For Those About to Shop, We Salute You

Personnel: Steve "The Cougar" Sherlock (drums).In less than 35 minutes, nerdy ex-Nerf Herder frontman Parry Gripp slings out 51 tracks -- all under a minute, some less than 30 seconds long -- inspired initially by an offer to write a jingle for a new brand of frozen waffles. Those five ditties are bolstered by 46 other "commercials" that, if the Volume 1 subtitle of For Those About to Shop, We Salute You is to believed, is just the first installment. As evidenced by his three Nerf Herder albums and the jokey AC/DC-referenced title of this one, Gripp has a witty, often dry, and always playful sense of humor, which still doesn't raise this above novelty status, but does provide more than an average morning circus radio show's amount of laughs. The tunes, such as they are, are divided into subcategories of "Songs About Sports," "Songs About Places You Can Go," "Songs About Beer," "Songs About Personal Hygiene Products," and so on, and run the gamut from direct Ramones rewrites ("More Blad