Anchorage Daily News

Just when you think you have Ketchikan illustrator-author Ray Troll figured out, he pops another surprise. Like a new CD featuring Troll and the Ratfish Wranglers titled "Where the Fins Meet the Frets."

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"Fins" is largely a musical incarnation of Troll's trademark irreverent, quirky, lively, accessible, detailed and calculated two-dimensional art. In some cases, the song titles are directly taken from his poster and T-shirt captions: "Spawn 'Til You Die," "Ain't No Nookie Like Chinookie." The musical execution, which includes fiddle, clarinet, brass, sax and didgeridoo, is generally good, as is the production, mastering, mixing and such, all done in Southeast studios.

The styles shift from song to song but are mostly bush-rock-country-folk. Some numbers make relevant nods to blues, Latin pop, rap, swing and even mock-gospel.

Tune-wise, nothing here will make it to anyone's list of standards. The band seems to acknowledge the secondary status of its melodies by delivering much material either as spoken word, parlando or talking blues.

Which may be beside the point since those witty words, included in an illustrated booklet, are the big attraction here. Troll, the main writer of the lyrics and lead vocalist on most songs, visits biology ("Ratfish Rule"), politics ("In the Mighty Yukon"), ribald history ("Last Hooker on Creek Street") and unrequited romance ("Cannery Girl").

The lines can make you snicker. Take this taunting plug for Darwinism in "The Devonian Blues":

Don't let that preacher man spoil all the fun/ It took a lot more than six days to get this job done/ Amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and man/ All belong to the fish tribe, don't you understand?/ Your momma was a lobefinned fish.

He's an equal-opportunity offender, though. "Charismatic Megafauna" spoofs the sensitivities of anthropomorphizing animal lovers.

You want to save the wolves of course/ Yeah you wanna save the whales/ But what about the smallpox germs/ or the slimy fish with all those scales/ The snakes, the spiders, the shrimp, the crab/ Don't they need lovin' too? .../ It's enough to make a guy puke/ I'm sick and tired of everything cute.

The texts will put a smile in the heart of any nerd -- though you may not see it on our faces because, well, that would be unnerdy. In addition to singing of megafauna (bear, moose and other bigger animals), the Devonian geologic period (roughly 395 million years ago) and the tiny spiny lumpsucker (which Troll declares "the cutest fish in the entire sea," and it's surely the prettiest song on the disc), and hymning the medicinal benefits of Omega-3 oils from Alaska fish (featuring a choir that would fill a midsize Ketchikan bar), there's also "The Ballad of William Beebe."

I have to admit that my eyes moistened when they lit on that title. It's about time someone gave a proper musical tribute to the greatest American explorer of the 20th century, and we should all be proud that an Alaskan picked up his guitar to do it.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.

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