” ends with the anguished wail: “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!”) Featuring a picture of the band dressed as pastry chefs, the album is available from DB Records and comes with a 10-page comic book illustrating Doug’s rise to stardom and subsequent descent into drugs and dissolution.

Meanwhile, our Rap Rivalry Research Department reports that the feud between Kool Moe Dee and L.L. Cool J continues unabated. Moe Dee’s latest single, “Let’s Go,” features the following lyrics: “L.L. stands for lower level, lackluster; last least limp lover; lousy, lame, late, lethargic; lazy, lemon, little logic; lucky leach, liver lip; laborious louse on the loser’s lip. . . .”