Yankovic good on the accordion, too

   CINCINNATI - Weird Al Yankovic's talents don't stop at
   making up musical parodies. He plays a mean polka on his
   accordion, too. Yankovic, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt,
   tight black jeans and turquoise sneakers, cavorted with
   a crowd of thousands while playing the Beer Barrel Polka
   during the city's 24th annual Oktoberfest Saturday
   night. The audience chanted ''Weird Al! Weird Al!'' as
   they danced, drank beer and modeled chicken hats.



Weird Al Gets Real

	Weird Al Yankovic has gone from being rock's supreme parodist to  
becoming the leader of a crack-touring outfit whose sharp-edged, well- 
conceptualized live performances are almost nostalgic in their 
musicality. 
	``Running With Scissors,'' Weird Al's latest record, is downright  
listenable, and not just for the yucks. Of course this is the inevitable 
fate of a pop punster who hangs around long enough to see people take 
what he used to do for a joke and use it with dead seriousness. 
	Al copied songs to make fun of them -- Puff Daddy and his hip-hop  
cohorts spin pre-existent songs and rap over them pretentiously as if 
that takes some kind of special meta-karaoke talent. 
	``It seems a little redundant now to do parodies,'' Weird Al admitted  
during a break in his current tour. ``In fact, nobody has pointed out 
the irony of me doing a Puff Daddy parody on this record ('It's All 
About the Pentiums.') That's like looking into a mirror with mirrored 
sunglasses. Yeah, it's a challenge for me to be fresh, more so than 
anything else, because this is my 10th studio album. So I just try to 
discover new ways to be funny. I know I have repeated myself and 
thematically I've done a lot of the same things. But I'm always trying 
to branch out, to push the envelope, which if you've done over 100 
songs, starts to get a little difficult.'' 
	Yankovic isn't the first rocker to find himself balancing the dilemma  
between humor and musicality. One of his idols is the late Frank Zappa, 
a wickedly funny satirist who stands as one of the finest musical minds 
of the rock era. 
	``Frank's always been a big influence on me,'' Yankovic allowed. ``It  
was one of the high points of my life when I actually got to meet Frank 
Zappa when I was working in the mailroom at Westwood One in the early 
'80s. It was never really important to me to be famous. I was never one 
of those guys who say 'Boy, one of these days I'll show everybody and 
I'll be a rock star.' That was never important to me, but I always 
thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if Frank Zappa knew who I was?' And 
actually, when I met him in the mailroom, he was aware of my work 
because I had done 'Another One Rides the Bus' at that time on the Dr. 
Demento Show. And he said that his son Dweezil, who was 13 at the time, 
was a big fan of the song, so he actually got my autograph for Dweezil, 
which was a huge thrill, as you can imagine.'' 
	Yankovic is at his most eclectic on ``Running,'' ranging from hip-hop  
to zydeco and from country and western to swing. 
	``One thing that we always try to do, that's probably more (evident)  
on this album, is we try to do as many genres as possible,'' Al 
explained. ``I like the segues to be as jarring as possible.'' 
	Yankovic is convinced that his comic instincts don't detract at all  
from his musical ones. 
	``I think you can do both,'' he insisted. ``I mean, I don't see where  
musical skill detracts from comedy. It seems to me that Spike Jones, I 
mean, his band was incredible, and he had some of the top session 
players, some of the top musicians of the time. And you have to be good 
to be able to pull all that stuff off. Just because it's comedy doesn't 
mean that the musicianship is any less than it would have to be 
otherwise. You have to be even more on top of it, to be able to pull off 
the musicianship and to give it a little something extra.'' 
	Did Al ever think he'd still be doing this in the year 2000 when he  
started out making wisecracks about the hit parade 20 years ago? 
	``I never gave it much thought,'' he said. ``I was just happy not to  
be working in the mail room any more. It's always been a dream of mine 
to do comedy and do music and I feel fortunate that I am able to do what 
I do for a living. But I don't know what I'm going to be doing a year 
from now or five years from now or 10 years from now. I mean, I love 
doing what I do and hopefully I'll be able to do it for as long as I 
possibly can. I think the record-buying public will let me know when 
it's time to quit.'' 
	And with ``Running With Scissors'' selling like hotcakes on the heels  
of his best-selling ``Bad Hair Day'' album, it looks like those fans 
aren't about to tell their hero to hang it up any time soon. 



Q & A With Weird Al Yankovic 

                 Aidin Vaziri 
                                                         
                                                         Sunday, September 12, 1999 



                 His subjects may have changed over the past 20
                 years, but ``Weird Al'' Yankovic remains the same.
                 Still decked out in the obnoxious Hawaiian shirts
                 and checkered Vans sneakers, the 39- year-old
                 singer-songwriter who is famous for parodying
                 everyone from Michael Jackson to Coolio,
                 continues to prey on contemporary pop culture for
                 fresh material. With his latest album, ``Running With
                 Scissors,'' Yankovic takes on Puff Daddy, the
                 Offspring and ``Star Wars.'' He plays September
                 28 at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts and
                 October 2 at Marin Center in San Rafael. 

                 Q: What's wrong with you? 

                 A: What do you mean? 

                 Q: You look different now. Did you get a
                 makeover? 

                 A: I don't know if you would call it that, but I was
                 talked into having eye surgery about a year-
                 and-a-half ago. So I figured, as long as I lost the
                 glasses, I might as well lose the mustache. It wasn't
                 anything that calculated. It was just an extension of
                 the fact that I didn't need to wear glasses anymore.
                 I felt that I didn't want to be tied into that image if I
                 didn't have to be. 

                 Q: Did the mustache removal require surgery as
                 well? 

                 A: That was very painful, yes. There was a team of
                 experts required. 

                 Q: So how is the new look working with the ladies?

                 A: Well, I have to say I'm getting a lot more mail
                 from 14-year-old girls saying, ``Ooh, I didn't realize
                 you're such a hottie.'' I'm on the same label as the
                 Backstreet Boys, so I've got to compete, I guess. 

                 Q: But you don't really seem all that weird anymore.
                 Do you find yourself under a lot of pressure to be
                 weird? 

                 A: I'm still a geek on the inside. That's the important
                 thing. 

                 Q: Did your parents not pay enough attention to you
                 as a child? 

                 A: Actually, they gave me an incredible amount of
                 attention. I'm an only child. Maybe I got used to it. I
                 don't really look at myself as the kind of person
                 who craves attention, but I've never been to
                 therapy, so there's probably a lot of stuff about
                 myself that I don't know. 

                 Q: What are Weird Al groupies like? 

                 A: I'm still waiting for those. I hear if I wait around
                 long enough, that will happen eventually. 

                 Q: I noticed you have made a conscientious effort
                 to stop writing songs about food. It was going so
                 well. 

                 A: I never wanted to stop writing them altogether. I
                 just didn't want to focus on them so much. I wanted
                 to slow down after my record label put out ``The
                 Food Album,'' which was a collection of all my
                 songs about food. That was when I realized,
                 ``Hmmm, I think I'm in a little bit of a thematic rut
                 here.'' 

                 Q: Michael Jackson also provided you with some of
                 your best material, with ``Eat It'' parodying ``Beat
                 It'' and ``Fat'' parodying ``Bad.'' Are you upset
                 because he isn't providing material anymore? 

                 A: Well, I wish Michael the best and hope he gets
                 back on track. But even if he does, I don't think I'm
                 going to do another Michael Jackson song. I've
                 already done two Michael Jackson parodies, and I
                 kind of want to give that a rest. I don't really want
                 to be known as the guy who just does Michael
                 Jackson parodies. That's an image I've been trying
                 to ditch for a long time. A lot of people still think of
                 me as the ``Eat It'' guy. 

                 Q: What do you consider your greatest parody so
                 far? 

                 A: I can't really say. My greatest parody is
                 whichever one I'm currently promoting, so I have to
                 say my new album is consistently the best collection
                 I've put out so far. 

                 Q: Does Coolio still have a beef with you over
                 ``Amish Paradise,'' your parody of his ``Gangsta
                 Paradise''? 

                 A: The whole thing with Coolio was based on
                 miscommunication. It was my people talking to his
                 people, and somewhere things got all screwed up.
                 He was pretty upset about ``Amish Paradise.'' I
                 was under the impression he had given his
                 permission and he was fine with it. After the album
                 was out, somebody asked him how he felt about it,
                 and he said, ``I didn't sanction that and feel like he
                 desecrated my work.'' So I wrote him a very
                 sincere letter of apology. 

                 Q: You didn't have the same problem with Puff
                 Daddy? 

                 A: No, you don't want Puffy mad at you. That
                 would be a bad thing. I talked to him personally on
                 the telephone, and he is fine with ``It's All About the
                 Pentiums.'' There's no problem there. 

                 Q: I hear George Lucas can be a tyrant. Were you
                 nervous approaching him with ``The Saga Returns''?

                 A: No, he was great. The official quote we got back
                 was, ``You should have seen the smile on George's
                 face.'' He's got a great sense of humor. 

                 Q: Do you ever worry you're going to end up on
                 Fisherman's Wharf playing your accordion for spare
                 change? 

                 A: I don't know. I really still enjoy doing what I'm
                 doing, and I'm sure the American record-buying
                 public will let me know when it's time to retire.
                 There's other things that I can do. I've been doing a
                 lot of directing work, so I'm sure I can branch out
                 when people are tired of looking at my face. If I
                 have to retire on an island somewhere, that's not a
                 bad thing either. 



Al Yankovic is weird like a fox


By their very nature, novelty
records and the musicians who make them are transitory. Sheb Wooley
never again got remotely close to the Top 10 after his six-week ride at
No. 1 in 1958 with "The Purple People Eater."

And has anyone heard from Los Del Rio since "Macarena" four years ago?

So how come "Weird Al" Yankovic, like the Eveready bunny, just keeps
going and going 20 years after his debut?

"I think one of the reasons I've been around so long is because I don't
like to step on people's toes," said Yankovic, who nationwide "summer"
tour actually runs through Oct. 30. "I don't want to offend them. I
want to maintain my positive relationships with all the people I've
done takeoffs on."

Even Spike Jones, probably Yankovic's most successful predecessor in
the world of novelty records, saw his streak of hits end after a little
more than 10 years. Ray Stevens charted novelty hits over nearly 20
years between 1961 and 1979, but interspersed them with such
straightforward material as "Mr. Businessman" and "Everything Is
Beautiful."

One way Yankovic keeps on the good side of artists whose recordings he
lampoons is by asking permission before he goes to work.

"Typically, I'll come up with a concept and run it by the artist to see
if he or she has a sense of humor about it," said Yankovic, who has
ditched his signature pencil-thin mustache and eyeglasses (after recent
corrective laser surgery). "If they don't think it's funny, which is
very rare, I'll drop it immediately.

"I can be kind of a sick puppy, but personally, I prefer my humor to be
a little more gentle," he said. "Not toothless, mind you, but I think
you can have fun with a subject without being derogatory or mean-
spirited."

As a result, Yankovic said he's received compliments from some artists
whose work he's parodied. He said Kurt Cobain liked his "Smells Like
Nirvana" and commented: "I knew we made it as a band when I saw the
Weird Al parody on MTV."

But it doesn't always work.

Rapper Coolio publicly denounced "Amish Paradise," Yankovic's 1996
parody of "Gangsta's Paradise." Yankovic said he wrote and recorded
based incorrectly on information he received that Coolio approved of
the idea. He added that he has sent Coolio a letter of apology, but has
yet to get a response.

He also benefited from arriving about the same time as MTV, so his
takeoffs of hits by Michael Jackson, the Police, Madonna and others had
the added punch of his comedy videos.

It's tempting to picture Yankovic as the class goof-off always going
for a laugh, someone who cracked jokes instead of his books.

In fact, Alfred Matthew Yankovic was an extremely bright student, not
only graduating at 16 from Lynwood High School, but doing so as class
valedictorian.

The Downey, Calif., native continued his studies at Cal Poly San Luis
Obispo, eventually earning an architecture degree. But in 1979, bored
with the rigidity of his formal education, Yankovic turned college disc
jockey and recorded "My Bologna," his spoof of the Knack's smash, "My
Sharona."

That record was a turning point in his career; it became a staple on
the nationally syndicated Dr. Demento radio show, a novelty-based
program that subsequently aired a live recording of his Queen parody,
"Another One Rides the Bus."

Yankovic signed his first recording contract a few years later and
began cranking out a string of hit singles and videos, including "I
Love Rocky Road," "Eat It," "I Lost on Jeopardy," "Yoda," "Smells Like
Nirvana," "Jurassic Park" and "Bedrock Anthem."

He has reached as high as No. 14 on Billboard's Top 200 album chart,
with 1996's "Bad Hair Day," which stayed on the chart for a full year
and sold 2 million copies. His new "Running with Scissors," released in
July, is comfortably positioned at No. 16 this week.

What made a straight-A student devote his life to the pursuit of the
silly?

"Humor has always been a part of my life ... a defense mechanism of
sorts," he said recently by cellphone while en route from his Hollywood
home to an on-line chat-room session in Los Angeles. "I guess I've
always been known as being a little weird... I've also had more than
one girlfriend say to me, `Aren't you ever serious?' "

Yankovic, 39, said he discovered later that being an entertainer
offered a near-perfect fit.

"I'm thankful that I have a job where I can sit around my house, watch
bad TV and rationalize that I'm working -- I'm researching pop
culture," he said.

"At the same time, I don't always listen to the radio for the express
purpose of figuring out how I can screw-up someone's lyrics," he said.
"It's not the kind of thing that nags in my brain."

True to form, the new album tweaks numerous icons of pop culture.

"The Saga Begins" parodies "The Phantom Menace," to the music of Don
McLean's "American Pie"; "Pretty Fly For a Rabbi" puts a decidedly
religious spin on the Offspring's "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)"; and
in "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder," Yankovic laments, "I knew we
were headin' for disaster/When she caught me hangin' out at the
Ticketmaster."

Yankovic has been criticized for what some see as making a tidy living
primarily off other people's creativity. He counters that nearly half
of his recorded material is original. Plus, he suggests, his longevity
is the best evidence that he's doing something right.

"Everybody has their detractors, and it's pretty easy to take potshots
at someone like me," he said. "Every 12-year-old in the world does
parodies of songs they hear on the radio. That was me, too. Only
somehow I never grew out of it.

"I know that my career, in part, is based on timing and taking
advantage of phenomena in our culture, like `Star Wars.' Still, there's
a big difference between just changing a song's words around and making
them consistently funny over a long period of time," he said. "I think
there's a lot of craft and imagination that goes into what I do.

"I work hard because it's an all-encompassing job," he added. "I'm a
control freak, and I can get anal about details, so it leaves little
time for a social life and sleep. But I'm not complaining ... it's a
blast."

John Roos