Artist: Richard Cheese
Album: I'd Like a Virgin
Label: Ideatown Records
Rating:
Reviewer: Jonathan Yost

Chicken noodle soup, hot tea and Richard Cheese. These are the things that made feel better while battling a horrible, sore throat this last week. Richard Cheese helped give me the courage to push past the pain and horror and live again. No, I'm lying. My girlfriend took care of me, as, like all sick guys, I become helpless and whiny while ill. Though he didn't give me any courage, or make me feel physically better, Richard Cheese's latest (yes, he has several) album, I'd Like a Virgin, did make me laugh.

With such "swankified" hits as "Gin and Juice," "Hey Ya'," and "Beat it," you just can't continue to feel horrible while listening to this album. To put it simply, Richard Cheese is a lounge act. He takes hit songs of any genre and make them into his own vision of Vegas-style lounge, even if that vision is warped and smutty.

With his personal house band, Lounge Against the Machine, behind him, there is no song that can escape his grasp. With four albums of recorded works and hundreds of shows, who knows how many songs he has defiled in the name of swank. No matter what song he chooses to launch his attack on, LATM is right there behind him. The band consists of three honest-to-god musicians. With snippets of live shows on the album, you can get a glimpse at a live show. If LATM can kick out a lounge version of Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings" on an instant's notice, then you know you have talent.

Even if the band members all have cheese in their names. Bobby Ricotta's piano intro to Michael Jackson's "Beat It" is a great demonstration of the real underlying class of LATM. Standing behind his keyboard, he keeps the songs coming. I can only imagine how many songs this guy knows how to play. And with the rhythm section of Gordon Brie (drums), and Buddy Gouda (stand-up bass) being as tight as they are, it makes me wonder what kind of personal demons Richard Cheese is blackmailing them with. For as classy as LATM has the potential to be, Richard Cheese has the smut to destroy that potential.

On the live tracks he admits to drunkenness on stage, offers a two dollar discount for sex, and fondles one of his audience members. Even after all this, he just continues to gain in popularity. He has played private parties at the Playboy mansion, a Christmas party thrown by Brian Setzer, and even Travis Barker's wedding. He has been on numerous radio shows, and all the while suckering people out of their money.

After all is said and done in lounge music history, Richard Cheese will be standing over the carcasses of other lounge acts, with the barrel of his gun still smoking, and the girls still asking him to let them go.